Page 1 of Buying a DVD Recorder

Okay, so it`s come to this. My Pioneer DV55 (great little player - since 2001) has packed in. It won`t read discs anymore. I am going to keep it as it is hooked up to 5 speakers and a woofer, and I am looking to buy a DVD Recorder. The two I am considering (boy, it is hard to find info) are the Pioneer DVR320s and the Sony RDR-GX210. I bought my Pioneer originally because of the excellent sound. I see the Sony is multi-format, while Pioneer is DVD-R. Is this really an issue?

The setup - I am looking to have the following:

TV
Sky+
VCR
DVD Recorder
Old DVD (home cinema sound setup)

Any advice is very welcome indeed. Thanks for reading.

Sorry if this is a stoopid question but if your player won`t read discs, why are you keeping it? :/

To play my home cinema sound setup through. The 5 speakers and woofer are connected directly to the old box, which has great sound. Thinking I can route my new DVD sound to the old one.

If your home cinema has an optical/coaxial audio port, you should be fine, if not, you may need to replace the amp but keep the speakers

try these sites to find great bargains

www.pricerunner.co.uk

www.kelkoo.co.uk

www.digital-point.co.uk

I have the Sony DVD recorder and have virtually the same setup as you (i.e. sky+ and another DVD player which I only use for the 5.1 surround sound).

The sony has both optical and coaxial outputs so should work with any home cinema system. If your surround sound system has both of these as inputs this means you can use the optical input for your sky+ box and the coaxial input for your DVD recorder.

Recording quality is excellent but so to is playback (some DVD recorders are not very good when it comes to playback quality).

The multi-format is useful - I have found that my portable DVD player will only playback DVD+R so I would have been stuffed if I had bought one that just did DVD-R.

This item was edited on Friday, 12th August 2005, 11:46