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Why Americans Don't Buy DVD Recorders
Ant writes "CNET News.com reports on the reasons behind the unpopularity of DVD recorders in the US. The devices, which have seen heavy support in Europe and Asia, fall flat in the United States. The biggest reason is the penetration of Cable television. With cable, the same show can appear on a channel several times. In Europe and Japan, viewers need to grab copies of shows when they can, as it could be some time before the episode is broadcast again. TiVo also took off more rapidly in the States and elsewhere. TiVo is also one of the reasons selling TVs with embedded hard drives in the States remains a challenge."
1) TV shows are broadcasted frequently in the US, so no need for DVD recording devices
2) Tivo is a recording device that is popular in the US
It seems to me that the "broadcasted frequently" isn't a valid reason for why DVD recording devices aren't popular, because there are recording devices that are popular.
This is just a stupid idea, just like the old TVs combined with VCRs which became obsolete when DVDs came out. It's much better to just buy a standalone TV/monitor, and separate DVD player, TiVo, etc. and connect them together. Otherwise you get a mediocre device which does many things poorly, at a high price.
For us, initially the cost of the hardware and media was too much compared to the good old VCR.
Later, our DVR pretty much made it pointless.
Most recently, the ability to watch TV shows off the internet on-demand, or to obtain them via BitTorrent, has almost supplanted the DVR completely.
Dan East
Better known as 318230.
In the US, consumers were stuck with substandard, feature-stripped DVD recorders.
-Media problems
Nothing would work with the next generation of media (I was given as a "gift" a co-worker's old one that takes 1X and nothing but 1X... the "replacement" took nothing but 4X, wouldn't even work with the legacy 1X disks she had left over). Companies like Philips were shit-poor about issuing firmware updates to use current media, instead trying to forced-obsolete their products and force people to shell out $700-800 to replace a 1-2 year old burner.
-Lack of hard drives and smart burning
Not till the 4th generation did they include a hard drive to remove commercials before the data was burned, meaning if you record 2 hours of show you just recorded 40 minutes of wasted space. Trying to archive was a disaster with that going on.
-Lack of ability to access cable
In order to screw people further, cable companies started altering the phase of their signal to work with only proprietary set-top boxes (my ATi All-In-Wonder got screwed by this too, thank you Time Warner and Comcrap for making my purchase worthless). Want a DVR or recording? Better get their one that's built to be able to handle the phase-shifted signals... and is "rented" to you. Digital cable's even worse, because few if any DVD recorders recognize it, making you try to do a set-top box pass-through (same issue if you have satellite) to set the channel or else pray it has codes for its remote-interceptor dongle to do the channel changing work.
Chances of getting a DVD burner unit cable of receiving component video or HD-quality? GOOD LUCK. The market's now been abandoned. If you want to do it, you build your own MythTV box or something.
I was tempted by DVD recorders many times. The main reasons I never took the plunge are:
- Too expensive. I kept waiting for the prices to drop, and they never did. When I stopped caring, they were just under $1,000.
- Low recording capacity. I think the blanks are good for 2 hours. It may vary based upon quality, but quality matters--I'd rather have VHS than low-quality digital.
- TiVo hacking. Eventually, I got a TiVo, and could extract shows on my own, and burn them to (slightly out-of-spec) DVD.
I finally got rid of the TiVo when I got satellite, but now don't care so much about archiving. My DVR gets the shows, I watch them, then I delete them. I came to realize that most of the stuff that I wanted more-permanent copies of, I rarely watched again, anyway.
So the truth is, for me, a DVR is all I want. Swapping DVD blanks and low recording times make the solution completely unacceptable at this point, even if they came down in price significantly.
Why in the world would anyone get a crippled stand-alone DVD recorder? You have to put up with macrovision, and digital tokens preventing recording from DVDs or VHS tapes, and even sometimes digital cable/satellite tuners.
You have to record in real-time, at low quality, and that's if you or an installer can even figure out how to get the wiring right... Most satellite installers can't figure out how to keep a single VCR in the loop, let alone VCR+DVD+DVDR+DVR.
Meanwhile, if you put a TV tuner and DVD-Burner in your computer, you can (trivially) edit out commercials, decide after the fact whether or not it's worth wasting a disc on the show... You can make backup DVD copies at 16X. You can back-up data from your computer. You can record high-def video to disc. etc., etc.
The story here is that Americans aren't stupid enough to buy DRM crippled, expensive, and inherently limited, stand-alone DVD recorders.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Drop .torrent file in torrent directory on server. torrent takes care of the rest, while providing a nice web interface front end if needed even my gf can use, and playback using XBMC directly on the TV.
Now all we need it xbmc for linux to mature so i can playback 1080p with some better/faster hardware.
And as a bonus I have all seasons of all shows I've watched at my fingertips.
...but its old, DVD-RAM. I still record onto it, its a nice second recorder when their are 3 programs I want to watch all on at the same time (a rarity of course).
However, I think they're completely wrong as to why people aren't buying them. Blu-ray vs HD-DVD is a better reason that people aren't buying them. I will buy a new DVD recorder when, 1. it comes with a hard drive so I can record an entire season of shows and then pick and chose what's worth burning to DVD, 2. I know the format will not be obsolete next year, 3. I know that DRM won't interfere with my ability to record a program in HD and burn it to DVD. Until I know that a product can do that I'll continue building and tweaking my homebuilt pvr/dvr which I know can do all of that (GB-PVR is awesome).
