I record and archive a lot of foreign shows from a local low-power station. Some of these have a run time that is just more than half the capacity of a standard DVD-R, so I use FR mode to fit two onto a disc.

The fianalized discs , though, don't have the proper thimbnails I selected. For shorter programs, where I am able to fit two using High-speed dubbing, the thumbnails are always retained. How can I keep the thumbnails when using FR?

When performing a real time dub from the hdd to disc-which it sounds like you do on occasion, all manually set chapter marks and the thumbnails are not transferred along to the dubbed programs. You can select a thumbnail all over again before you finalize the disc.

And note-if both programs are the same length, say 65 to 70 mins @ SP rec mode, you don't have to FR dub them both at the same time. High speed dub the first, then FR dub the second. It'll save you some time.

Additionally, which a little calculating, you could FR record the over length shows to the hdd first, then hi speed dub them both to disc, saving even more time. Figuring out the time to set an FR Recording can be a bit complicated, and I don't want to over load you with info until you're ready to tackle it. Plus I'm a bit fuzzy on it as well, as I haven't had to do it in a long while. But other Panny owners here can help, when you're up to learning how.

The best approach would, without a doubt, be to use FR recording to the HDD, and then real-time copy to the DVD. when recording both pieces that will be on a single DVD, select an FR time that is about 95% of the combined times of both segments. On Panasonic machines, if you select the total time as the FR time, it will only fill 90% of the disk. That's why I recommend you use 95% of the total time, to better utilize all the disk available.

I agree with the others, you don't want to be doing a realtime re-encode from HDD to DVD. It not only takes much longer and puts undue wear and tear on your burner but it also reduces your picture quality on the DVD.
Also note for FR(recording to the HDD), if you're not around to manually stop your recordings you'll need to trim off the last half of your first titles(if directly recording FR to DVD(not RAM) you MUST push STOP for all titles except the last).

Example for 2 titles:

Program 1, 65 minutes-Set FR for 124 minutes (65x2=130x.95%=123.5 rounded up to 124. If program #2 was the same 65 minutes you'd also set FR for 124 minutes.
After recording both titles will be 124 minutes long(if you weren't around to press STOP) just go into SHORTEN title and edit off the last 59 minutes and you should be good to go. How I easily trim the ending of a program(only takes a minute) is as follows: I get into SHORTEN mode and when the title starts to play I push NEXT. It immediately takes me to the end of the title. I then SLOW back for about 5 actual seconds(to allow me to search) I then push PLAY quickly followed by SEARCH backwards. It usually only takes me less than 1/2 minute using a fast search speed to get to the end of my program. When I get to the end of my program I hit ENTER which sets my start edit point, then all I have to do is push SKIP which takes me to the end of the recording followed by ENTER again to set the ending edit point, followed by ENTER again to delete my marked segment. Really quite easy when you get use to it.
FR is really one area where Pioneers seem better, while FR can allow exact settings Pioneers MN seems a whole lot less complicated:confused:

You can set your thumbnail and chapters anytime on the HDD and when you HS to your DVD they will remain intact. As others have said a realtime re-encode will lose your chapters, thumbnails and picture quality. Of course you can change the thumbnail even on the DVD but not chapters(unless using RAM discs).

Editing the titles after you have recorded them was implied in my post, if not directly stated. Sorry about the omission. Yes, if you have two titles, one say 75 minutes, and the other 65 minutes, the total is 140 minutes, and won't fit on a 120 minute disk. So you take 140 * 0.95 = 133. If this were a single title, you would have to use the 140 minutes, because you can't put in 133 and get the whole thing, you would miss the last seven minutes. Because it is in two parts, you enter a FR time of 133 for each of them, edit the titles (I use playlists) to get them down to the content you want, enter thumbnails and titles, and high speed dub them to the DVD media.

Thanks for the input.

I've been recording on my Pannys for years, but have never really investigated Flex Recording until recently.

One thing I see in the manual is the control under "Other Functions". This has the time setting you all describe. I am recording via a manually programmed recording. There is an FR mode available here, but I don't see any length setting function there (other than the schedule timer, of course).

I should also add that the station I am recording has a very loose schedule, so I have to record a lot of overrun on both ends to ensure I get the whole thing.

So, what would I do do use Flexible Recording in this situation?

