What would you recommend as a good HDD/DVD video recorder?

September 12, 2011 12:27 PM

I've used the Toshiba RD-XS32SU recorder for years; it's an excellent device for recording tv programs and making dvds. It has a wide variety of extremely useful editing features. Although it's no longer being made since Toshiba decided to focus on blu-ray, it's been long regarded as the premiere video recorder. Alas, my recorder is now refusing to recognize any brand of disc when I try to load. The only way it will accept a disc is after it's been unplugged for several hours. Then it will load one disc, but after that, no more. Since college football season is here and I record many games and burn them to dvds, I'm in the market for a reliable recorder. What models do you recommend, techie members of the hive mind? Are there any reasonably priced ones that include the editing features of the Toshiba RD-XS32SU? Thanks in advance!
posted by ragtimepiano to Technology (3 answers total)

If you buy a USB TV tuner (examples), you could record games with the tuner software. I don't know if any of these record directly to DVD, but if you have any reasonable scripting skills, it shouldn't be too hard to automate recording to hard drive, burning to disc, and deleting the hard drive file. With a bit of scripting, you could even automate compressing a bunch of games, which are written to one disc.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 4:01 PM on September 12, 2011

Of those examples, I have the eyeTV HD, which is bundled with their eyeTV3 software. (I don't work for Elgato or have any affiliation with them, other than buying one of their devices.)
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 4:03 PM on September 12, 2011

What are the chances that just the disc drive in your Toshiba is failing? I've only torn apart one DVD/DVR combo like yours (a Panasonic), but behind the custom bezel, the optical drive was pretty much off the shelf. Might be worth looking into, perhaps your Toshiba can have a new drive put in fairly cheaply?
posted by xedrik at 9:37 PM on September 12, 2011