* - (most affordable) DVD recorders don't record HDTV
* - (most affordable) DVD recorders don't record or tune digital cable
* - (most affordable) DVD recorders have really really crappy image quality, due partially to the fact that they don't tune the digital signal and also due to the fact that they just suck
* - (most affordable) DVD recorders do not have an in-depth recording menu like DVR's do. There's none of that searching for programs, record every instance of a program, "only record first run" options, etc.
* - (most) People don't like a bunch of discs laying around when it can be held in the device and, as an ancillary, most people don't want to have to remember to "load up the dvd recorder" before they go to work
* - (many) People just download tv programs off the internet if they want to keep a copy of the show
* - US major broadcasting stations have really, really good online sites that let you watch the shows (many times in HD) on your computer
* - DVD's just don't hold much data, whereas I have stuff on my DVR dated back to October at this point
* - Many DVR's from cable companies are easy to hook portable hard drives up to...
* - Many American's have the mentality that paying a little each month (to rent a dvr) is better than paying one lump sum up front (for a dvd recorder), especially when the DVR gives you the benefits previously mentioned.
Of course, I'm sure that DVD recorder technology in the US is severely lagging behind the rest of the world because DVR is preferred here (and, on the same note, I'm sure our DVR's blow the rest of the worlds out of the water), but until we see Blue Ray DVD Recorders that record HD programs and can store massive amounts of data AND until we see Blue Ray discs get cheap enough to make this a viable option, DVR's really the only solution for me.
Anyone who wants, feel free to add to the list. This was just off the top of my head...
Wise men say, "Forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza."
I mean, I'm not really into the cartoon scene...I mean, my kids watch cartoons and all, but I'm just not up on all that.
That's really tough about putting all that effort into recording episodes of Avatar, it must really be frustrating when you and your girlfriend sit down to....
oh jeez....I'm sorry.....
A goal is a dream with a deadline
I have a wonderful Panasonic device I bought last year. It is a combination DVR/VCR/DVD recorder, with TV Guide Online. It is one of the best purchases I ever made. The integration of the functions is great. I can select a program in the TV guide mode, and with a click or two of the remote tell it to record that show to the hard disk when it comes on. Most of the time I don't need to get it off the hard disk, so I just delete it when I'm done. But occasionally, like for a good movie, I can edit out the commercials, and then copy it to a DVD in high-speed copy mode, and voila, there's my archive copy. It also supports recording one show while playing back a different one, or chasing playback where it plays the same show that is being recorded ahead. It's a perfect example of well-designed integration of functions, and got me to replace the stack of components I had before. Even my girlfriend, who tends to rail on bad technology design every chance she gets, fell in love with it.
Anyway, Panasonic discontinued this model, and hasn't replaced it with a new one with the same capabilities. I suspect it has to do with pressure from the movie industry; I saw a rumor to that effect somewhere online, but I don't know for sure. I can't imagine Panasonic did it voluntarily, because during the time it was on the market (2006-2007) it was a hot seller. I guess I got lucky buying it in the window of opportunity.
So I suspect there would be a lot more variety of video gadgets, and a lot more familiarity and interest in them among Americans, if the movie industry weren't allowed to strong arm the electronics market. I think if you looked at the economics of it, they are single-handedly responsible for depressing a big segment of the economy.
Video recorders were always a niche use in the USA. Think back to the VCR days. What was the main use of recorders, other than copying movies to build a movie collection?
Most of it was Video Rental. Playback. It was the only reason most people got VCRs. The fact that the box could also record was unimportant. From a tape perspective, a playback only unit didn't make any sense anyway, the hardware would play or record without any real cost difference.
The few who did know how to program their VCR's used it to record broadcast television. And almost all of that was not archival, it was one-time-use. They'd record it because they wanted to see it later. They didn't want to see it over and over again. Oh, sure, they recorded some things for the kids to watch continously, but really, once you've seen most programs once, that's enough.
Nobody really used consumer VCR's to make archives of video material. Sure, they copied movies and kept them around a while, but eventually a lot of people recorded over even these. Who has stacks of video tapes anymore? Did they move their material to DVD's? Home movies sure, but most of it just got trashed.
DVD Recorders did not take off because of all of these reasons.
a) DVD Recorders cost more than DVD players because of different hardware requirements. And most people wanted them for rental only.
b) Tivo and other hard drive based recorders filled the rest of the niche, because a Tivo is like a big programmable VCR, only you never need to change tapes.
c) The only reason left is archival, and people here simply don't archive video material. They don't really want to create their own long term storage except for their own home made materials. If they do, then they're perfectly willing to buy a high quality copy on DVD that they can keep for a long time.
The market isn't there for DVD Video Recorders simply because it doesn't fit the use cases of people who want to record video as well as other solutions do.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Exactly, this is why I see no need to buy a DVD recorder or even Tivo. What's the point in America? 99% of the content on TV is just garbage...which is recycled ad nauseam anyways. How many different shows about house flipping can we make?? I used to justify having cable for the news and The Daily Show/Colbert Report. But hey, look at the state of mainstream news in America. You'll get more accurate reporting from the Onion. To get any objective reporting in America you ironically have to watch "fake" news comedy shows like The Daily Show/Cobert Report. The Daily Show, of course, can be watched online along with other shows like South Park...so what is the point really in the US???
I should have, but too lazy. It's barely usable and it was cheap. Bad enough to ruin the brand, good enough not to be worth returning.
That's one of the problems big companies have; they might not find out how much damage a product has done until they fail to make the next sale. And that's invisible.
--- These are not words: wierd, genious, rediculous