One thing I see in the manual is the control under "Other Functions". This has the time setting you all describe. I am recording via a manually programmed recording. There is an FR mode available here, but I don't see any length setting function there (other than the schedule timer, of course).

I should also add that the station I am recording has a very loose schedule, so I have to record a lot of overrun on both ends to ensure I get the whole thing.

So, what would I do do use Flexible Recording in this situation?
Using FR is best when you know the exact start time, but with the loose scheduling, you can set the time for your show to start say 10 mins before it begins, for 124 mins to 133 mins, depending on how long they run. START TIME: ----
END TIME: -----
CHANNEL:----
QUALITY:FR
DESTINATION:HDD
Back to back recording of different shows will not be possible unfortunately. Record to the HDD, then edit out the surrounding chunks. Or use the Playlist function to make a playlist title of the program, minus the extraneous bits...By the way, if you're home while recording, once the program finishes, you don't have to let the machine continue recording. You can stop it once it's over.

Roughly, how long do these shows run? Are there commercials? It helps to narrow down how long ypu set the timer.

As Westly-C said using FR with a timer recording is kind of tricky. Lets say for example you want to record a 1hr program that starts at 7PM in a speed that would be a 3hr speed. What you'll need to do is schedule the event for 7-10PM (or 6-9PM) etc. then trim out the ending, beginning or both to end up with your 1hr program which is recorded in the 3hr speed. You can then HS that title to DVD or keep it on your HDD, either way you'll have a 1hr title recorded in the 3hr speed. Again as Wes said if you're home you can set FR for a 3hr duration and just push STOP at the end. In this case you'll also have a 1hr program recorded in the 3hr speed and you won't have to edit your title.

I record and archive a lot of foreign shows from a local low-power station. Some of these have a run time that is just more than half the capacity of a standard DVD-R, so I use FR mode to fit two onto a disc.
Let me guess - is it the K-dramas on WOCH?

If so, I'm surprised you can actually do that successfully, since their scheduling is so gosh darned erratic.

It would drive me nuts if I had to put up with that - but I don't, since I have KBS World on Dish.

Rammitinski, you got it!:D

I record so much extra. My HDD is always getting filled up, until I can do some trimming and burning.:rolleyes:

I was so glad when I suplemented my E80H with a EH75V, and could do High-speed dubbing of playlists, only to be done in by the fact that many of these dramas run 70 minutes per episode.

I wonder, just how many of us really watch the stuff we've archived again on a regular basis. And our archives keep growing.

I oftn think the point is just to have it, not to watch it.:p

Here's a thought...why not just use LP mode? Are these K dramas filled with special effects or something that you want picture quality as close to SP or what? You could then fit 3 on a disc rather than 2, avoid undue editing, and high speed dub your cares away...

Anyways, I did some experimenting tonight, and recorded 2 different shows in FR mode, using 130 min (2 hours 10min) as the benchmark. A 65min 'program', after trimming away the excess, yielded a file size of 2150mb, half the space of disc. So for a 70 min show, you'd maybe add and extra 5 mins.

Editing the titles after you have recorded them was implied in my post, if not directly stated. Sorry about the omission. Yes, if you have two titles, one say 75 minutes, and the other 65 minutes, the total is 140 minutes, and won't fit on a 120 minute disk. So you take 140 * 0.95 = 133. If this were a single title, you would have to use the 140 minutes, because you can't put in 133 and get the whole thing, you would miss the last seven minutes.

And if you're editing out commercials, you use the post-editing times. For example. I'm recording Star Trek: The Next Generation which runs five nights a week on one station here. Each episode clocks in at a few seconds over 43:30 after removing commercials. I want to put two episodes (87 minutes) on a disc, so I use a FR time of 1:25 for each episode. This gives me slightly better picture quality than SP. If I wanted to use disc space more efficiently, I'd use a FR time of 2:05 and put three episodes on a disc.

This works well for series programming because most shows on most stations are very consistent in their running time. In fact, I've used FR 1:25 for all the hour-long shows that I've recorded during the past few years. Most stations use every minute of commercial time that the FCC allows them to use. (This is for broadcast stations, I don't know if cable channels have the same rules for commercial time.)

And if you're editing out commercials, you use the post-editing times... This works well for series programming because most shows on most stations are very consistent in their running time.
Yes, this is definitely correct. I know it's a little like looking into a crystal ball to know the post editing time, but as has been mentioned, once you get the time for a show, it is very unlikley to change. Maybe from one season to the next, but rarely in mid season.

