Review: InterVideo WinDVD Recorder Platinum 5.0
| Features |  |
WinDVD Recorder lets you grab still images or capture video (directly to MPEG) in real time by clicking the record button. Or you can click Pause to time-shift live material: WinDVD Recorder will continue recording the signal, and you can play back the recorded material when you're ready, just like with TiVo. However, WinDVD Recorder doesn't work perfectly. Time-shift playback looks somewhat choppy, the interface doesn't provide enough information to show you where you are in the recorded sequence, and you can't save the recorded segment. Sadly, the cool WinDVD time-stretching feature won't work during time-shift playback, so you can't speed up the playback to catch up to the live recording.
Besides flipping through stations, WinDVD Recorder's surfing function lets you watch up to 16 channels consecutively, each of which are continually updated once per second.
The software's scheduler lets you program WinDVD Recorder to record a certain channel at any given time and date. Unfortunately, it's not integrated with the limited electronic program guide, which displays only programs listed by Titan TV.
WinDVD Recorder's most interesting feature lets you record programs onto DVD and CD; simply select the output storage (hard disk, CD, or DVD) and start recording. When you stop, WinDVD Recorder will burn the resulting file directly to disc. It also includes convenient buttons to format and finalize discs.
Unfortunately, in our tests, WinDVD Recorder had some trouble simultaneously capturing video and accessing a DVD, even on our mighty test bed. On at least one occasion, WinDVD Recorder hung up while accessing the DVD; when we killed the application with the video still playing, Windows XP crashed.
WinDVD Recorder provides extensive configuration options. You can burn in DVD-Video format or DVD-VR for set-top recorders. You can also select a predefined compression profile, such as VCD, SVCD, or DVD, or define your own MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 parameters.
