I've gotten what I think is pretty good advice on the forum for my tiling problem I posted a couple of weeks ago). The tiling was making recorded films dubbed to DVD all but unwatchable in several instanceas and actually brought the replay to a stop in severe cases. I've been recording from VHS tapes to my hard drive and also from films broadcast on cable.

I had been using 8X TDK DVD-r disks and have switched to Taiyo Yuden 8X and I've installed the firmware upgrade from the Panny site. I've recorded and dubbed five test DVD-Rs. Four contained two each movies recorded on the hard drive at LP and dubbed at high speed on the TY DVD-Rs. I snipped all the intros and following commercials from the movies with "divide." I also recored at LP the three hour American Film Institute 100 Best Films and chopped out about an hour of commercials (at least six "shortens.")

Of the nine tests three had isolated, but moderate tiling (i.e., no film was disrupted or seriously marred for more than a second). The rest, including the AFI disk, were clean.

I'm assuming the firmware upgrade and the TY disks made this great improvement. Is the tiling I'm seeing in its moderate amount a natural phenomenon of my process or could it be further improved? I have to put two films on a DVD-R because of physical space limitations in my home.

First off, let me say that this is the most informitive fourm I have ever had the pleasure of reading.

Think I know the answer before I ask, but is it possible to use one touch copy if I want to record to DVD disc on the 640, from the hardrive from a Dish DVR rcvr.?

Also, think I was dreaming, but is there a button on the 640 remote that will allow the opening & closing of the tray? Thanks in advance for any replys. gramppy :D

First off, let me say that this is the most informitive fourm I have ever had the pleasure of reading.

Think I know the answer before I ask, but is it possible to use one touch copy if I want to record to DVD disc on the 640, from the hardrive from a Dish DVR rcvr.?

Also, think I was dreaming, but is there a button on the 640 remote that will allow the opening & closing of the tray? Thanks in advance for any replys. gramppy :D
To record from an external device, start the other device playing then press REC button. (One-touch copy button only works for internal rec. from HDD>DVD or vice versa since it controls both playback and copying between the 640 drives...it can't control an external device.)

No button to close the tray, but you can insert a disc, then press the PLAY button, which will close the tray and (usually) start the DVD playing.

MY QUESTIONS TO JIM MOHUNDRO:

1) In SETUP, check your setting for VBR Hybrid Resolution. This needs to be set to "FIXED".

2) Have you thoroughly reviewed these shows ON YOUR HARD DRIVE and are 100% certain that no tiling is present BEFORE you dub to disk? If YES, then I think you can do more to isolate the issue and probably answer your own questions by doing the following:

Waste (if you want to call it that) 2 or 3 disks to test as follows:

1) Record one of your shows to to the hard drive in SP mode, then dub it to disk at the same SP mode in high speed

2) Assuming your hard drive shows do not have this tiling issue, take one of the shows/disks where tiling occured and re-dub it again (from the same original on your HDD) to another disk

3) Try dubbing one of the shows that showed tiling to a RAM disk at high speed.


These steps should tell you better if it is a burning issue, or a media/speed issue.

As far as wasting a few disks, that shouldn't bother you since you've already been wasting them anyway with bad dubs.

No matter how many people tell you that LP speed on the older Panny's is just fine, you need to realize that it isn't. Recordings made at LP speed ARE sometimes going to produce inferior results --- including occassional tiling/pixelation. That is why most Panny owners avoid LP like the plague for recordings they really value.

Finally, a work around is to use the FR speed setting to get better quality. Unfortunately, this is more time consuming --- but the results can be twice as good. There are numerous threads with tips and tricks on how to do this.

Good luck.

:)

I have now set VBR Hybrid Resolution to "Fixed" although I have no idea what this means. Unfortunately, I erased the films from my hard drive after dubbing so I'll have to try the HD/Dubbed DVD-R comparison with new recordings. So I won't have to sit through a movie twice, it seems a workable approach would be to: 1) record at SP on the HD, 2) dub at high speed to a DVD-R, and 3) play the DVD-R disk and, if tiling is seen, note the time of the place(s) in the film where this occurs and check for these occurences on the HD at the same places.

FR recording and/or dubbing seems not very difficult. I'm still concerned about storage space for the completed disks (I checked my film database and find slightly over 400 films, so rerecording these all [and I have the VHS tapes for all of these] is going to be a major task, along with retyping inserts for the DVD cases where necessary). How about, instead of recording and dubbing two films (most probably run about 1 hour 5 minutes to 1 hour 40 minutes) at LP, I record each of two films at SP on the HD, dub the first at SP and the second at FR to fill the disk?