For live stuff like sporting events, you do need a crystal ball in order to set the FR time appropriately. :p

Unless you record it onto an HD DVR first. Then you can dub it once to the DVD recorder in SP mode or whatever, cut out the commercials and see how long it is when you're done. Then dub a fresh copy from the DVR with a suitable FR time setting, and edit it all over again. I've actually gone through this time-consuming process for games that I really wanted to keep. :o

In cases like that it would be nice if DVRs allowed one to edit out things like commercials, then it would be a piece of cake:cool:

For live stuff like sporting events, you do need a crystal ball in order to set the FR time appropriately. :p
Yes, so most people err far on the conservative side just in case, and in most "events" they end up with quite a lot of unused space on the DVD, but at least they have the whole program.

The "doing it once for time, and the second time for real" process is just TOO cumbersome to do unless you're REALLY motivated to use all the free space on a disk!:mad:

While I don't care to waste disc space either, if I end up with a little bit of blank space at the end of a disc, lately I've been telling myself it's not really wasted since IMO outer disc space is the most vulnerable to damage. Have you ever noticed a badly worn DVD seems to play the worst towards the end? It's my thought that's because the outside edge of a DVD tends to be the first part to get damaged(finger prints etc.). Since DVDs write from the inside out if you stop a little short of full you might have a better chance of your title playing problem free all the way to the end.
Anyone else buy this or is my reasoning flawed? Since Picture Quality is generally my #1 priority I'm not going to only fill a disc 1/2 full, but if the title is short enough I don't see anything wrong with leaving a little(100-500mb) open at the end.

I think your reasoning is correct. I agree that the outer edge is most likely where damage will start.

Thanks all!

A few random resposes:

I do record shows in LP mode on my E80H, which I usually then sneakernet via -RAM to my computer, where I add spiffy menus and such. When I got the EH75V, I was so pleased with how much faster it burned that I decided to put up with the crappy menus. I've read here about the reduced bit rate on the post E80 generation doesn't look too good, I figured I'd stick with SP. I admit I haven't actually tried LP on this box:(. The E80 (as I understand it) keeps the bit rate with half D1 res. Years ago, I decided I could live with this. I'll hav to give the EH75V LP mode a try.

The Dramas run to 63 to 71 minutes (after commercials; commercials in Korea are all in a big block between shows, and are added within the show when broadcast here.) I have foung the dividing line to be 64 minutes. I wonder about Panasonic's math: 49% + 49% = 101% = TOO MUCH:D

Since FR durung recording does not seem pratical in my situation, I will take the following advice I have gleaned from this discussion: Finalize seperately, and add the thumbnails there, and High-speed dub one, to save time. If LP mode is a go, I could high-speed dub three, and just FR the last one.

Once again, this board has shown to be the best around!

I recorded one K-Drama to DVD using LP (only ever put two total on DVD) - it was not really fast action, and it looks fine. Put two episodes on one DVD using that.

Still, if they were ones that were really important to me, I'd use the best setting available. I even cut off most of the intro(just left the title) and all the previews at the end of the other one to make one episode fit on one DVD. Just made it, because when using high-speed, with my EH75 and DVD-R, the recording time goes over by a minute or so.

Although the dramas are very sharp, because KBS uses HD cameras, they're still extremely bit-starved off of KBS World on Dish. As long as nothing moves too much, though, they look fine. If you're getting the digital version of WOCH (I know not many people are right now - it should be on another channel and higher-powered eventually), it's only one of two subchannels (both, I believe, 480i - WOCK being the other) - so I imagine it looks even better than from Dish. If it's the analog channel and you're getting it in strongly, it still looks very, very good. Definitely better than Dish (I'm 41 miles out, so it's pretty snowy here). I've seen it on U-Verse, and it looks excellent there (their SD looks great - it's their HD that sucks). Never seen it on Comcast yet, though.

Still rather have KBS World than WOCH, though, because: 1.) no commercial breaks, 2.) no editing (I'd assume they're editing something, because the shows seem to run exactly the same length as they do on KBS World, even though they have those brief commercial breaks), and 3.) the scheduling is fairly consistent. Much, much moreso than WOCH's, that's for sure.

If it's one I really want to save, I DL an HD rip from the internet, along with some fansubs. It may not actually be HD, but the .AVI files play fine on my EH75V, and look great.