What exactly does the hard drive on a DVD recorder do??

[Peanutbutter]

I'm buying a recorder this week because I'm recording some shows with my DVR.

I'm doing a little research and I see that some have Hard drives and some don't.

What the hard drive for?
Can you put episodes in order on the hard drive and then record them?
Can you keep recording on a DVD until it's full or is it a one time burn (which would use up alot of discs)??

I'm very, very green to the whole DVD burning thing.
When I burn a disc on my computer, once it finalizes, then that's it. You can't put anything else on it.


Any recommendations of DVD Recorders?

[loren]

the hard drive is like a huge file cabinet

on my direct tivo, i have a 250 gig hard drive, large enough to store 200 plus hours of shows

if you can afford a dvd recorder with a hard drive, its a real thing for set makers

the better ones allow you to edit the shows, add menus, and then burn what you want to a single disc at great speeds, not real time speeds

you could recorde numerous shows

then when you get enough eps fpr a disc, run them off ontoa finished product

and yes you can write over, or erase the hard drive. just like in a computer

but the good nes are $$, panasonic and jvc are two of the better brands

and do buy an extended warranty , its one of the few times i woudl buy them, since so many things can go haywire with the machines,a nd they are $$ to fix

[robyrob]

i have a Toshiba RDKX-50 DVD recorder with a hard drive in it - it is quite handy

i use it to put episodes in order, edit out commercials, create menus, and make multiple copies of disks.

the downsides are EXTREMELY difficult to learn controls, way too big manual to read (like 387 pages) and much longer time to make a disk

[loren]

Originally Posted by robyrob

the downsides are EXTREMELY difficult to learn controls, way too big manual to read (like 387 pages) and much longer time to make a disk

boy howdy are you corrct on this one

i learned my panasonic, after a while, so i ended up getting all three of my stand alones, the exact same model, so i didnt have to laern more stuff

the basic operations are pretty much like a vcr

[Peanutbutter]

I'm leaning towards Lite-On HD-A740GX.
It's $300 at Costco.

Does anyone have this one?

[pioneer33]

I have the Lite-On LVW-5045 and love it. No problems.

pioneer33