DVD Recorders

Is there any policy on DVD recorders in the satellite rack? I have not been able to find anything one way or another in any of the STS / AV rep materials I was provided with. The FM indicated that it is not an authorized piece of equipment and thus cannot be connected to the system. If it is in fact not authorized is there something that can be done to get DVD recorders on the authorized equipment list, it is getting harder and harder to find VHS tapes and becoming more cost effective / convenient to use DVDs.

Any insight on this issue would be appreciated.

michaelbuhrley wrote:Is there any policy on DVD recorders in the satellite rack? I have not been able to find anything one way or another in any of the STS / AV rep materials I was provided with. The FM indicated that it is not an authorized piece of equipment and thus cannot be connected to the system. If it is in fact not authorized is there something that can be done to get DVD recorders on the authorized equipment list, it is getting harder and harder to find VHS tapes and becoming more cost effective / convenient to use DVDs.

Any insight on this issue would be appreciated.

I really doubt that there is any policy one way or the other. I suppose the FM could say you can't put it in the rack, but of course you can connect a DVD recorder to the system at any of the various jacks throughout the building.

It would be more convenient to put it in the rack. Hopefully you can have a constructive conversation with the FM group where they can explain what their concerns are (aside from a blanket prohibition) and see if you can address them. I don't see how the presence of a low-heat piece of equipment like a DVD burner presents any risks to the various components that are already in the rack, but you do have to respect that the FM group essentially owns the rack.

If they won't bend, you'll have to do something like storing the DVD burner in a closet and pulling it out and plugging it into a jack in the chapel or some other room when it's time to record a broadcast.

michaelbuhrley wrote:Is there any policy on DVD recorders in the satellite rack? I have not been able to find anything one way or another in any of the STS / AV rep materials I was provided with. The FM indicated that it is not an authorized piece of equipment and thus cannot be connected to the system. If it is in fact not authorized is there something that can be done to get DVD recorders on the authorized equipment list, it is getting harder and harder to find VHS tapes and becoming more cost effective / convenient to use DVDs.

Any insight on this issue would be appreciated.

While I haven't seen or heard of DVD recorders becoming standard issue, I also have never heard any objection made regarding their use for recording broadcasts. We never consulted our FM group before we made the switch. But they are aware of it and haven't raised any concerns.

In case you haven't already seen this thread, read it for some discussion on the subject.

Given the inherent risk of media errors that comes with DVD recording, depending on when you will need to play the recording, make sure you cover your bases. Most broadcasts are rebroadcast, giving you one or more additional shots at it if the first one fails. On more than one occasion, I have been asked to time-shift a broadcast such that the locally scheduled viewing is to occur before any rebroadcasts. We have a DVR/DVD burner combo that gives us high level of reliability. I recently added a PC with a tuner to the mix to provide additional recording capacity and redundancy, if needed. It also lets me record both English and Spanish feeds concurrently.

I think the underlying concern is that the rack is set up by a outside vendor and come with a warranty - but it's void if anyone goes dinking around in there. I think the FM group is avoiding the risk of paying for a repair that's caused by the members.

danpass wrote:We have a DVR/DVD burner combo that gives us high level of reliability. I recently added a PC with a tuner to the mix to provide additional recording capacity and redundancy, if needed. It also lets me record both English and Spanish feeds concurrently.

Please tell me more about the PC solution you are using, I like the sound of that, Also what DVR/DVD are you using.
Thanks for the information.

michaelbuhrley wrote:Please tell me more about the PC solution you are using, I like the sound of that, Also what DVR/DVD are you using.
Thanks for the information.

Go to the thread I referred to in my previous post for details about the DVR.

With regard to the PC solution, I'm still zeroing in on the right software. I'm using a generic external tuner that connects to the PC via a USB cable and has a connection for an F connector. If supports both digital/HDTV as well as analog signals. It came with Windows based software for tuning, viewing and recording content. I don't care for the software, but haven't spent much time looking for an alternative.

I soon plan to start playing around with MythTV at home and could eventually end up using it on our stake AV PC.

