I had a frustrating experience today doing something that I really don't ever remember trying before. I need to know, is what I am trying impossible, or am I doing something wrong.

I had recorded a program SP mode onto the hard drive of my EH55. While editing the commercials out, I made a mistake and accidentally deleted a part of the content. I usually use playlists, so this won't happen, but not this time.:o Yes, a stupid thing to have done. Well, I either had to wait for the episode to come around again in rerun rotation (could be a very long time) or I could download it from the net.

I brought out my EH50 to my computer (which has a composite output just for this reason) and downloaded the ten minute segment, recording it in SP mode, put it on a -RAM disk, brought it to the EH55, copied it to the HDD and patched it in place using playlists. It would NOT HS dub. the >>O symbol was not there. Well, I think that it might be the machine, so I do this again using my EH75, which is almost identical to the EH55 in it implimentation. Again, it wouldn't HS dub. So, I now, a little angry and confused, I take my computer to the EH55 (the EH55 is in a console and very hard to remove, harder than the computer is to move actually). this is the recorder that I used when I made the original recording that I had erased. I do the same thing, and it STILL won't let me HS dub the content when combined.:(

Is what I am trying to do impossible, or did I do something wrong? Suggestions please. I would think that two SP segments recorded on the same machine should be HS dubable. No?

First of all, nice selection of machines:cool:
To me it sounds like you did everything you would need to do. First you used a RAM disc (AFAIK the only disc that should retain the HS bit). Second you recorded that RAM disc in a HDD equipped machine(AFAIK the only machines that will record the HS bit). Third, one of your tries was on the EH-75v (the EH-55 close clone) and Forth, you even tried a EH-55 and to boot even the same one you are doing your project on:confused:
I'm a little confused on what you did with your EH-55. Did you record from your composite source directly to the EH-55's HDD or did you record to the EH-55's RAM disc and then copy to it's HDD? Either should work but I'm just not clear what method you used.

Just to verify, on both your EH50 and EH-75v you do have the High Speed option enabled in the setup don't you? If you didn't that could explain things, but surely you have the HS option enabled on your EH-55 since you seem to use that option, so I don't have a clue why that option didn't work:(

I frequently record things on my EH-55 from it's S-video input and then HS that content to DVD. I only have one HDD Panny so I've never done what you tried, but I have read one needs to use a RAM disc and also the donor machine needs to be a HDD equipped machine. I know non HDD machines like a ES-30v, ES-15 or ES-25 won't work even if using RAM discs.

Could the key fly-in-the-ointment be the use of a play list to effectively join the segments?

I've not had occasion to use playlists on my EH-75, so I'm wondering if this is analogous to 3 separate titles for HS dubbing purposes?

Can you try real time dub to the hdd of either machine, then try dubbing at HS to dvd-r? (don't forget to add some chapter markers after real time dubbing)

Perhaps the downloaded segment had copy protection signals embedded from the orignal broadcast?

Okay, here is what I did. I recorded a program on my DirecTV DVR, and then copied it in SP to my EH55. I then deleted it from the DVR, like a dope, BEFORE I burned the disk.:o I then edited it to delete the commercials. I always do this with playlists so the title is unaffected, but it was late and I wasn't thinking. I was in the title editing, not playlist editing page, purely by mistake. That was where I accidentally deleted part of the content.:o

I decided to download just the segment I had deleted. The picture from Hulu is not as good as the one from the digh def DVR, so I didn't want to do the whole episode from Hulu.

When I combined the parts, the high speed dub flag was not there. If I separated the parts, each one allowed HS dubbing individually, but not when combined. I could have made three titles out of the pieces and HS dubbed each one by itself, but not combined. The "properties" for each segment all say SP mode, so I know I have that right. Since they allow HS dubbing separately, the HS is enabled on all of the machines.

Everything was recorded to the hard drives, and then copied to the -RAM disks for transferring. The segment(s) I recorded to my EH55 were all done to the HDD, and not using -RAM at all, since it was unnecessary and merely made extra steps. The finished title played back really well, and looked great, (hooray for playlists!) but I really want to maintain the chapter marks and real-time dubbing would eliminate them.

Still confused.

When I combined the parts, the high speed dub flag was not there. If I separated the parts, each one allowed HS dubbing individually, but not when combined.
One explanation could be that the combined "title", which had to created to provide a pointer for the pieces, does not have the HS annotation.

You could prove or disprove this by recording two or three short titles on the 55 with HSD on, then combine them and see if it also loses the HSD annotation.

