Yes, LSI encoder chips outperform ATI cards. The best LSI chipped recorder are the JVC DVD recorders.
More reliable? Well, I have little faith in digital timers. But so far, my JVC DR-M100S has only made one mistake in the past 2 months, and I think it may have been because of the disc (not entirely sure).
There is no review site online (so far) that is not handicapped by money (give best review to company that pays them most for advertising or freebis), or handicapped by stupidity (giving better reviews because of color or layout of remote control, or only testing SP mode and nothing else).
Panasonic, Philips, and Cyberhome are the 3 worst machines you could ever possibly buy, unless you want totally unfiltered video (no clean-up), you can put up with various noises, and you never want to do more than 2 hours per DVD without serious quality degradation.
Runners-up to JVC include LG, LiteOn, Pioneer and Toshiba.
Everything else is sort of just "blah".
LSI encoder chips handle bitrate allocation well, give clean encodes, and have chroma noise removal and block suppression tech inside them. JVC goes it ever further, with more added filters.
You want the best quality DVD video? Get yourself a JVC. The DR-M100S should give you a great experience. Use DVD-RW and in DVD-VIDEO mode, then rip video to your hard drive (follow guides!) and edit out commercials and make nice menus.
Another benefit of a DVD recorder is your video files are not clogging a hard drive until you're ready for them. Just stack up DVD-RW discs. A few times I even just outright used DVD-R and thrown them away when done.
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