How about, instead of recording and dubbing two films (most probably run about 1 hour 5 minutes to 1 hour 40 minutes) at LP, I record each of two films at SP on the HD, dub the first at SP and the second at FR to fill the disk?

That seems like a reasonable approach. Any method so that you can 100% verify whether the tiling occurs when recording to the HDD or only when burning a DVD. Also, to verify whether the tiling issue occurs only in LP mode or not. You may also have to try the test with VBR Resolution set to automatic versus fixed.

The VBR Hybrid Resolution setting can be important. There are some experts here who can explain it better than I can, but basically as I understand it, when VBR is set to "AUTOMATIC", the Panny will decide which frames/portions have less detail, information and movement in the picture and will accordingly reduce the resolution (and arguably the bit rate) for those segments. Saves space and reduces file size.

When set to "FIXED", the Panny should give you maximum resolution and clarity (at that speed setting) for all frames --- regardless of the detail of the picture being fed.

Good luck and let us know the results.

:cool:

As I've noted before, I've switched to Taiyo Yuden DVD-Rs and ugraded my formware. Experimentally, I attempted to dub a 1 hr 40 min SP-recorded film to a DVD-R at high speed and tried to add on a couple of shorter films (about 1 hr 20 min) at FR. Not surprisingly, the "not enouh room on the disk" message is loud and clear.

The next two experiments are 1) dubbing to movies of similar length, say 1 hr 40 min, at LP instead of high speed (one responder on this forum wrote that the quality would fall off because of the re-encoding required when dubbing occurred at the same speed as the original recording to the HD, and I'm assuming that problem would hold whether the recording/dubbing happened at SP or LP and would not simply be a function of LP; however, these films are from VHS tapes of broadcasts of 1930s and 1940s mostly monochrome movies I made at VCR LP and the quality is far from HDTV, anyway), and 2) dubbing two SP-recorded films totalling roughly 3 to 3.5 hours at LP on one DVD-R at one pass [or dubbing one at LP, and then following with a dub of the other on the same DVD-R.

Picture quality issues aside, is 2) even possible?

Any other ideas other than limiting each DVD-R to one movie? I still have a real storage problem. By the way, there seem to be few commercial DVDs (not major studio "A" productions, of course) that sqeeze two, and even three films on a disk. How do they do it--better algorythms and/or better equipment?

As I've noted before, I've switched to Taiyo Yuden DVD-Rs and ugraded my formware. Experimentally, I attempted to dub a 1 hr 40 min SP-recorded film to a DVD-R at high speed and tried to add on a couple of shorter films (about 1 hr 20 min) at FR. Not surprisingly, the "not enouh room on the disk" message is loud and clear.

The next two experiments are 1) dubbing to movies of similar length, say 1 hr 40 min, at LP instead of high speed (one responder on this forum wrote that the quality would fall off because of the re-encoding required when dubbing occurred at the same speed as the original recording to the HD, and I'm assuming that problem would hold whether the recording/dubbing happened at SP or LP and would not simply be a function of LP; however, these films are from VHS tapes of broadcasts of 1930s and 1940s mostly monochrome movies I made at VCR LP and the quality is far from HDTV, anyway), and 2) dubbing two SP-recorded films totalling roughly 3 to 3.5 hours at LP on one DVD-R at one pass [or dubbing one at LP, and then following with a dub of the other on the same DVD-R.

Picture quality issues aside, is 2) even possible?

Any other ideas other than limiting each DVD-R to one movie? I still have a real storage problem. By the way, there seem to be few commercial DVDs (not major studio "A" productions, of course) that sqeeze two, and even three films on a disk. How do they do it--better algorythms and/or better equipment?



Maybe I missed something, but it seems that you have lost focus on the issues --- as far as priorities. You first said that the tiling was a big issue. I tried to get you to isolate the tiling as to what conditions and/or settings it was occurring. Instead, you've moved back to worrying about fitting 2 or more movies on one disk.

I understand that you want to solve the space problem, but if LP SPEED will usually result in unacceptable quality/tiling --- then 2 movies at LP on one disk is not going to work for you. I suggest you wait on the 2 movies per disk goal long enough to first isolate the tiling. I gave some specific steps in my earlier post to help you determine that. Putting the cart before the horse only muddy's your possible options.

You gain nothing by recording 2 movies to the HDD in SP mode --- then dubbing them to disk in LP mode. In fact, you will lose even more quality since you are re-encoding twice. Why not just stick with recording in LP to the HDD and then high speed dub both to disk? Why not? Because you already said you are unhappy with the tiling that occurs. You see? You are going in circles because you haven't resolved and isolated the tiling conditions.

