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JULY 28, 2003
Lose the Extras on These DVD Players Recreating the complexity that kept some VCR owners from ever recording anything I watch DVD movies at home on a $75 Mintek player. There's nothing fancy about it, but it does all I want. The DVD players' incredibly rapid run from pricey novelty to cheap commodity has consumer-electronics makers scrambling for ways to put premium value back into these products. My experience suggests, however, that this may not be the best thing for consumers. I tried out two of the newfangled players: the D2730 Networked DVD Player from GoVideo (once part of the now-dismembered SONICblue) and the $599 Panasonic (MC ) DMR-E60S DVD Video Recorder. Both are very good high-end players, and both include premium features such as progressive-scan output, which generates better quality pictures for high-definition monitors. But the two products differ radically in their efforts to go beyond the standard player. The $299 GoVideo unit is part of a growing trend of adding Ethernet networking capability to consumer-electronics products. After you install software on one or more Windows PCs in your house and plug in a network cable (or install an optional Wi-Fi wireless card), you use your television to select music or view videos or photos stored on your PCs. The networking setup is very simple -- actually easier than connecting the DVD player to a TV or home theater. And for music, the GoVideo player will use the catalogs and playlists set up by standard PC applications such as MusicMatch Jukebox or Windows Media Player. The results with video will depend on the quality of the recording and the speed of your network. Video that is acceptable when viewed in a window on a computer display can look horrible on a big TV set. And except for the brand new Wi-Fi adapters, the wireless networks are not fast enough for high-quality video. These network functions are modest and available in other products such as TiVo (TiVO ) Series 2 and ReplayTV personal video recorders. Still, you may find them useful in a DVD player. Since they come at a relatively small premium of perhaps $100 over a nonnetworked high-end player, the GoVideo unit can be considered a good value. The $599 (substantial discounts may be available) Panasonic DVD recorder could desperately use a network connection. It tries to fill the gap between increasingly obsolete video cassette recorders and hard-disk based personal video recorders. Unfortunately, it mostly just recreates the complexity that has kept millions of VCR owners from ever recording anything. The beauty of personal video recorders, which get program guides from the Internet, is simplicity: Find the show you want on an on-screen menu, press a button, and you're set. The Panasonic recorder makes you enter the time, date, and channel you want to record (or a VCR+ code). If you want the recording on DVD to have a title, you must enter it manually. And the recorder offers no way, such as an "IR blaster" that simulates a remote, to control a digital set-top box or satellite receiver. So if that's how you get your television, you must set the channel manually in advance. The lack of a program guide and the inability to control other devices is especially frustrating when you realize that the Panasonic recorder costs more than a TiVo or ReplayTV with a lifetime service subscription. The advantage of the DVD approach is that it produces recordings that can be played elsewhere. This is diminished somewhat by Panasonic's choice of the DVD-RAM format, rather than the more popular DVD+RW or DVD-RW. DVD-RAM, mainly used by professionals for video-file storage, has some plusses: It offers the ability (shared with hard disks) to play one recorded show while capturing another, and the ability to edit on disk. Unfortunately, editing on-screen using a remote control is painfully crude, and the DVD-RAM disks won't work in most non-Panasonic players. You can also record to write-once DVD-R disks, which will work in most players, but you lose the advanced features. I ended up using the Panasonic recorder mostly as a tool to make archival copies of shows I had recorded on my ReplayTV. What I really want is a setup that incorporates the DVD recorder, so that all I would have to do is select a recorded show on the Replay or other PVR and click a "save to DVD" button to create a permanent copy. These early attempts to integrate computer technology into consumer electronics prove that we still have a long way to go. The attraction of convergence is compelling. We just need better, easier-to-use products.  By Stephen H. Wildstrom
BW MALL
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