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THE ULTIMATE IN HOME
RECORDING
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BY WILLIAM
POE
Your computer doesn’t have to be your only home appliance with a
hard drive. Your movie player and recorder can have one, too.
In fact, Ultimate Electronics offers the ultimate in movie recording:
the Panasonic (Model DMR-HS2) DVD Recorder that features a 40 gigabytes
hard drive that just might be bigger than the one on your computer.
What to do with all of that video hard disk space, you ask? Record
like a pro, of course.
As Eric Meyer, a home video specialist with Ultimate Electronics
puts it, “Having a DVD recorder with a hard drive is like having
extra memory for your computer. You can do more.”
Although DVD disks hold much more data than CD-ROM disks, even the
4.7GB of data storage capacity of DVDs places limits on the recorder.
With a hard drive available in relief, the recorder can save valuable
disk space and edit video on the hard drive before writing to the
DVD disk.
“The fact that you can do all of your editing on the hard drive
is a huge benefit,” Meyer says.
The Panasonic, which came on the market just before last Christmas,
also allows users to download to the hard drive images directly
from a digital camera or camcorder and edit them before saving them
to a DVD as a slide show or home movie, Meyer says. Better yet,
the user can simply pull the PC card from the camera and insert
it into the DVD recorder or use an on-board FireWire port “to make
a perfect digital copy from a digital camcorder,” Meyer explains.
“Then, you can use the hard drive to take out video scenes or move
them around to reflect a story line that you might have in mind,”
Meyer says. “You have a lot more capability than you have with a
disk-only DVD recorder.”
Of course, all of this capability carries a price. The Panasonic
carries a $1,000 price tag, versus $500 to $600 for most DVD recorders.
“But if you are spending $600 anyhow for a standard DVD recorder,”
Meyer says, “the Panasonic with hard drive represents a great value
for someone who wants an all-inclusive unit with great editing capabilities.”
Still, Meyer advises some customers to purchase a lesser unit.
“It depends on how you are going to use your DVD recorder,” Meyer
says. “A standard recorder is fine for those who will use the DVD
mainly for playback, simple recording of TV programs and movies,
and straight archiving of photos or video.”
Then, there is the vexing issue of compatibility. Most DVD recorders
are designed to handle just one type of DVD format for recording
(even though they can play back several different formats). Panasonic,
for instance, is the only major manufacturer to utilize a recording
format called DVD-RAM. Most DVD machines record in one of three
other formats: DVD-R, DVD+R or DVD+RW. (All DVD players play traditional
CDs, and some can play MP3, too.)
“The biggest knock against DVD-RAM is that it is not very compatible
with other DVD players,” warns Meyer, who notes that the Panasonic
can also record to DVD-R disks, which many other decks can play.
Despite the format challenges facing the recording enthusiast, DVD
players are the fastest-selling product in the history of consumer
electronics, and DVD playback decks can now be purchased for less
than $60. More than 43 million DVD playback units have been sold
in the U.S. since 1997.
The reasons that so many people are moving to DVD from videotape
can easily be seen and heard. DVDs feature image quality that is
twice as high as that found on tapes, eliminating the need for rewinding
and or fast- forwarding, and offering better sound quality that
may include surround-sound, or multi-channel, tracks.
William V. Poe is principal of Poe Communications, a St. Louis
advertising and marketing communications firm.
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