I was hopeful that you might be able to report back that setting the VBR resolution to "FIXED" had improved or even eliminated the tiling issue for LP recordings, but you say nothing about that change, and it appears that you did not do a specific test of ONLY THAT --- as I suggested.

My suggestion was simple. With VBR resolution set to "FIXED" (and high speed turned on), just record one program to the HDD in LP mode. Then record the same program to the HDD in SP mode (VBR still set to "FIXED"). Then dub each program to a separate disk in high speed mode (one will be LP, the other SP so remember which disk is which). Then examine the results. Does either disk have tiling? If so, is it only the LP disk? And, is any tiling present on the original HDD recordings you made (skim through very thoroughly and slowly to be sure).

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Now, when quality is a concern, using FR mode can only help in certain situations. Basically only when your TOTAL content is no more than 25 minutes longer than the total disk space. NOT "remaining disk space", but TOTAL disk space.

When you dub one movie to disk that is 1:40 in length, then want to add another 1:20 --- that is too much for FR to handle without dropping the quality all the way to EP equivalent. After your first movie was dubbed to disk, you were asking FR mode to add another 1:20 movie with only 20 minutes of remaining disk space to work with. You might as well record and dub everything in the ultra-crappy EP mode if you're going to do that.

In order to achieve approximate SP quality (using FR dub mode), the total length of all programs going to disk should not exceed 2:25 in total. For instance, you would record 2 movies totalling no more than 2:25 to the HDD in SP mode. Then dub both movies simultaneously to disk in FR mode. If these programs are no more than 2:25 in total length, the dubbed disk should result in approximately SP quality. Attempting to do this with 3 hours of programs will give you a crappy LP quality at best -- perhaps complete with the dreaded tiling.

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Finally, as for your other options to solve the storage issue --- well, you aren't going to like them:

1) Upgrade from an E80 to a DVD recorder that can burn dual layer disks (so you can put 4 hours per disk in SP mode), or

2) Dub all of your programs onto more expensive 2-sided DVD Ram disks (you just have to manually flip the disk after each side is done), or

3) Store all of your disks on spindles (not recommended for long term or in humid/warm conditions), or

4) Enter the world of transferring your programs to computer, or

5) Wait for Blu-Ray recorders to become an affordable household item (could be 2-3 more years, but up to 50 hours on a single disk), or

6) Rent a climate controlled storage unit or build an addition on your house/apartment.


:confused:

Good suggestions by all. I was having some similar issues with some basketball games recorded at SP mode on my Philips DVDR3455/37. Not all, just some. After suggestions by Kelson (I think) I watched closely and figured out my main problem was that I am getting a lousy feed from several channels. Even the original HDD recording wasn't all that good. So naturally, the DVD wouldn't be any better.

In my case I have had to increase recording quality to HQ (1HR. MODE) on those channels to get acceptable DVD quality. Of course that now means 2 DVDs for 1 basketball game which doesn't make me happy. I may look into a dual layer burner machine, or dub them to my computer from 2 DVD-RWs and burn them to dual layer that way. That's a lot of work though.

So - I will second the idea of making sure the HDD recording looks really good in the first place. And I will second the notion that a 4 hr. record mode ain't helping. If you truly have trouble storing little old thin DVDs, I feel for you. Quality comes first for me.

I consider myself now well-reamed by Buster37862 for not following the priority protocol, and I’m prepared to jettison those half dozen films I’ve recorded on the HD at SP directly from cable broadcasts, since I have no identical programs with which to compare them at LP. Since my principal task is to re-record and re-dub to DVD-R my entire collection of VHS-taped film with minimal occurrence of artifacts and tiling, it may make some sense to record a few VHS films at both LP and at SP (since replaying the tapes is a simple process) and dub each “dual” recording on separate DVD-Rs (LP and SP), of which I have plenty.

I’m curious about one thing, however. Since the films input from VHS are simply analogue recordings on magnetic tape, can these recordings induce digital flaws in the re-recording to HD, necessitating the recording and viewing the DVD-Rs of the same film twice (contrasted with viewing two films of, say, similar length and character [VHS, monochrome or color, etc])? Maybe this is just good scientific method, attempting to replicate original conditions as closely as possible.

Jim:

I have a Panasonic E80 and have transferred a lot of tapes to DVD. I wouldn't use LP at all. I transfer anything under 2 hours at SP. If something runs over 2 hours, I use FR.

John

Jim:

I have a Panasonic E80 and have transferred a lot of tapes to DVD. I wouldn't use LP at all. I transfer anything under 2 hours at SP. If something runs over 2 hours, I use FR.

