I Plan On Buying RCA's New Drc 8030n Dvd Recorder with a hard drive at Wal-Mart very soon. My One IMPORTANT question is does anyone know if I decide to transfer a T.V. show from the hard drive to a dvd disk Will there be ANY Lost of video quality? Again could anyone Help me out with this Important question?

YOu will exience virtually no loss of quality when you transfer, especially if you transfer in high quality or normal mode. I have three different dvd and hard drive systems and they are fantastic, though Panasonic are a class apart.

I agree, it is the initial transfer to the DVR's hard drive that is important, NOT the transfer to DVD. If you record in SP mode it should be very good quality.

I'm not a big fan of RCA products, but search online for some reviews or visit the support section of their website to look for potential problems.

Hello and Thank You for this Important question concering a video transfer from a hard drive to a dvd. Wow this sure sounds like FUN to own a dvr With a hard drive unit!
Yes you're Both Right as Panasonic is the one machine to Beat.
Finally who you say that in General one Will or Could Have problems with a hard drive after three years of use? Just curious as I was thinking of extending the warranty of the unit.

I adjust the bit rate of the recording on the hard drive to 8.0 (max) for all recordings, I'd assume 6.6 would also be fine. Also assuming the one you're purchasing has the option to adjust.

When transferring I use SVideo as well.

I recommend getting Panasonic or Pioneer and skipping the extended warranty. Getting a quality item saves in the long run. The only loss is shopping at Walmart - from time spent trying to return problematic items, to lowering the US standard of living.

Yes All of you are Right about Panasonic being the Best dvd recorder out there! Still (this time around) I will try RCA'S new 8030n hard drive dvd recorder. I have been stuck on RCA products ever since I had trouble getting parts for my old Sanyo Superbeta recorder back in 1986! With American name brand products at least one can get replacement parts fast!
Thank You for the information about extending the warranty and if it's worth it! Since I am Not accident prone I will past on this.
Finally how long do the Panasonic hard drive recorders last Before they start having trouble with there hard drives? Is it's about three years? Just curious.

I've only had my Toshiba since July '06. I've decided I'll reformat it's hard drive every 6 months, using the hard drive about 4-5 times per week for about 6 hours worth of recording then deleting (not very heavy usage). Toggling can cause problems.

So basically for me I'll reformat after every season of Survivor. Someone with more experience might know a bit more about how long the drive will last, but I'm quite confident it's much longer than three years, all depending on usage/maintainment of course. Oh, use a good surge protector - I almost strangled my friend when I had to perform miracles on his system cause he used a surge protector from the dollar store. And he thinks I'm dumb. :rolleyes:

I've ran into one hiccup problem in the six months I've had mine. The middle of a show jammed and it gave me an error and crapped out. The other titles on the drive remained unaffected, although I'd imagine that is not always the case. I was unable to get the show back, luckily I didn't need it - so I really didn't try that hard to save it.

Oh, use a good surge protector

Even better is to use a Battery Backup - if you get blackouts. Here in Washington state, I've had 6 Blackouts and 4 brownouts in 5 weeks - the weather's gone crazy, and the states' power grid is crap.