Can you export content to a computer's hard-drive via the USB port for those TV shows you wish to save and edit the commercials out on a computer? If not, then the Brite-View BV-980H DVR is not much use to me. The reason I'm asking is because they're not making tuner-equipped DVD recorders anymore and I need a potential replacement for when/if my Toshiba DR-570 DVD recorder goes out on me. Hooking up an external tuner box to a tunerless DVD recorder is not acceptable because you lose integrity of digital audio/video by using analog patch-cords. This is the only reason I've chosen a DVD recorder over a DVR in the past--because I need to off-load some TV shows that I like to save. I just need to know if the USB port can be used for my above-stated purpose. Or is it just for firmware updates only? Can you export content to a computer's hard-drive via the USB port for those TV shows you wish to save and edit the commercials out on a computer? If not, then the Brite-View BV-980H DVR is... » Read More Can you export content to a computer's hard-drive via the USB port for those TV shows you wish to save and edit the commercials out on a computer? If not, then the Brite-View BV-980H DVR is not much use to me. The reason I'm asking is because they're not making tuner-equipped DVD recorders anymore and I need a potential replacement for when/if my Toshiba DR-570 DVD recorder goes out on me. Hooking up an external tuner box to a tunerless DVD recorder is not acceptable because you lose integrity of digital audio/video by using analog patch-cords. This is the only reason I've chosen a DVD recorder over a DVR in the past--because I need to off-load some TV shows that I like to save. I just need to know if the USB port can be used for my above-stated purpose. Or is it just for firmware updates only? « Show Less
599472
Unfortunately, my understanding is that the USB port is only for firmware updates or for inputting content from a USB stick. It cannot be used for outboard memory, nor to export content to a computer. If only it did... This thing is truly a one-dimensional device. I, too, have a DVD recorder with a tuner with which I can record off-air programming directly to DVD, but that proved to be an enormous pain when trying to capture all the episodes of even only two series. At least with the DVR I don't have piles of disks lying around. Sorry to be the bearer of less-than-desirable tidings.
599473
According to product instruction: "It is possible to expand the available storage using an external hard drive. The hard disk must either be formatted with NTFS or FAT 16/32. Connect the hard drive through the USB port, and the DVR will automatically recognize it. To set the DVR to record onto the external hard drive , access the menu. Under REC tab, select REC device and choose USB....." Seems to me you can do what you seek.
354037
I looked up the Toshiba product that you mentioned. I don't see a problem at all. Let me break it down by what I can tell from the product description. "One Touch Recording makes recording your favorite show simple. Just connect the DR430 to your cable or satellite box and you are set to record with the push of one button." Simple enough. Do what it says then connect your cable or satellite box to the receiver with an HDMI cable to the SAT/Cable in slot. Run another HDMI cable from the receiver to your HDTV. "With the DR430, converting and archiving your favorite home movies to DVD is simple. You can also experience your DVD movie collection in near HD quality with the DR430's 1080p up conversion via HDMI. Video up conversion up to 1080p resolution via HDMI takes your current DVDs to a new level, for an amazing viewing experience on today's HDTVs." If you were going to just use the DVD recorder like a DVD or Blu-ray player to take advantage of the up conversion you'd connect the DVD recorder to the DVD input on the receiver with another HDMI cable. You could also connect it by an HDMI cable to one of the available video slots. Either way would work. Hope that helps.
1895961
I have two DVD recorders. One is the Sony RDR-GX315 which seems to reject discs at random ("This disc can neither be recorded or played") and will not record premium channels from the DirecTV DVR. The other DVD recorder is the Toshiba D-R410. I have had it for about a month and it has not rejected and discs and records successfully any program from my DirecTV DVR. If you have an HH Gregg store in your area, you might be able to pick up the 410 new in a box for under $100.
1727093
You didn't look at the manual did you? There is a page on the DVD's that this Toshiba will record on, unfortunately it's very few. Really to record you have to find disks that are cprm compatible. I emailed TDK about which of their dvd disks that are cprm compatible, and they told me they don't sell them in the US, only in europe or outside of the US. the movie and music industry has clamped down on people copying their media. Go to your electronics store and see how many DVD RECORDERS they have. You won't find many, players yes but not recorders. Even with such disks I tried to copy a movie from one of the premium channels and on the tv screen, it said it would not copy. Ten years ago it worked, not anymore.