I am going to be recommending to our Stake soon to purchase two Neuros OSD devices with two hard drives (we have a Spanish Speaking Branch). I can then take the files recorded by those devices and create DVDs really quick. Having them in a digital format allows me to quickly create them into DVDs with chapters. I can also store the recordings on a hard drive so that I can recreate the DVDs as needed.

net_runner wrote:Neuros OSD devices with two hard drives

I'm seeing an attractive street price of under $200, but how do you get from the device to DVD? Are you then walking the drive over to a computer?

RussellHltn wrote:I'm seeing an attractive street price of under $200, but how do you get from the device to DVD? Are you then walking the drive over to a computer?

Amazon currently has them listed for $160 right now.

Basically, you have the right idea. What I have done in the past is I have recorded the videos using Xvid and created an AVI file. I then transfer the file to the PC (either by walking the drive over or recording over a network connection). I then used VLC Media Player to watch the broadcast and determine the time points where I want the chapters to be. I then take that information and use AVI2DVD to then create a DVD .iso file. Inside that program, you can specify where the chapters are going to occur. I then burn the ISO file to DVD. I keep the ISO or AVI files around so that if needed, I can create a new disk quickly. The biggest hangup is that we are trying to convert a lot of our older broadcasts from VHS to DVD, so I have to wait hours for the video to be converted over. In general, the disks take 3 hours to create, but then I have a DVD iso that can be used over and over.

I was recently called to be an Audiovisual Specialist for the stake and I noticed that we are currently using DVDs to record broadcasts. I do not know very much information about it yet though as I have only seen it once. Though with General Conference coming around soon I hope to better familiarize myself with the equipment.

My stake has a DVD recorder built into the Satellite cabinet. Could it be possible that different FM group managers have different policies?

James_Francisco wrote:My stake has a DVD recorder built into the Satellite cabinet. Could it be possible that different FM group managers have different policies?

I asked mine about adding components. He had no issue as long as add-ons did not interfere with the FM provided equipment operations. That being said he wants to approve each add-on for compatibility.

I'm willing to believe that it would depend upon the level of expertise that each FM group has available. Some FM groups farm out much of the tech support to an outside source and others may be blessed to have a member of their group with the savy to support the tech aspects of a group.

We have a DVD recorder in our cabinet and it's never been a problem.

Has the Church considered posting .ISO files for the Stake Technical Specialist (STS) people so that they can make good consistent copies of the broadcasts? There would be some logistical issues and you wouldn't want to take away from the DVD sales (i.e. General Conference DVDs), but it would be useful for the creation of DVDs in the libraries.

net_runner wrote:and you wouldn't want to take away from the DVD sales (i.e. General Conference DVDs)

I don't know why not. I don't think the church runs the DVDs as a profit center. I'd love to be able to download a DVD, burn it and have a nice "clean" copy for the library.

net_runner wrote:Has the Church considered posting .ISO files for the Stake Technical Specialist (STS) people so that they can make good consistent copies of the broadcasts? There would be some logistical issues and you wouldn't want to take away from the DVD sales (i.e. General Conference DVDs), but it would be useful for the creation of DVDs in the libraries.

I suggested this back in January but never got any comments from other forum members or church employees.

Making ISO images of broadcasts available should be easy from a technical standpoint. Perhaps there would be issues relating to music copyrights that would prevent this method of distribution.

net_runner wrote:Has the Church considered posting .ISO files for the Stake Technical Specialist (STS) people so that they can make good consistent copies of the broadcasts? There would be some logistical issues and you wouldn't want to take away from the DVD sales (i.e. General Conference DVDs), but it would be useful for the creation of DVDs in the libraries.

I'm wondering if it might entail not only copyright issues but also bandwidth issues. If ISO's were available they might see their bandwidth requirements go through the roof.

On the other hand, once downloaded they could also decrease the number of viewings of the online media. So it may result in no change of bandwidth or possibly even less total BW needed.

ISO files are interesting too to international unit libraries. For exemple, a Brazilian unit can download a ISO file with the broadcast audio in Portuguese and burn a CD or DVD as a fast way than wait a more long time for the files post at LDS.org broadcast archives.

Along the same lines, a ISO file could have multiple language tracks. There's no way I know of to record a DVD with multiple languages.