The only difference I can think of is I used an S-Video in from the DVR, and a composite from the computer. I can't think that using S-Video rather than pomposite would make a difference. Isn't it all 480i data streams anyway? The machine does not know where they come from.

Is this nothing that anyone else has tried? I was hoping someone has done this with success and could advise me.

Sigh...

I wonder if this could be an aspect ratio problem? Yes, I know all 3 segments are 4x3, but I wonder if the computer transfer is read as a different aspect ratio by the DVDR? I know that some DVDRs will not record a single program, with more than one aspect ratio, in HS. My Pio 640 claims it won't, in the manual. Really it will... but it inserts chapter marks at every aspect ratio change, even in HS dubbing!

It might be worth exploring the aspect ratio angle. Although my experience with an EH55 is limited, on my Toshiba RD-XS35 I ran into a similar problem last year.

Although I usually shoot 16:9 with my miniDV camcorder to import to my RD-XS35, someone had borrowed the camera a bit, fiddled with the settings and shot a scene in 4:3. I then reset the camera to 16:9 and continued shooting. I imported the footage into the RD-XS35 no problem, but when I tried to do a High Speed Dub, it gagged and threw up an error message which was actually helpful in that it explained that two different aspect ratios cannot coexist.

IIRC I fixed it by doing one of two things or both, which you could try. First, I split the scenes into three separate titles, the 16:9, followed by the 4:3, followed by the 16:9.

But if I remember, even then it wouldn't HS dub. I trimmed the first few seconds off the beginning of the 1st scene when I resumed shooting in 16:9 on the camcorder, because somehow perhaps it was still sending enough of a 4.3 flag to confuse the RD-XS35. I think that did it and I was then able to HS dub.

I don't remember if I had done this with playlists or with the actual video, but you might want to try it first with just playlists, just to play it safe.

Last evening I tried a large number of experiments with my EH55, and they all worked fine!?!:eek: I am thinking that this was an anomaly. I did mulitple recordings from the computer, DVR, both to the hard drive and -RAM disks. The EH55 allowed me to combine them and do HS dubbing on the combined playlists. The one combination that I really want, won't work, but all the test cases do.:confused:

"It is a puzzlement!"

First of all, nice selection of machines
Well, off topic, but yes. I started out buying an E85, a long time ago it seems. Before that I had over a dozen VHS recorders, one I paid $1000.00 for!:eek: I use televisions extensively in the living room and the den. After the E85 was such a success that I retired all my remaining VHS recorders, I needed a second DVD recorder for the den. By that time, Panasonic had just come out with the EH50, so that is what I bought. A year or so later, the EH55 and EH75 were released, but I had an E85 and an EH50, so I decided to wait until the improved next year's models came out. That never happened.:(

After a good long time, it became obvious that no newer/better HDD models were going to be released in the US, and I started to, well, get worried. My wife has an uncle that lives in Canada, and we were getting together for a wedding, so I asked him if he would go to Futureshop, (or whatever that canadian place is, I forget) and pick me up an EH55 and I'll pay him for it--and the trouble. He got what he claimed was the last one in the store that is close to him,:) so that's how I got the EH55, late but who cares. It works great!

The EH75 acquisition was even more unlikely. I was looking for something, I can't even remember what, and I was comparing prices with bizrate, or pricegrabber, one of those many pages, and on a whim I typed in EH75 and to my utter shock, it said that Beach Camera had one!:eek: I really didn't believe it, but I went to the web site and there it was listed as available. I think I made a person-best time in processing a web-based order. After my order, the web page immediately turned from available to out-of-stock. They only had the one.

When it arrived, it clearly was not "new in an unopened factory box" as had been advertised. The clock had been set, several non default settings had been made in the setup menus, and the original plastic covering had been replaced with something different. Also, the styrofoam packing had been pulverized to mostly beads. The machine was in perfect shape though. I called Beach Camera and mentioned it had been previously opened, and listed what I said here. They assured me that I was wrong, and they only sell unopened stock, but if I was unhappy and wanted to return it, that would be fine with them. BOY! was I NOT about to return it. It too has been a real workhorse for me, especially during my VHS tape to DVD transfer project.

So, yes, it is a nice mix of machines, but it was mostly luck that I got teh EH55 and EH75. I was lucky that my wife has an uncle in Canada, and that he got the last one in the store. It was extreme luck that I got the EH75 from Beach Camera, and that though used, it was in perfect shape. I am assuming it was a return. ...sometimes it's better to be lucky...