Brand new here. And new to the DVD recording world.
I have had my EH75 for almost a month and even though I am getting better with it every day new questions keep coming up. Either I am getting dumber as I get older or that manual isn't very good.
My first question has to do with the Flexible Recording Mode.
When should it be used ?
When I read the instructions it says the recorder "automatically selects a recording rate". Does that mean always or only in FR mode?
I have recorded several movies over 2 hours and so far the machine has recorded them complete on a 2 hour DVD and NOT IN FR. I assumed the recorder changed speeds as needed towards the end like my old VCR's did.
When I called Panasonic and asked they told me it would not record over 2 hours unless it was in FR ?
Well tonight I had 4 Dick Tracy movies that I recorded on the HDD at SP and then edited down to 4 hours and 20 minutes. I put the DVD on LP figuring the machine would automatically know what to do. This time it said there was too much video for the DVD and it had to be done in FR. That is what is happening right now for the next 4 hours and 20 minutes-no high speed copying.
How come it worked before and not this time ? What could I be doing wrong?
Does the recorder use compression to get more info into less space or does it change speeds like a VCR.
Thanks for any help
John

When transferring to a single layered DVD this is my experience:

XP will give you ~1 hour of recording at the highest quality possible (near the quality of the original TV broadcast)

SP will give you ~2 hours of recording at a good recording quality level (still better than VHS).

LP will give you ~4 hours of recording at a fair recording quality level (similar to VHS).

EP will give you ~6 hours of recording at a low recording quality level.
(Some recorders you have an option of a ~6 or ~8 hour mode).

FR gives you intermediate recording qualities depending on the length of the program. For example if the length is 3 hours, then you will get something in between SP & LP.

There is a re-encoding of the video for transfer to the DVD, therefore you can not high speed dub. Also, some older DVD players are more compatible with SP & LP modes and may not be able to read the FR mode.

From some of the other comments on this forum it sounds like there is some loss of quality when recording in FR. Is that true? If so how to you get around that?

My first question has to do with the Flexible Recording Mode.
When should it be used ?

You would use FR whenever you have a program whose length is not close to one of the standard record modes. This allows you to get a superior picture and not waste so much disk space.

When I read the instructions it says the recorder "automatically selects a recording rate". Does that mean always or only in FR mode?

When using FR mode, the machine selects the best recording rate for the time you entered. this insures the disk is almost full no matter how long the program is. If you select one of the standard rates, you get the one YOU have selected.

I have recorded several movies over 2 hours and so far the machine has recorded them complete on a 2 hour DVD and NOT IN FR. I assumed the recorder changed speeds as needed towards the end like my old VCR's did.
When I called Panasonic and asked they told me it would not record over 2 hours unless it was in FR ?

The recorder does not, and cannot change speeds. It can change the recording resolution and bitrate, but not speed. The angular rotation rate (speed) is defined by the DVD standard.

Well tonight I had 4 Dick Tracy movies that I recorded on the HDD at SP and then edited down to 4 hours and 20 minutes. I put the DVD on LP figuring the machine would automatically know what to do. This time it said there was too much video for the DVD and it had to be done in FR. That is what is happening right now for the next 4 hours and 20 minutes-no high speed copying.
How come it worked before and not this time ? What could I be doing wrong?

Here is the real truth about what you are experiencing. What Panasonic told you is wrong, and what California Mike said was wrong too, but just by a little bit. It is commonly understood that xp, sp, lp, and ep are 1hr, 2hr, 4hr, and 6/8 hr modes. This is not really true. XP is about 1:03. I have gotten as much as 2:09 on one disk in SP mode. This accounts for the longer than two hour movies you have managed to fit on a single disk. LP mode can have as much as 4:16. You get the progression. The 4:20 was just SLIGHTLY too much to fit in LP mode. The number of programs also has an effect on total record time as each title takes up a bit of "overhead" space on the disk. By the way, if you recorded the movies in SP mode to the hard drive and then attempted to copy them to a disk in LP mode, you would have been doing it in realtime anyway because it would have required a reencoding to change mode.

If you have one 2:09 movie, it just might fit on a single disk in SP mode, but if it is 2:12, it won't. In that case, you use FR mode to lower the bitrate just a little and it then fits. The recorder chooses the best resolution and bitrate to fill the disk. Oh, that statement is wrong too, because FR mode in Panasonic DVD recorders for some reason, always leaves at least 7% of the disk unused. I have no explanation for this, but at least on my E85 and EH50 it is the case.