532885
A better question is what format will it not play. I have been able to play divx 4.x and 5.x,asi .mp4,vob,mov and .mkv 4:3&16:9 video files off of a usb on it. This is very nice if you have a lot of personal video files that you want to watch on your tv without having to do extra work converting and burning the video files to disc. I use a 1 tb external drive for storage(to play) and I have an external WD 2.5 500gb for recording with no problems. Be sure to download and install the update software first thing. Also if you are going to record from it be sure and format the drive to ntfs or you will have multiple files for each recording.(unless that is what you want) A better question is what format will it not play. I have been able to play divx 4.x and 5.x,asi .mp4,vob,mov and .mkv 4:3&16:9 video files off of a usb on it. This is very nice if you have a lot of personal video files that you want to watch on your tv without having to do extra work converting and burning the video files to disc. I use a 1 tb external drive for storage(to play) and I have an external WD 2.5 500gb for recording with no problems. Be sure to download and install the update software first thing. Also if you are going to record from it be sure and format the drive to ntfs or... » Read More A better question is what format will it not play. I have been able to play divx 4.x and 5.x,asi .mp4,vob,mov and .mkv 4:3&16:9 video files off of a usb on it. This is very nice if you have a lot of personal video files that you want to watch on your tv without having to do extra work converting and burning the video files to disc. I use a 1 tb external drive for storage(to play) and I have an external WD 2.5 500gb for recording with no problems. Be sure to download and install the update software first thing. Also if you are going to record from it be sure and format the drive to ntfs or you will have multiple files for each recording.(unless that is what you want) « Show Less
88603
No because of copyright laws and industry restrictions - this will not happen on a device that writes to portable recording media (DVD, Blu-ray, etc). The idea being - as I understand it - to restrict/reduce/eliminate anything but streaming media to consumers. Your satellite, cable, etc PVR/DVR's that have hard drives only - encrypt that data at rest on the hard drive. Your DVR/PVR HDMI output signal checks to see if the receiving device is DMCP - digital media copyright protection compliant - and these devices will not be compliant as the industry and law are currently. I would recommend AVS forums for any indepth discussion of this subject. This is very high level - and I'm not an expert. No because of copyright laws and industry restrictions - this will not happen on a device that writes to portable recording media (DVD, Blu-ray, etc). The idea being - as I understand it - to restrict/reduce/eliminate anything but streaming media to consumers. Your satellite, cable, etc PVR/DVR's that have hard drives only - encrypt that data at rest on the hard drive. Your DVR/PVR HDMI output signal checks to see if the receiving device is DMCP - digital media copyright protection compliant - and these devices will not be compliant as the industry and law are currently. I would recommend... » Read More No because of copyright laws and industry restrictions - this will not happen on a device that writes to portable recording media (DVD, Blu-ray, etc). The idea being - as I understand it - to restrict/reduce/eliminate anything but streaming media to consumers. Your satellite, cable, etc PVR/DVR's that have hard drives only - encrypt that data at rest on the hard drive. Your DVR/PVR HDMI output signal checks to see if the receiving device is DMCP - digital media copyright protection compliant - and these devices will not be compliant as the industry and law are currently. I would recommend AVS forums for any indepth discussion of this subject. This is very high level - and I'm not an expert. « Show Less
2092852
I have a dvr through directv. I'm thinking about getting this toshiba dvd recorder. Let me make sure I understand... If I have a show recorded on my dvr, I can then record it to a dvd in my dvd recorder? But while the dvr'ed show is being recorded to dvd, I cannot watch a different show? Is this correct?? Thank you anyone for your help. I have some shows that have been on my dvr for a long time now that I occasionally like to rewatch and would much rather have them on dvd so hopefully this toshiba dvd recorder is what I need.
1524431
Keep in mind that this is a HDD and not really a DVR. The significant difference being you pay no monthly service charge renting the unit to a satellite company. I have had mine up and running for a couple of months now, and really like it. By it having a 1 Terabit hard drive, I doubt it very much you will run out of recording space. The significance between this HDD and a DVR, is that you can dub directly to a DVD. Also, the external jacks allow you to copy anything that will connect to it. So if you have old VHS tapes, you can convert them to digital to the hard drive, then copy to a DVD. A DVR cannot do this. This unit will allow you to receive both analog and digital TV reception because it has a built in tuner. Magnavox was the only one on the market that I checked into that was even close to buying. It was very easy to set up and get started using. I don't think you would be disappointed if you bought one, especially if you don't wan't to pay the crazy monthly cable fees.
1406605
You plug it into you cable/satellite tv cable box. Then, it plugs into your computer using a USB cable. The USB cable provides the box with power and all communication with your computer is over the USB cable as well. If you are not using the EyeTV box you can unplug it from the USB port until you wish to use it again. You can not record or watch live tv on your computer unless the box is plugged in. However since all recordings are stored on your computers drive, you can watch anything you have recorded without having it plugged in. I hope this helped.
91579
I am looking to buy a dvd recorder that will record from vhs. I have sooo many videos of family that I want to transfer to dvd in order to preserve them. This tuner vs tunerless thing is confusing me. Can someone explain it to me? I do not have cable tv and do not want it.
