Recording DVDs in UK and sending to USA

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Originally posted by Dan M:
So, the Six Nations Rugby will be upon us in no time at all, and I need to figure out how to record the matches and send them over here. OK, so I have a little while to figure this out. I'd like to get the kind of DVD recorder with a hard disk (this would reside in the UK). Amazon.co.uk has a Panasonic for less than UKP500. But there are many unanswered questions: e.g. are the Panasonics any good, will the recorded DVDs be country coded, will they be compatible with a US TV (are DVDs PAL or NTSC or is it just that the players can output the appropriate signal). I think my current cheap Toshiba dvd player can be hacked to play non-region 1 discs at least. And then there's all the different type of recordable DVD media. I haven't got a clue when it comes to this stuff, and so any advice from the local techies is appreciated.

cheers,

Dan

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The dvds will be PAL and non-region coding (that's only used by the pigopolists to protect their profit margins). Your dvd will play the disc no problem, the question is whether your tv can accept a pal input. Many can do both pal/ntsc. The other option is to watch on your pc which will play both. I'm not 100% sure about disc compatability with dvd+-rw and standalone players.

I have a Panasonic DVD recorder which knocks out DVD-R discs very easily. In fact I have some discs to send people today that I did last night (short film my daughter was in that did a brief cinema run for an arts festival). The Panasonic is very easy to use, and once the disc is finalised (don't forget to do this!!!!!) it will play on 95% of all home DVD players. Discs made are region free.
The hardest thing is wiring it all up, but I have that sussed too finally. Let me know if you need guidance on that.
I recommend the Panasonic - I did my homework.
Oh...and www.novatech.co.uk do a tube of 25 DVD-R blank discs for £5.60 (23p each).
DVD-RW discs will not be playable on other machines unless they are very new - so don't bother with them - just use them yourself in place of a video machine for everyday progs.

For playing PAL DVD's in the states check your TV and DVD player. With my DVD player (Arcam) you can pick if it outputs PAL or NTSC or just whatever is on the disc so you can choose that the dvd player converts it from PAL to NTSC before output.

Unless you have a decent TV then it is unlikely to display PAL. I got a fairly decent tv and I thought it would do PAL, but no it doesn't.

On the dvd player, my first DVD player (a cheap toshiba bought 4 years ago) would convert NTSC to PAL (I was in europe at that time).

Thanks all. So the good news is the dvds recorded on a home machine are not country encoded. The bad news they will be PAL - bugger. I'm surprised at this, since I would have thought with the shift to digital, the component outputs on dvds would be a standard digital signal (480p etc). So, why do they bother country coding, since if someone in the UK ordered a dvd from the US, it would be NTSC and unplayable there (unless their dvd could convert NTSC to PAL)? If machines convert the signal to a standard digital, then this would be all the justification I need to buy an HDTV.

Well, I need to put together a short list of recorders and have 15 minutes recorded on a dvd which can be sent to me. Then I'll hunt around for a player -- I've always liked the looks of the Arcams. This will mean using the high street retailers for the recorder -- can someone please recommend places to go/avoid close to Newport (Wales)?

So Rasher, is it a DVD-R (not +R/+RW/RAM) machine I should be looking for?

cheers,

Dan

DVD-R as far as playing on most players over here

Thanks, -R it is. I've found a US website that sells DVD players with PAL to NTSC converters built in (dvdoverseas.com). So I just need to figure out a recorder on the UK end of things.

cheers

Dan