John

I second that exactly, but on VHS tapes( when I used the E-80 for this purpose) I recorded at XP and just burned two discs if it is say 1:30-2:00 hours for better quality and if it is a rare tape. Only the Panny 2005-6 HDD(and non-HDD) units had the very good LP record mode.

It seems that the preponderance of opinion, direct or implied, is that LP is not likely the recording mode that is likely to produce satisfactory results (although no one has made a case for the relationship of recording mode to the likelihood of producing tiling and other artifacts in the finished product), but I'm ready to throw in the towel for LP and re-record as much of my collection as possible at SP. I'll work out some priority among the 500 or so films and keep the lowest priority items on videotape, some of which I'll watch and the others will simply decay.

My task now, I think, is to record perhaps a half dozen to ten films at SP and VBR "fixed" and dub those at high speed one to each DVD-R. If the results are clean, I'll assume that the problem is likely solved and begin the larger task of recording what I can of my collection. If the results produce tiling, then I assume I should unertake the same test with VBR set to "variable." This time, of course, I'll save the original recordings on the hard drive to check if tiling occurs. Obviously, if tiling occurs at the same places on both the HD abd the dubbed DVD-R, it's not a dubbing problem, and I may have to replace the Panny.

I have four or five films recorded on the HD at SP already, but these were inadvertently recorded without the provision for high-speed dubbing (I lost the setting when power failed a couple of months ago and the Panny defaulted back to the setting requiring a dubbing match with the original recording mode. I assume from previous notes on this site that re-encoding would occur if I attempted to use these recordings (which were also made at VBR variable, by the way) and they should not be used for these tests.

I'd appreciate any comments from Buster37862 to whose follow-up comments I perhaps overreacted a couple of days ago. His experience is solid and his additional thoughts are welcome.

Why would you set the VBR to variable? If you do you will likely find that at times the PQ will decrease do to lowering of the resolution to avoid artifacts. Is that preferable to the occasional artifact? I would think not, but you may feel otherwise.

As to the VBR setting, it has been suggeted here that I change the previously-set VBR variable to fixed and I've done that. Also, It's been suggested that I run some test recordings at both settings to see how, if at all, the VBR setting may relate to artifacts. Your idea that the variable VBR setting may reduce artifacts while also lowering picture quality is a new one. I wonder if some artifacts are a natural event in DVDR recording, and I should expect some from time to time.

Since my recordings are and will be transfers to the HD from older VHS recordings (and these analogue recordings do not experience tiling effects), the quality issue is altogether persuasive. The films are mostly from the 1930s and 1940s and in any watchable form are lucky to be around.

When the VBR is set to variable, the recorder may decide that to avoid artifacts it will decrease the resolution of the video.

In other words, if a particular scene has, for example, a great deal of movement, the current bit rate may not be sufficient to encode the scene at the normal resolution (e.g., 704 or 720x480 at SP) without introducing artifacts. In this case, the recorder may decide to lower the resolution (e.g., to 352x480) to encode the scene because at this resolution a lower bit rate is needed to avoid artifacts. The end result is fewer artifacts, but the PQ will decrease because the picture will appear softer (less detailed) at the lower resolution.

This is why most recommend to set the VBR to fixed and leave it there, so as to avoid the possibility that the recorder will decrease the resolution to avoid artifacts. However, you may prefer the lower resolution to artifacts -- it's your call.

I've recorded four VHS tapes at SP to the HD and at fixed VBR. I've then dubbed these four to high speed to the Taiyo Yuden 8X DVD-Rs and viewed them all (a somewhat exhausting processing when your eyes can't leave the screen even for a few seconds). One two of the recordings I've used shorten segment to edit out the comercials and I used divide to chop off the leading and trailing materials. I've seen no tiling from the four DVD-Rs produced through these efforts.

I may do a couple more but I'm wondering if this seems a reasonable sample and if I'd gain anything in the process. I suppose if some tiling occurred, then I'd redo those recordings ar VBR set to variable to see if that elimnated the problem and, if so, use that the final technique. In any event, I'm doing a little research on the NEATO "slimline" dvd storage cases to see if I can retain most of my collection in my current storage area. My current NEATO software templates do not include DVD inserts for slimline cases. I wonder if the DVD insert spines can be printed, given their size, but I'll check this out with NEATO, unless someone has a better suggestion.

Thanks for all your suggestions and help so far. SP is definitely the way to go.

Jim, DVD Covers/Spines can be printed from most modern DVD Burning software programs, and other programs I would imagine. Nero and Roxio both offer DVD Size Cover printing. However,why not just use standard CD Jewel Cases and print covers for them? They take up less room and less ink to print the covers.

