# Help Old Fogey With DVD Burner Question **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 13, 2010, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-old-fogey-with-dvd-burner-question/546571 "2010-07-13T18:40:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![DMark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@DMark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMark)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2010, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-old-fogey-with-dvd-burner-question/546571/1 "2010-07-13T18:40:42Z")
Apparently I missed the class where they mentioned DVD players/burners for televisions are obsolete. I have a DVR, and tape lots of shows for friends in Germany. When I get enough shows together, I would slap in a blank DVD disk in my DVD player/recorder - make a copy, send it off and friends could watch in Germany. Well, the DVD burner/player (television component model) died, so I went to my local Walmart (where I bought this one several years ago) to buy a new one. “We don’t sell those machines anymore.” Huh? So I did a search on Google and, wow - I can’t even find any of those machines! So now I have a bunch of shows on my DVR that I need to transfer to a DVD disk. I assume there is a better faster way to do this now, with different technology - but I am clueless. Ya miss one technology class and yer screwed, I tell ya! What hardware/software do I need to get in order to copy shows I have on my DVR to a a DVD disk? (The cheaper the alternative, the better!) ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2010, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-old-fogey-with-dvd-burner-question/546571/2 "2010-07-13T23:53:49Z")
Does your DVR still play? What do you mean when you say it died? ---
**Author:** ![JoelUpchurch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f05b48/32.png) [@JoelUpchurch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoelUpchurch)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2010, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-old-fogey-with-dvd-burner-question/546571/3 "2010-07-14T01:16:49Z")
I don’t know what you are saying about dvd recorders being obsolete. There are plenty on Amazon. [http://www.amazon.com/DVD-Recorders-Players-Audio-Video/b?ie=UTF8&node=1036920](http://www.amazon.com/DVD-Recorders-Players-Audio-Video/b?ie=UTF8&node=1036920) ---
**Author:** ![DMark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@DMark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMark)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2010, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-old-fogey-with-dvd-burner-question/546571/4 "2010-07-14T15:31:37Z")
> [@needscoffee](#): > > Does your DVR still play? What do you mean when you say it died? No, it is the DVD burner that died. DVR works fine. ---
**Author:** ![DMark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@DMark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMark)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2010, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-old-fogey-with-dvd-burner-question/546571/5 "2010-07-14T15:35:30Z")
> [@JoelUpchurch](#): > > I don’t know what you are saying about dvd recorders being obsolete. There are plenty on Amazon. > > [http://www.amazon.com/DVD-Recorders-Players-Audio-Video/b?ie=UTF8&node=1036920](http://www.amazon.com/DVD-Recorders-Players-Audio-Video/b?ie=UTF8&node=1036920) Amazon…duh, stupid me never thought to look there. A Google search was not all that successful for me. I thought this weekend I would go hit a few of the bigger electronic stores (Fry’s is one locally) and see what they have. I guess I was just wondering how others copy shows they have on DVR to DVD - it is really convenient and easy to send DVD’s to friends in Germany. Televisions and DVD players now seem able to play all formats, so they can watch shows I send them and I can watch shows they send me. ---
**Author:** ![JoelUpchurch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f05b48/32.png) [@JoelUpchurch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoelUpchurch)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2010, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-old-fogey-with-dvd-burner-question/546571/6 "2010-07-15T18:28:57Z")
> [@DMark](#): > > Amazon…duh, stupid me never thought to look there. A Google search was not all that successful for me. I thought this weekend I would go hit a few of the bigger electronic stores (Fry’s is one locally) and see what they have. > > I guess I was just wondering how others copy shows they have on DVR to DVD - it is really convenient and easy to send DVD’s to friends in Germany. Televisions and DVD players now seem able to play all formats, so they can watch shows I send them and I can watch shows they send me. See if you can find a DVR with a tuner. Then you can skip the DVR to DVD step. I have an older one, but the DVD aren’t too compatible, so I end up running it through DvdShrink and reburning to get something that works on other DVD players. For stuff I actually want to keep, I reencode it as Divx to save on space. It might save you some postage if your friends can play Divx. My Philips DVD player plays Divx. ---
