VCR's better-looking brother

By PETER GRIFFIN

Be warned. After reading this, your relationship with your VCR may cool somewhat. There's a more attractive recorder on the block that can offer you more emotional satisfaction and is nowhere near as high-maintenance.

It's the DVR or digital video recorder, and it will change the way you indulge in that most basic of pastimes - watching TV.

With the huge popularity of DVD players - you can now buy one for around $200 - tape is dead. Have you noticed the "DVD creep" in your local Video Ezy? Old VHS copies of Pulp Fiction and The Matrix in the $1 budget bin?

But the VCR clings to its place under the TV for a couple of reasons - the DVD back catalogue is far from complete and the VCR records.

Enter the DVR with computer hard drive. The prices of these machines will floor you, but we'll get to that. First the redeeming features.

One of the few available devices on the market here that boasts hard drive and DVD burner in one, is the Panasonic DMR-HS2.

It has the appearance and dimensions of a regular DVD player, if not a bit heavier. Under the hood, though, there's a world of difference. Not only does it allow you to burn to DVD-R and DVD Ram discs, high capacity and high quality storage media. It also has a 40GB (gigabyte) hard drive, meaning you can record TV straight to the box and store it there - up to 52 hours on a low quality setting, which is quite watchable. It also has a built-in TV tuner.

The box allows a few things likely to change your watching patterns.

Start with "chasing", a practice that lifts the curse of ad-breaks. Fancy watching the six o'clock news ad-free? Start recording to your hard drive 20 minutes before you sit down to begin viewing. The chase mode will jump forward in one-minute blocks, leapfrogging ad breaks. The rest of the news is still being recorded as you view earlier segments.

Then there is "timeslip" which lets you jump forward or backward to any point in your recording with the press of a button - no rewinding or fast-forwarding nonsense.

So-called renewal recording is for soap-opera buffs who map out their week around the likes of Shortland Street. Each day or week the HS2 will record over the last recorded episode at the same place on the hard drive, deleting the watched version. Programming is easily organised through a Sky TV-like menu.

Thrown in with the HS2 is a firewire port for users of DV camcorders. They are able to transfer home movie footage to the hard drive with virtually no loss of quality.

On the hard drive the footage can even be edited, though real digital home movie buffs will want to invest in a more sophisticated PC-based editing suite, rather than try to navigate a remote control and onscreen menus. On the HS2, however, you can put in chapters, cut out poor camera work and label the disc.

Ports allow you to plug in your old VCR to transfer your moulding old tapes to hard drive or DVD.

Take note when choosing a DVD recorder. There are compatibility issues because different standards exist and are backed by different companies. Your DVD Ram disc won't play on a wide range of DVD players on the market, but DVD-R, supported by the HS2, is more compatible. Unfortunately, the rival DVD+RW is backed by a wide range of electronics firms and does not support DVD Ram, which has technical superiority. But compatibility will become less important as more multi-format drives are released.

Don't get the idea you are going to be able to copy your favourite DVDs to the hard drive and then burn your own copies to disc. Copyright protection technology stops that.

A PC card slot allows you to transfer jpeg pictures from SD cards, Memory Sticks or Compact Flash to the hard drive and view them. Watching a slide show of your favourite photos on a 29in TV sure beats huddling around a photo album.

All of that is very impressive, but it is expensive. The HS2 is $2799. In the US you can get the same model for about US$800 ($1375). And Panasonic is open about the fact the HS2 will be superseded by a better model as soon as August. The improved version will boast an 80GB hard drive and an inbuilt SD slot so buying a PC card will not be necessary. It will also support mpeg2 and mpeg4 recordings from digital cameras. The message is wait a few months - there'll be more choice and the HS2 will have a better price.

And soon you'll be spoilt for choice in this area. Electronics makers increasingly have designs on building a box that will house games consoles, TiVo-type recorders and DVD burners all in one.

Last month Sony unveiled early details of the PSX, a stop-gap before the highly anticipated PlayStation 3, for a wider audience than gamers.

Boasting a 120GB hard drive, DVD recorder, TV tuner card and the ability to download movies and music from the web, the PSX will draw interest from the average TV watcher to home entertainment enthusiasts to gamers.

There's no sign the likes of TiVo and ReplayTV are set to land here. The major problem is co-ordinating with network operators so electronic programming guides can be supplied and updated regularly. Until then devices like the HS2 are as good as we can expect.

Panasonic DMR-HS2:


* $2799.

* www.panasonic.co.nz

* Pros: Good-quality recording and playback. Supports camcorder transfer and PC card for still photo storage.

* Cons: Very expensive, DVD-RAM compatibility issues, hard drive capacity low. Badly designed remote control.

* Rating - 7.5/10.

www.dvddemystified.com

www.replaytv.com

www.tivo.com