1895962
Thanks. Seems like each of these makes has its quirks. I just gave away on old (4 years) Toshiba DVD recorder that did OK for its time, but the menus were very unintuitive, and the manual was in broken english. I guess I could always pick up a D-R410 at Fry's and if I don't like it, return for the Panny when it's in stock. Fry's also has a Sony RDR-GX360 for the same price as the Panasonic, and it seems to have the same ins/outs and upconversion, but I can only find one user review out there and it was bad. I hear that Sonys are picky about the DVD brand you use, plus they're the "source" for the industry restrictions on recording HD, so I don't want to support them. Thanks. Seems like each of these makes has its quirks. I just gave away on old (4 years) Toshiba DVD recorder that did OK for its time, but the menus were very unintuitive, and the manual was in broken english. I guess I could always pick up a D-R410 at Fry's and if I don't like it, return for the Panny when it's in stock. Fry's also has a Sony RDR-GX360 for the same price as the Panasonic, and it seems to have the same ins/outs and upconversion, but I can only find one user review out there and it was bad. I hear that Sonys are picky about the DVD brand you use, plus they're the... » Read More Thanks. Seems like each of these makes has its quirks. I just gave away on old (4 years) Toshiba DVD recorder that did OK for its time, but the menus were very unintuitive, and the manual was in broken english. I guess I could always pick up a D-R410 at Fry's and if I don't like it, return for the Panny when it's in stock. Fry's also has a Sony RDR-GX360 for the same price as the Panasonic, and it seems to have the same ins/outs and upconversion, but I can only find one user review out there and it was bad. I hear that Sonys are picky about the DVD brand you use, plus they're the "source" for the industry restrictions on recording HD, so I don't want to support them. « Show Less
896423
It depends on how long you wish to save the footage. Generally the hard drive is adequate since once there is not an incident there is no need to save the footage and it can be written over. You can download footage of interest to the through the USB onto a flash drive, etc. The drive space can also be extended using the motion sensor feature in that only if there is motion the footage is recorded. I don't use this feature and the drive can store almost 30 days of footage. The only limitation is when it begins to record over old footage it erases the entire drive and begins again so old footage is lost.
141390
I have a Direcrtv HD DVR that has a USB port, that I can enable, I know how to install an external HDD, to this USB port,so could I install the Blu-ray burner to this port?
1661711
I've never personally done it myself. I do know it's covered on the disc that has the manual that comes with the DVR. I believe the USB slot is for thumb drive download.
563981
External tuner means a cable box/DVR type of unit. The DVD recorder has no tuner of any kind in it. It will record just fine off of a cable box or DVR, but cannot be used like VCR's in the old days to record TV programs by itself. If you want to record digital TV off the air, you will need a digital box. TV's are simply players. They have nothing to do with the recording process.
409484
Yes. You can copy/play CM content on you PC or another TV. First, you need a program (e.g. ext2fsd) on you PC that can read a Unix formatted drive directory. You can then play the video files on you PC using a program (e.g. mediaplayerlite) that plays .ts files (.ts is the standard extension for ota ATSC broadcasts). However, the file names are computer generated not the program names. One has to play the file until you know what it is, copy the ones you want to archive, and then rename them. Update (1/12/15) I just upgraded my DVR+ WD 2T green to a red. The red drive has less vibration/power and carries a 3 vs 2 yr warranty. I deleted all shows I didn't want to archive on the green before I disconnected it from the DVR+. I then plugged the green into my PC and transferred the files to my local network NAS. I then renamed the files from the computer name to the program name. I can now play these programs from my NAS using my Samsung BD player. I am hoping that CM will support DLNA in the future to simplify the archiving procedure. Update 4/28/15 Thanks to John M in a comment below, I was made aware of another very helpful program. "DVR+ Lister" will display the contents of the DVR+ usb HDD when plugged into a PC. It will then rename and copy the files you select to any location on your LAN. "ext2fsd", to map the unix files directory on the usb HDD onto letter named drives readable by a PC "DVR+ Lister", to list the recorded file names, date recorded, description, .... on your PC, allowing you to select which ones to copy to a output folder you select. "MediaPlayerLite", to play the files on your PC I just copied 4 one hour programs to my NAS. It took about 20min.
696595
YES, buy it today if you're a bit computer smart. I (re)record my Dish DVR movies 'to the computer' and never, ever... go to the effort to burn DVDs from these... too much trouble. People should get into burning satelliteDVR to computer, then playback from computer to HDTV, in my opinion anyway. This inexpensive box has 'recorded' many 'premium' dishnet shows via the component cables, no copyprotection issues. Good luck. Lots of terrible reviews .. I may have been lucky but I bought mine from Frys at $200 two years ago.