Does any company in the U.S. produce a DVD recorder with a hard drive anymore?

I know used ones can be found on ebay but I would prefer to get a new one if possible.

 

Wrong forum area, should be posted in hardware.

 

I only see an audio hardware forum, not video.

 

I don't think any new units have been available in the US for close to ten years. As DVD drives and hard drives both wear out eventually, I expect there's already a market for servicing the players via the installation of new drives (or the owners who are handy with electronics repair are already doing so themselves).

 

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Magnavox-HD-DVR-HDD-1TB-with-ATSC-Tuner/46444956

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Magnavox-HD-DVR-HDD-500GB-with-ATSC-Tuner/46444957

These are made by Funai. Pretty much available only at Walmart. These now record HD (or SD) on the hard drive and will burn SD DVDs. Walmart alone kept this line going by their special request or demand. I see they are on "sale" at the moment, uh-oh, it could be discontinued and these could be the end of the line. Both have the same guts, only the hard drive size is different, and the firmware of this HD model will only handle up to a 2TB drive. There are ways to open it and carefully have interchangeable hard drives and void your warranty. There is an all-in-one thread here, the first message has all the relevant known and user-found info, on avsforum:
Mag MDR865, 867, 868 HD DVRs w/DVD Burners, Line Inputs, Editing, Rec Modes, USB 3.0 - AVS Forum | Home Theater Discussions And Reviews
There is a 27,000 message thread about the earlier SD-only versions (recorded HD content to hard drive in SD, would burn SD DVDs, firmware good only up to a 1TB hard drive), and the first message is kept continuously updated with known and user-found info, I have one of these:
Magnavox 557, 537, 535, 533, 515, 513, 2160A, 2160, 2080 & Philips 3576, 3575 - AVS Forum | Home Theater Discussions And Reviews
and some more pointed threads on videohelp dot com.

 

They work pretty well. I had one but then bought a Tivo box and just didn't use it anymore, but if you are looking for something like that it does work!

 

No, I think there was kind of a behind-the-scenes conspiracy between the MPAA, the networks, the distributors, and the consumer electronics manufacturers to keep them out. What did not help is that the hard drive recorder/DVD-recorder combos did not sell well, and I think most average people had a perception that they were hard to use.

The best solution (to me) is to use a capture card and a standalone computer to record all this material through HDMI, and figure out how to get around the restrictions of HDMI. It's not that hard. One key is to pick a video format that does the least possible damage to the signal, and also to buy a boatload of drives.

 

Most average people are imbeciles and the concept of something as simple as finalizing a disc is beyond them. I just had transfers done at a professional dub house and specifically ordered XP speed. I got them back, all recorded in SP. And its not the first time, nor the first dub house I've used which did the same thing. I'm no electronic genius but we aren't talking nuclear physics here. But then again, that was why they put in the function on VHS which automatically put the tape into play when it was loaded with a pre-recorded tape. Having to push the play button must have been beyond many people's capability.

 

My advice would have been not to compress them with MPEG (which is incredibly lossy) but instead go with a variant of DNxHD or ProRes 422. Grinding down stuff to DVD results in just too much loss. Compression is bad.

One issue with SP/XP and all that stuff is, the range of disc compatibility is very narrow. You're much better off just getting a digital file (as I said) or just a regular Blu-ray or DVD at a very high bitrate. 8mbps for standard-def and 20mbps for HD is very good, pretty much broadcast quality. But a lot depends on the source material.