Does the recorder use compression to get more info into less space or does it change speeds like a VCR.
Thanks for any help
John

Everything you record is MPEG-2 compressed. A DVD-R disk can store 4407 Mb (something like that) total. Your program, whatever length, must fit into that digital space. The recorder lowers the resolution and bitrate to fit more time onto a disk. This in effect means that every LP mode frame has less information encoded in it than an SP mode frame, which has less than an XP mode frame. FR mode at three hours would have information content between SP and LP modes.

...and what California Mike said was wrong too, but just by a little bit.


I assume the remark above is that recording times (1, 2, 4, 6hrs) are only approximate and not exact. For XP, SP, LP & EP you get a little more.

Luke

It sounds like that if I have a 2 hour and 15 minute movie and I use FR that the whole recording from beginning to end is just slightly under sp quality ? So if I have a 3 hour movie I should record in FR not LP because the Quality will be better than LP, somewhere inbetween SP and LP ?
And I should always enter an approximate time to record? If I did not enter a time does it just use the 6 hour?
Also instead of chancing a 2:05 on SP I should just use FR because it will be so close to SP I won't see a difference?
Does it sound like I am starting to understand or ???

Sorry for all this back and forth.

Thank You for the help
John

Luke

It sounds like that if I have a 2 hour and 15 minute movie and I use FR that the whole recording from beginning to end is just slightly under sp quality ? So if I have a 3 hour movie I should record in FR not LP because the Quality will be better than LP, somewhere inbetween SP and LP ?
And I should always enter an approximate time to record? If I did not enter a time does it just use the 6 hour?
Also instead of chancing a 2:05 on SP I should just use FR because it will be so close to SP I won't see a difference?
Does it sound like I am starting to understand or ???

Sorry for all this back and forth.

Thank You for the help
John
You are understnding this correctly...2 hrs 15min @ FR, the unit records at a bitrate slightly lower than SP, but higher than LP. The newer Pannys feature an LP mode that is nearly equal in picture quality to SP, so it shouldn't look any different than an SP recording.

I assume the remark above is that recording times (1, 2, 4, 6hrs) are only approximate and not exact. For XP, SP, LP & EP you get a little more.
Yes, just a little bit wrong. :D

People seem to forget about that extra 3.5% - 4.0% extra. Inaccurate might have been a much better word for it, but I was trying to get attention, and loaded words are better for that. Sorry if I caused offense. It was unintentional--as everyone I work with says, I can be difficult sometimes. Imagine that! :rolleyes:


It sounds like that if I have a 2 hour and 15 minute movie and I use FR that the whole recording from beginning to end is just slightly under sp quality ? So if I have a 3 hour movie I should record in FR not LP because the Quality will be better than LP, somewhere inbetween SP and LP ?

This is correct. If the program is 2:09 or just below, use SP. If it is just over, use FR, it WILL be better than LP mode.

And I should always enter an approximate time to record? If I did not enter a time does it just use the 6 hour?
Also instead of chancing a 2:05 on SP I should just use FR because it will be so close to SP I won't see a difference?
Does it sound like I am starting to understand or ???
You should always enter a time for FR recording. I would pad the time by a small bit, but not too much. I use a DVR for my recordings, so the DVR records the program, and I can tell by the time function to within a minute or two exactly how long the program really is. This is the time I enter into my DVD recorder. It works very well that way. I wouldn't worry about a 2:05 movie fitting on a disk, but 2:09 might be a little tight. I have had to cut a few credits off some programs to make them fit in SP mode. I am reluctant to goto FR unless it's necessary because, as I said, FR mode leaves about 7% of the disk empty, so the initial change in quality between a 2:08 SP and a 2:10 FR is noticeable, at least in a side-by-side viewing.

It has been said that the Panasonic recorders have a higher quality LP mode than others (confirmed here by several people) but you can't get something for nothing. While the Panasonic recorders do hold the RESOLUTION to the same level in LP as in SP, they have to get the extra bits from somewhere to compensate for a doubling in program length, and that comes from reducing the bitrate. they compensate using some very clever schemes and on-the-fly program analysis for minimizing the effects, but in fast moving, or rapidly changing scenes, the limitations become more and more obvious. Sometimes you just can't compensate for inadequate bandwidth. Most people use XP or SP for sports, nothing less. Too many motion artifacts otherwise.

Thanks for the quick and understandable responses.
So far this beats the h--- out of calling Panasonic for answers. Whenever I do it seems I get someone that has to look up a vague answer in the same book I am looking at.
More questions.
It sounds like the only time you can high speed copy is if you are recording on to the dvd at the same speed as used on the HDD ?
Anything else is in "real time" ?
So if I want to record a 1:45 movie on the HDD and copy it to DVD in high speed I should use SP and not worry about the extra unused space?
Now that makes think of another question.
Can I set the HDD to record that 1:45 movie in FR for 2 hours and then high speed copy that to a DVD ?

