HD DVD Burners

The world of high definition is the reality for many individuals who watch entertainment on TV and over the Internet. So why not be able to make high definition records of all your favorite media with an HD DVD burner?

All TVs are going to be making the switch to digital very soon, and TV stations already regularly feature HD content on their channels. The number of shows broadcast in HD is only going to increase as the technology becomes more available to members of the public. My guess is that sometime in the next 10 years you are going to see all shows and commercials broadcast in High Definition. Shows like Survivor, NFL Football, CSI, and NCIS all already broadcast in HD and if you want to make some high quality copies for you to watch at your leisure are you going to want to record them on VHS?

Sure, there are really cool things like DVR and Tivo that will let you watch these show for a while after they air - and they will even record them for you automatically, but we all know that the storage on a Tivo and a DVR is not unlimited and that you have many, many different shows that you are going to want to watch again from time to time. This is especially true for serial die-hards - those that buy the show on DVD even though they have already seen every episode when it aired live.

There can be some interesting bonus features on these DVDs, but is it really going to be worth that much money when you can do it yourself by making the HD DVDs all by yourself?

Sites like Hulu, YouTube, and the various network websites all provide content to their users in HD. Even shows that aren't normally broadcast on HD over the air can be viewed in HD on the Internet. If you combine that with a quality flash player ripper you can download the content directly to your hard drive. Some desktop computers can have 100s of GB of information on their hard drive, meaning that you can have hours of high definition video stored on it. Alternatively, you could get an external hard drive that holds 1 TB of information and store hundreds of hours of video. It would all be in HD for you to watch whenever that you want to.

But what happens when you get the NetFlix subscription with streaming HD content. You'll have access to hundreds upon hundreds of titles in HD. What if you want to make a few copies of these movies to take over to a friends house or to supplement your library? You're going to need an HD DVD burner for that.

On CBS:

• Cold Case
• The Young & The Restless
• King of Queens
• How I Met Your Mother
• Two and a Half Men
• CSI Miami
• The Late Show with David Letterman
• NCIS
• Close to Home
• Still Standing
• Yes, Dear
• Criminal Minds
• CSI: New York
• CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
• Without a Trace
• The Ghost Whisperer
• Threshold
• Numb3rs

On ABC:

• Desperate Housewives
• Grey's Anatomy
• Good Morning America
• According to Jim      
• George Lopez     
  
• Alias
• Rodney     
  
• Freddie
  
• Commander in Chief     
  
• Lost     
  
• The Night Stalker     
  
• Hope & Faith
  
• Boston Legal     
  
• Invasion

On Fox:

• Bones
  
• Prison Break
  
• The Bernie Mac Show
  
• House
  

On NBC:

• Las Vegas
  
• Crossing Jordan
  
• Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
  
• The Office
  
• Law & Order
  

Just so you know, when you are looking for an HD DVD burner you are really wanting to look for something that is going to make Blu-Ray DVDs. HD DVD actually lost the battle with Blu-Ray, so there really isn't anyone making that type of HDTV DVD anymore.

What most people look for when searching for an HD DVD burner is something that will burn some DVD is HD quality, not necessarily the brand HD, but you should be aware of this distinction.

There are a lot of different places that could you find and buy one fo these DVD burners. Places like Fry's, Curciut City, Best Buy, WalMart, Target, Radio Shack, and many others offer HD DVD burners at their store. The problem with buying from a place like this is that it is kind of hard to get a good idea of what other stores are selling for at any given moment. Checking on the at the stores Internet site is a pretty good way to do cost comparisons, but these can have prices that are different than the actual in-store price. The one benefit of going with a brick and mortar establishment is that if something goes wrong with yor burner you know exactly where to take it to solve the problem.

The other place that most people are going to buy one of these products is on the Internet. Places like Amazon, NewEgg, Woot, Overstock, and NextTag are all great places to find good deals on all things electronic. The good part about buying an HD DVD burner at one of these places is that you don't need to do any driving. You can get it all done from the confines of your computer chair. Everything from product research to cost comparison to reading reviews about the different online retailers can all be done in a matter of minutes. Shipping on such a high end item is also probably going to be free because most places offer this type of benefit to their customers.

The one downside is that shopping on the internet has the drawback of not being able to take your HD DVD burner to an actual person to have it fixed or replaced if something goes wrong with it. You have to be comfortable with working out an online stores return policies if you go this route or you will have some unwanted headaches waiting for you if something goes wrong.

In the end, I think that going online is probably the cheapest bet but getting something from a store is definitely the traditional, familiar way to go. I'd buy online, but that is just me.