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New Recorders Offer High-Quality Video Pennsylvania

Living-room DVD recorders from Pioneer and Panasonic top our chart this month.

1. Local Companies

2. Introduction

3. Skip the Ads

4. Specialties

5. Featured Local Company

1 . Local Companies

Disc Hounds
610-696-8668
15 S. Bolmar St
West Chester, PA

Sire Press
(267)909-9233
3211 Cedar ST
Philadelphia, PA

Apple Store
(412) 683-1186
5508 Walnut St
Pittsburgh, PA

Automated Office Systems Inc
(610) 527-4114
919 Conestoga Rd
Bryn Mawr, PA

Alpdata
(412) 469-9656
McKeesport, PA

Staples
(814) 337-5515
16218 Conneaut Lake Rd
Meadville, PA

Brothers Lazer Service Inc
(724) 439-4988
472 Coolspring St
Uniontown, PA

Ardmore Computers Inc
(610) 649-7939
4 Ardmore Ave
Ardmore, PA

Arch Assoc Corp
(610) 284-0327
6600 Baltimore Ave
Lansdowne, PA

Broadwing Itc
(484) 875-3200
757 Springdale Dr
Exton, PA

Are the format wars finally over? Thankfully, almost. Compared with the hard-drive-equipped DVD recorders we reviewed a year ago, twice as many now support both the +R and -R formats. The only exception here is the Toshiba RD-XS55, the priciest model on the chart at $700.

All of the recorders delivered high-quality video. Every model regardless of its cost (the units we reviewed range from $340 to $700) earned a Very Good score for recording quality in our tests.

We recorded a variety of content in four quality modes, and found the results almost indistinguishable among the devices. And though we noticed some subtle differences in the artifacts that marred video recorded at the lower-quality modes, they weren't enough to affect our scores.

As for the recorders' features, however, they couldn't vary more--while some of the models offer a range of useful extras, others lag behind.

3 . Skip the Ads

If you don't like TV ads, select a recorder that can skip commercials. The Panasonic DMR-EH55S, Pioneer DVR-640H-S, and Toshiba RD-XS55 each offer a commercial-skip button on their remote controls for nixing jingles before they're stuck in your head.

Two recorders, the Lite-On and the Pioneer, have jukebox functions for playing music files and JPEGs. The Pioneer earned our Best Buy nod in part because it comes with a wonderful remote control and works well as a jukebox; it allows you to select multiple albums or a particular genre to play. The Lite-On, by contrast, doesn't let you play a selected folder or play by genre or artist. The unit doesn't even display the title of the currently playing song.

4 . Specialties

The pioneer is the only model here that can write to 8.5GB discs (both double-layer DVD+R and dual-layer DVD-R), and it's one of three units that write to DVD-RAM discs. The Toshiba RD-XS55 does not write to DVD+RW--and though it's the only device here with an ethernet port, you can't download video to its hard drive or display video on your TV over a network.

For scheduling recordings, the Panasonic and Toshiba (the two costliest models we tested) offer the TV Guide On Screen Interactive Program Guide, while the other models work with VCR+ codes.

5 . Featured Local Company

Disc Hounds

610-696-8668
15 S. Bolmar St
West Chester, PA

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New Recorders Offer High-Quality Video Pennsylvania

1 . Local Companies

2 . Introduction

3 . Skip the Ads

4 . Specialties

5 . Featured Local Company