achille, could you have possibly specified whether you are speaking of a standalone DVD recorder that you buy at a local discount electronics store or one that resides inside your computer?

If you are referring to the ones inside your computer, most of those are totally adequate for recording CDDA audio CDs, in DISK AT ONCE mode. You can also use a DVD as an ROM archival backup, for your recorded projects.

Now if you're speaking in terms of recording DVD- A or, DVD audio discs, that's a bird of a different color. That usually requires a specific kind of computer program software and are not generally available on standalone DVD recorders.

If you want to use the audio inputs on a standalone DVD recorder, I think you might find that you'll also need to supply the DVD recorder with a video input source to function properly? That can certainly be accomplished with a simple camcorder video output to video input on the DVD recorder. That way the DVD recorder has all of the synchronization signals that the video provides and the recorder needs to see in order to record anything.

So what exactly are you trying to accomplish? Many DVD player/recorders have the ability to reproduce 24-bit audio but I don't believe many of them can record 24-bit audio? I believe they are only really capable of recording 16-bit audio at 48kHz sampling. Please specify?

I prefer an Edison roll recorder
Ms. Remy Ann David

Ok the DVD recorder his a consumer DVD recorder with a 160 GB hard drive, the idea his to record two tracks of classical music, some DVD recorder have 24 bits capability, I dont know if there's an automatic compressor when you record like the VHS machines.
That's possibly an interresting machine for recording (with SPDIF enter or fireWire)
http://hometheater.about.com/cs/toppicks/tp/aatpdvdrecorder.htm

OK, I have similar standalone DVD recorders that I use for numerous live video shoots as backup along with its associated audio track. My biggest complaint about these types of recorders is that they do not possess any kind of audio metering at all! Totally lame when they could have put in a $.50 5 segment LED volume meter! So unless you know what kind of levels you are inputting and what the sensitivity of the inputs on that particular unit is along with its headroom, you could end up with abysmal results.

Basically one thing you don't want to do with any device that uses RCA inputs like most of these consumer oriented machines do, is to feed it a studio + 4 DB, 1.25 volt level input. That will most definitely overload those consumer RCA inputs which in all likelihood want to see something similar to the Teac/TASCAM type -10 DB, .3 volt, input level which is closer to consumer product levels. Plus many of those units also contain AVC or automatic volume control. Now we're not talking good compression here but lousy overworked lame sounding automatic volume control. I don't think these units like you're looking at have that problem as I have not experienced that yet on my Sony DVD recorders. They also don't really record at 24 bits, sorry Charlie. They record at 16-bit 48kHz. They can however frequently playback 24-bit audio from commercially replicated DVDs.

They also will not record on CDs. Only DVDs will they record on. So I am unclear as to what you are trying to accomplish? Why not just invest in something like the Alesis MasterLink standalone CD recorder? It too has a built-in hard disk drive but they take it quite a bit further by offering equalization, compression and limiting and other mastering capabilities that would be much more advantageous for you if you actually want a stand alone optical disk CD recorder, for music purposes.

Of course if you are into the jam band scene, you can always put the DVD recorder into 6 hour mode! Try that with a CD?!?! Of course you can do that with the MasterLink onto its hard drive but you can't fit all of that onto a CD, no matter how PHAT you want your sound to be.

Phatter than I need to be
Ms. Remy Ann David

This thread reminds me of the time (long long ago now) when a VHS HiFi Machine was the poor man's digital. Some Toshiba units even DID have LED input meters and defeatable AGC, and there was even a model (the DX7 or DX9, I think? - the VHS Machine, not the Yamaha Keyboard) that did 14 and 16 bit digital audio as well.

But there were times in a pinch where we'd run our old Sony F1 digital system in/out of the Video track, and (at the same time) record audio into the analog inputs and we'd have a built in backup system going. (once in a while to experient, we'd try four tracks of something, but there was an offset/delay between the two methods, and this was long before DAW's that could fix that sort of thing easily enough.)

It's been a long time for the VHS HiFI, and so far I've never tried recording anything serious into a DVDr, but it might work. I'd guess there's some auto level going on, but how much you'd have to find out by doing some testing. (And most definitely gotta go with -10 level, unbalanced RCA jacks.)

In a pinch, you might be able to run a backup stereo track to save your butt on something, but otherwise, it's probably better to just stick with something safer and more reliable. Heck, the solid state recorders from Marantz, Fostex, and Tascam are getting cheap enough now to soon make it a non-issue.