**Author:** ![DMark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@DMark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMark)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2010, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-old-fogey-with-dvd-burner-question/546571/7 "2010-07-15T22:54:07Z")
> [@JoelUpchurch](#): > > See if you can find a DVR with a tuner. Then you can skip the DVR to DVD step. I have an older one, but the DVD aren’t too compatible, so I end up running it through DvdShrink and reburning to get something that works on other DVD players. > > For stuff I actually want to keep, I reencode it as Divx to save on space. It might save you some postage if your friends can play Divx. My Philips DVD player plays Divx. Thanks for the ideas! ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2010, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-old-fogey-with-dvd-burner-question/546571/8 "2010-07-15T23:08:33Z")
> [@JoelUpchurch](#): > > See if you can find a DVR with a tuner. Then you can skip the DVR to DVD step. I’ve been trying to educate myself about DVRs. Can you expand a little further on what these two sentences mean? It makes no sense to me. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2010, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-old-fogey-with-dvd-burner-question/546571/9 "2010-07-15T23:14:53Z")
> [@DMark](#): > > So I did a search on Google and, wow - I can’t even find any of those machines! Google “DVD recorder HD” and “DVD recorder harddisk” [Link](http://www.target.com/Magnavox-HDD-DVD-Recorder-H2160MW9/dp/B0020ZW8P8) ---
**Author:** ![JoelUpchurch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f05b48/32.png) [@JoelUpchurch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoelUpchurch)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2010, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-old-fogey-with-dvd-burner-question/546571/10 "2010-07-15T23:44:27Z")
> [@Arnold\_Winkelried](#): > > I’ve been trying to educate myself about DVRs. Can you expand a little further on what these two sentences mean? It makes no sense to me. I have a DVD recorder that has a built in tuner, so you can set it to record a show at a given time just like an old VCR. You can also set the quality of the recording so you can get 1, 2, 4 or 6 hours of recording on 1 DVD. This might be less useful if you don’t have cable. I don’t know if there is a DVD recorder with an HD tuner. I have a USB HD tuner that lets me record over the air HD shows on my computer in the Windows Media Center. These files are huge (3.5GB for a half hour show), but I can edit out the commercials in Windows Movie Maker and reencode it at DVD quality to reduce it to 500mb if I want to keep it. This works on Vista, but I seem to recall you can’t do it on Windows 7 for some reason. ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2010, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-old-fogey-with-dvd-burner-question/546571/11 "2010-07-16T14:04:35Z")
OK, I understand your last post. What I don’t understand is what you said before: “See if you can find a DVR with a tuner. Then you can skip the DVR to DVD step.” If you have a DVR _without_ a tuner, how does that add an extra step to the process? ---
**Author:** ![JoelUpchurch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f05b48/32.png) [@JoelUpchurch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoelUpchurch)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2010, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-old-fogey-with-dvd-burner-question/546571/12 "2010-07-16T19:06:22Z")
Sorry I meant a DVD recorder with a tuner. The original post was about recording on a DVR and then playing it back to copy it to a DVD recorder. This not only introduces an extra step, but will cause some quality degradation, since the usual way to copy from DVR to DVD is a S-Video connection, which is analog. ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2010, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-old-fogey-with-dvd-burner-question/546571/13 "2010-07-16T19:07:52Z")
Now I get it! I’m slow, but with time I can catch up with the rest. ---
**Author:** ![Engineer\_Dude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9fc29f/32.png) [@Engineer\_Dude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Engineer_Dude)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2010, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-old-fogey-with-dvd-burner-question/546571/14 "2010-07-16T19:58:57Z")
Are your programs on a satellite DVR, a Cable Company DVR, or an over-the-air DVR (like the DTV Pal DVR)? Some programs have [CPRM](http://forum.videohelp.com/threads/211636-DVD-Recorders-and-CPRM) built into them with a “Copy Once” flag, which means you can record them to a hard disc and watch them, but the DVD recorder won’t let you record the program that’s already on the hard drive to a DVD disc.