Hard disc drive DVD player

Thinking about buying a DVD / HDD recorder / player seen at Costco… about NT$36,000… not sure if it’s “localised” and has on-screen menus in Chinese or English or is ‘switchable’ between languages.

Anyone bought a DVD / HDD recorder in Taiwan ?

i bought a “benq” dvd recorder a while back, it was switchable. any electronic thing i ever bought here has been. what was the brand?

If it’s one of the international brands it almost certainly has at least English and Chinese. Even the local DVD players usually have both, since most of their market is export.

I am looking around for a DVD/ Hard disc drive.

3C have a Pansonic and 3C claim it is hard to program.
3C also have a BenQ they want to sell me for same money, about 19,000nt

Costco is my next shopping option. Anybody know anything about these things?

Only thing I know is you can record 160gig of tv and that is about 160 hours veiwing with no video tape problems like finding the right spot.

[quote=“Ironman”]I am looking around for a DVD/ Hard disc drive.

3C have a Pansonic and 3C claim it is hard to program.
3C also have a BenQ they want to sell me for same money, about 19,000nt[/quote]

Let’s see… Taiwan made one pushed by Taiwan company…

Hmmmm.

Go with the Panasonic.

Everything I had made by Ben-Q (CD-R drive, DVD+/-RW drive - died, was replaced and died again.

Do the 3C Clerks get comission? Do they speak of the Panasonic as “difficult” because it’s in English and the BenQ is easier because it is Chinese OSD?

Think about these things and try to get them to let you look over the manuals before buying.

Track records speak for themselves though, and Panasonic is lightyears beyond BENQ with other products.

Yeah, not the BenQ. I will do a Costco run soon. Hopefully they have something in a Japanese brand that is useable, reliable and cheap.

My Phillips Video player is dying now. Only 2 years old but used every day so I can zap the adverts. Maybe that was its life test. 1,000-1,200 hours.

i got the benq dvd recorder without hard drive, cheap but tempermental. i’d look at others

I currently use a phillips and it works wonderfully. Before that I had a Sanyo for a month and it was fucking shit. It died. 99% of the recorded discs would only play the second and third recordings and not the first one - on any other player. The Phillips was cheaper, ironically - and better.

I will no longer buy exclusively Taiwanese companies DVD-recorders. Buggy as hell, shitty qc, and poorly made and feature low durability.

An aussie buddy has a digital decoder with hard drive built in.

He can watch one channel and record three others at the same time. That is what gave me the idea.

Seems like nobody owns one of these so I may unfortunately have to be the guinea pig/ early adopter.

Ever think of building a HTPC, or would that be too much work? I haven’t looked into them much, but that’s what I eventually plan on doing.

Maybe there’s a market for them and I should start learning now?
:ponder:

Those DVD recorders with hard drives just seem expensive to me.

[quote=“miltownkid”]Ever think of building a HTPC, or would that be too much work? I haven’t looked into them much, but that’s what I eventually plan on doing.

Maybe there’s a market for them and I should start learning now?
:ponder:

Those DVD recorders with hard drives just seem expensive to me.[/quote]

Maybe, is it worth the time and money. For 18,000nt I get dvd read and write with a 160gig hard drive with all functions to read from my cable and satellite
and record.

Otherwise, if you can do better. Whip one up and I may buy it.

IronMan: I am giving up on my HTPC…pain in the ass. Definitely more versatile, but it doesn’t work as advertised. I am looking as a long term project…ahem…most likely will sit there. It really is a lot of work.

Now I will buy a DVD with HDD recorder. I have been doing some research and the prices in the USA seem infinitely more cheap. Even infinitely cheaper than Costco Taiwan. Which brand and model was that for NT$18,000 and a 160 GB HDD? That sounds like the USA price, umm, actually in the US you can get even cheaper than that.

Just called Costco and they have the Pioneer 510 80GB (NT$32,000) and the Panasonic E80HTN 80 GB (NT$28,999). The prices suck here in Taiwan. There must either be a huge import tax or as usual the importers are adding too much profit. I know the USA is always the cheapest price due to the volume buying in the market and the internet price searching. The E80 in the USA at Amazon is only NT$13,890 (US$445). I think the E80 is already phased out. It is no longer even on the Panasonic website. Ditto for the Pioneer 510.

In the USA the price for the latest and greatest models are between US$470 (NT$14,664)(Toshiba RD-XS34 with 160 GB HDD) and US$645 (NT$20,124)(Pansonic DMR-E500HS with 400 GB HDD).

Anyone have any idea if I have this mailed to my parents and they repackage and send by US Postal service can it get around the customs tax, or if I send via UPS what will the import tax be approximately?

Blockbuster is selling an LG dvd recorder for just under $17K I think or a touch under. On the specs, I couldn’t see how big the hard drive was, although it read and wrote +/- media. The lady eventually rang the supplier to find out how big the drive was before I had to leave, so I still don’t know the size.

here’s the link http://www.blockbuster.com.tw/

Thanks for the heads up Amos but I think that does not have an HDD. Looks like a really good multi-format player though.

66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:5m11 … a_Eng(0407/012-023%2520NewProduct.pdf+LG+4922+DVD+recorder&hl=en&lr=lang_en

Hobart, with the cheap price of dvd media (arount 15nt a disc) do you think a hard drive is necessary? DVD-RWs would suffice wouldn’t that. I’m very interested in this one as I’d like to tape my satelitte too.

AMOS: From what I have read here most of these guys think the HDD is quite useful as discs get full, or you have to remember to put in a blank always, or if it is RW disc that it will get taped over and so on. They say the HDD is worth it and if you check the prices that I mentioned to you, you can still get it cheaper in the US with a HDD.

Got it mate. If it works out worthwhile to get a couple sent over, I’d consider getting one with you. US prices are much cheaper than Aus :wink:

I am getting ready to order the Toshiba XS34 for $399 from B&H Photo. I think they ship internationally to Taiwan. I will have mine shipped to my parents house in the USA and then sent as a repair or gift with low value to skirt the import taxes. I am afraid if we order together and have it shipped over, we will definitely have to pay more taxes as we cannot say it is for personal use, etc. Hmm…it would be nice if you could help out with the shipping costs, I think they will be in excess of NT$4,000. Let me do more research first.

oh darn. not available here.

Went to Zhong Hua Rd. area today and found out the cheapest is that Pioneer 80GB for NT$23k. They didn’t have grey market American ones because they said they are for the USA region only to play the DVDs. I will look for a Code Free version and import it that way instead of trying to find someone in Taiwan to do it for me, just in case I can’t find someone.