I just previewed my Dick Tracy copy. When I edited the four movies on the HDD I had a chapter point at the beginning of each movie. I made a playlist for the names of those movies. Then I saw where I could name the Disc so I called it Dick Tracy. When I insert the DVD it goes to the menu and now there are no movie names, just the one main title and my chapters are gone replaced with new ones every 5 minutes or so. So now I can't get to the beginning of each movie.
When I did this earlier I named the disc first and then made my playlist for the chapters ( actually different movies ). When I insert it the menu shows each movie and I can skip to each. But the main title is gone.
So it looks like you can have a main title or individual titles, not both??? Or did I do something wrong.

So far what I have done is record a block of movies and then edit out the junk using chapter points at the beginning and end of each movie. And since I don't see a way to name the chapters I make a playlist for them. Then I copy the title.
It takes awhile, is there a better way?

Also to add to above the above. It sounds like if I want the best copy of that 1:45 movie I could record it in XP on the HDD and then FR it to a DVD, then my copy would be would be a little better at the cost of realtime copy speed?

Like I said before sorry to ramble on and sound so dumb but your your answers make using the recorder more on the fun side instead of just another job.

Thanks again.
John

I should have added to the above. If you are going to copy from the HDD to DVD at LP should you record to the HDD at LP or is there some loss and XP or SP should be used.
How do they get the extra length on commercial DVD's ? Do the DVD's have larger capacity or do they use the same FR. The pictures usually look pretty good!
(I guess they are starting with a higher quality picture)

It sounds like the only time you can high speed copy is if you are recording on to the dvd at the same speed as used on the HDD ?
Anything else is in "real time" ?
After you've enabled High Speed Dubbing in the Setup menu, all recordings made to the drive can be dubbed at hi-speed (taking about 15 minuted for 2 hours of SP made recordings, or 4.5gb), so long as they can fit on the disc. Dubbing from the hard drive to a disc, in a speed other than what the program was originally rec'ed in, will result in a Real Time Dub. So if you record "Deal or No Deal" :rolleyes: in XP mode, and decide to dub it to a dvd-r at SP mode, it will happen in real time. All chapter marks created on the hdd for that title will NOT be imported over in a real time dub. The thumbnail you set for the title also won't be imported either.

So if I want to record a 1:45 movie on the HDD and copy it to DVD in high speed I should use SP and not worry about the extra unused space?
Now that makes think of another question.
Can I set the HDD to record that 1:45 movie in FR for 2 hours and then high speed copy that to a DVD ?
Anything just under 2 hours, you can record in SP mode. Even if you edit some, that's should be fine.
FR mode recordings can be hi speed dubbed, as long as the entire movie doesn't exceed the dvd's size limit-neatly 4.5 gb When you put a blank dvd in, and open the Dubbing menu and create a dubbing list, it tells you the combined total of what you're trying to dub, and the space on the dvd, typically near 4400mb.

I just previewed my Dick Tracy copy. When I edited the four movies on the HDD I had a chapter point at the beginning of each movie. I made a playlist for the names of those movies. Then I saw where I could name the Disc so I called it Dick Tracy. When I insert the DVD it goes to the menu and now there are no movie names, just the one main title and my chapters are gone replaced with new ones every 5 minutes or so. So now I can't get to the beginning of each movie.
When I did this earlier I named the disc first and then made my playlist for the chapters ( actually different movies ). When I insert it the menu shows each movie and I can skip to each. But the main title is gone.
So it looks like you can have a main title or individual titles, not both??? Or did I do something wrong.
John
Finalization creates chapter markers automatically for any recording that was realtime dubbed to the disc, even if you hi speeed dubbed something, like an hour show, before adding something else.
Alas, Panasonic decided to make their recorders offer only a menu for individual titles transferred to a dvd-r, and no chapter menus. So we get only a menu for the titles with their thumbails, with no ch menus. Blah.
Yes there are different size discs. 4.7gb-single layer and 8.5gb-double layer, for longer movies.

I thought I was getting the hang of this but it is only getting worse.
I now have 2 DVD's each with 4 movies. Both menus show only one movie and with the useless chapter marks that replaced mine there is no way to find each movie short of fast forward like a tape.
I still have all 8 movies on my HDD edited and titled. Before I erase them is there any way to put more than 1 movie on a disc and have a title for each? Since they were all recorded in SP and all are betweenn 65 and 70 minutes I know I could put each on a seperate disc, but none of them are good enough to warrant their own disc. I guess I should have reorded to the HDD in LP and then I could put 2 on a DVD with titles. Either way I would be wasteing almost half a disc.
Am I making any sense, good that is?
And what are thumbnails and how are they used, even though I see they are lost on realtime dubbing also.