Thanks for the tip on CD cases. I've used a few for video CDs I've made of slide shows of vacation trips and they are handy to carry and store in small spaces; however, "my" films are like my books and I store them on already crowded bookshelves. I like to see the titles and have arranged them by genre and year (my wife's preference) so we can pick out a film among the mysteries or dramas or comedies, etc, as the mood strikes us.

I don't have a DVD burner but I use Nero for cd burning and Nero's labeling device (which I think is a NEATO product). I've used NEATO's software to print my cases inserts and DVD labels and it has worked well, so I'd like to have a go with the slimline cases and inserts with just one film on each disk (see my earlier posts).

Blank DVD-R discs are cheap as dirt, even the good ones, so why bother trying to cram every last bit of data onto a single disc. I have an E80H and I have high speed dubbed 2 hour movies recorded at SP many many times with outstanding results. HDTV movies (HBO, Cinemax) look great when archived in that manner. My advice is to 1) keep it simple (don't mix recorded speeds on a dub; 2) Use SP speed for recording up to 2 hour programs you expect to dub (XP is okay when the program is 1 hour or less); 2) Use good DVD-R blanks rated 8X if you can still find them. I use TDK DVD-R only and get excellent results.

I've had the same issues, and it comes down to media and something strange with the finalization step (e.g. all discs will play fine before finalization, but after finalizations some discs are unreadable in the E80 or many DVD players - but they all read just fine on my DVD computer drives.)

So far I've had great results with Fuji, TDK and Maxell media.

I've had nothing but failures with Panasonic and Sony media.

I found the failure of Panasonic blanks to be ironic in this case. :-)

On the basis of advice provided here, I'm prepared to go ahead and re-record to my E80 HD at SP all the VHS tapes I'd like to keep, dub them to DVD-Rs at high speed, print new inserts for them and store them in slimline cases (I might even get more ambitious and download some appropriate images to print on the inserts). This should take about a year, including editing out commercials, etc.

I have a related question. I paused my endeavors yesterday to view a film recorded to the HD from ComCast Cable. About halfway through the HD playback, tiling appeared for about four or five seconds and the playback resumed with no other tiling events. Oddly, just prior to viewing the playback (I'd recorded the film in the late afternoon and viewed the playback mid-evening), I was surfing the cable and watched a few muinutes of another film which had--and you may have guessed it--a few seconds of tiling. This was a "fresh" cable broadcast.

My question: Are tiling and other artifacts simply a fact of digital broadcasting and recording, and simply a trade-off between the lower video PQ of videotaping and its shorter life span, but its cleann analogue recording (its lack of such tiling and artifact effects), and the superior PQ of digital recording and the probable superior life span of DVDs? In other words, aren't tiling and artifacts a way of life in digital recording at my amateur level and with my amateur equipment (I've seen no commercial DVDs with tiling)?

My question: Are tiling and other artifacts simply a fact of digital broadcasting and recording, and simply a trade-off between the lower video PQ of videotaping and its shorter life span, but its cleann analogue recording (its lack of such tiling and artifact effects), and the superior PQ of digital recording and the probable superior life span of DVDs? In other words, aren't tiling and artifacts a way of life in digital recording at my amateur level and with my amateur equipment (I've seen no commercial DVDs with tiling)?

You have to remember that you are using cable as your source. Virtually all cable head ends are receiving much cleaner and artifact-free feeds than you will ever see. The problem is that cable companies re-compress incoming signals to fit their system capacity, therefore degrading the original source. Tiling and artifacts don't have to be a way of digital life if you have control over the integrity of your source material. If you ever have a chance to compare your cable company's quality of a local HD channel and then see what it looks like from an OTA source (antenna), you'll likely be surprised by the difference.

Your explanation makes a lot of sense. I suppose it is somewhat analogous to the radio broadcaster that cuts the upper end to achieve published output, say 50K watts. I once asked an engineer at a classical FM station why its broadcasts of LPs (this was before CD) never seemed to have the pops, clicks or other surface noise of many new LPs I had purchased, and that was his explanation.

By the way, my home is in the "shadow" of the three towers of the principal network-affiliated TV broadcasters so my reception from these stations is nearly unwatchable, thereby requiring my cable connection (I also have a tall-roofed older home on or in which I'm told Direct TV or a similr satellite direct access will not work; for example, I've never been able to have reliable atomic clock maintenance even though I point south toward Colorado where the official clock resides. I think I'm stuck with ComCast's cable monopoly unless and until some outfit like Verizon installs a fibre optic line.