Who’s not for ?
If you enjoy making nice DVD navigation menus and want to create custom chapters then a stand alone DVD recorder is not the end all solution. However a stand alone player can still save you a lot of time because you a bunch of time. You can import the recorder DVD into your computer and re-author it with your custom navigation and chapter points. Your goal is to not re-encode the MPEG stream if you can avoid it.

What to look for in a stand alone recorder
There are a whole bunch of stand alone video recorders on the market starting at prices as low as $100. For the home video enthusiast a feature you will want is noise filtering capabilities. With this feature you can almost always improve the quality of the VHS source. You may want to consider a DVD Recorder that contains the LSI Chipset.

Some recorders also allow you to do some basic “time interval” based menu systems for the final DVD.

The two primary companies that have the best reputation for stand alone DVD recorders are JVC and Panasonic. Let’s take a look at a few of the choices available. The JVC DR-M100 is one of the favorite stand alone DVD recorders with video enthusiasts. The price is about $240. It features noise reduction circuits but not TBC. This unit has a firewire DV input terminal to connect and record digital video content from a DV Camcorder.
The JVC DR-MV5S is essentially the same as the DR-M100 with the addition of a built in S-VHS player/recorder.

The JVC SR-MV40 is part of the JVC professional line of equipment. This is a combo VHS/DVD recorder as well. It is built a little more rugged and features TBC in addition to the other noise reduction circuits. It also features a firewire input so you can transfer directly from a DV camera. The price for this unit is about $380. For this price you are essentially getting a pretty decent S-VHS deck and DVD Recorder in one unit.

JVC issued a press release announcing the DR-M101S DVD recorder and the DR-MV7S is a DVD/VHS recorder combo that includes all of the DR-M101S features plus a Hi-Fi VHS deck. the expected release date is in May 2006. There is no word if the DR-M101 is replacing the M100.

The Panasonic line seems to get favorable reviews at Amazon.com. However some claim if you’re looking to record for up to 4 hours the performance of the JVC decks is superior. After about 2.5 hours of recording time the JVC units will use Half D1(352×480) resolution while Pansonic uses 720×480 D1 resolution out to four hours. Because of this the Panasonic has to use a lower bit-rate which creates macroblocks and artifacting.

Which unit is right for you depends on your needs. If you’re recording TV shows and using the unit as a VCR and VHS Transfers then the JVC wins hands down. If you’re using the unit to record or transfer less than 2 hours of material the Panasonic will do a fine job.

One cool feature of the Panasonic units is something they call Time Slip. This feature allows you to perform TIVO like functions.

The Panasonic DMR-ES10 is a stand alone recorder for leas than $200. The ES20 adds a firewire connector. The DMR-ES40VS has a built in VCR player as well.

Each of the major companies also have models with built in hard drives. The addition of a hard drive allows these units to get more TIVO like in features such as the ability to freeze live TV and store shows to a hard drive and decide what to burn later on. Some of the hard drive models also feature enhanced menu authoring tools.