I thought I was getting the hang of this but it is only getting worse.
I now have 2 DVD's each with 4 movies. Both menus show only one movie and with the useless chapter marks that replaced mine there is no way to find each movie short of fast forward like a tape.
I still have all 8 movies on my HDD edited and titled. Before I erase them is there any way to put more than 1 movie on a disc and have a title for each? Since they were all recorded in SP and all are betweenn 65 and 70 minutes I know I could put each on a seperate disc, but none of them are good enough to warrant their own disc. I guess I should have reorded to the HDD in LP and then I could put 2 on a DVD with titles. Either way I would be wasteing almost half a disc.
How did you dub them to disc the first time? Strange, I can't see how they'd all merge into a single title on the disc.
As you still have them on the hdd, you can try for either 2 movies on a disc, or 3 if you want to push it. .

Pick the movie you want on the disc first, and hi speed dub it alone.
Then check how much space is left for SP mode on the disc-switch over to DVD by pressing the button on the remote, and press Status button twice to bring up the status box. There you'll see how much time is remaining according to the speed the unit is set on. Click Rec Mode to see how much time is there for each mode.
If your first movie runs 65 mins, you can FR dub a second , that puts 2 on each disc, for a total of 4 discs.
For another option-which would come to 3 movies on 2 discs, with 2 movies on 1... for a total of 3 discs
Pick your first movie and FR dub to disc in LP Mode. Then do the same for the next, Two 65-70 Min movies in LP should take up half the space on the disc, an estimated 2 hours 10-20min (remember LP Mode is 4 hours)...and then the last you would dub it in FR-that will fill the remaining space up, Check the disc first to see if there's enough space-your 3rd movie (depending on how long it is) may be hi speed dubbed without having to do a real time dub.



And what are thumbnails and how are they used, even though I see they are lost on realtime dubbing also.
Thumbnails are what the pictures on the menu are called. You can select what image from that title you want to show up, if you don't like the auto seleted image, which is taken from the first minute of the program.

I have decided to bite the bullet on these first 8 movies and record them in SP one to a dvd. I don't mind the 25 cents a disc, just the extra space they will use up.
I just hi speed copied one of them to a dvd-ram as a test and it doesn't have a menu. Is that normal for a ram or did I do something wrong again?

Now for the future what would be the correct way to record four 65-75 minute movies on the HDD and then be able to copy all four to DVD in hi speed?
I know I can record everything in LP and then put 2 to a disc, but how about all 4 and in hi speed and keeping the titles and chapters ?
Am I right in thinking you can only copy in hi speed when your recording speed is the same as the recorded speed including FR? And playlists and chapters will only copy in hi speed?
If I am going to be gone for a week and I want to timer record four of those movies in FR so I can get 4 1/2 to 5 hours on a dvd how would I set that up?
I would have to include early start and late finish and the inbetweens. How would I do that and how would that copy to the dvd in hi speed?

Also on another thread it talked about using the divide function to seperate titles. I have been putting chapter points at the start and end of movies and then deleting the chapters in between. Is that okay or could that be causing any of my problems?

Sorry to be such a nuisance about this but if it doesn't involve using a wrench and screwdriver I am in trouble. Seems to be getting worse as I get older.
Thanks for the help.

I have decided to bite the bullet on these first 8 movies and record them in SP one to a dvd. I don't mind the 25 cents a disc, just the extra space they will use up.
I just hi speed copied one of them to a dvd-ram as a test and it doesn't have a menu. Is that normal for a ram or did I do something wrong again?
RAM discs doesn't feature menus, as they act very much like swappable. mini hard drives. The contents are accessed via pressing Direct Navigator, just like when accessing the hdd.

Now for the future what would be the correct way to record four 65-75 minute movies on the HDD and then be able to copy all four to DVD in hi speed?
I know I can record everything in LP and then put 2 to a disc, but how about all 4 and in hi speed and keeping the titles and chapters ?
There's no one correct way, just several different ways, and it depends entirely on how many hoops you feel like jumping thru.
If you absolutely need to avoid/reduce disc volume clutter, and want 4 65-75 min movies on a single disc, then you could Record them all in LP Mode. Then dub them in FR mode to a RAM disc first, Once on RAM, you can set ch markers, and select the thumbnail picture you want to appear on the menu. Hi-speed back to the hdd, then finally hi-speed dub onto a dvd-r. I won't vouch for the picture quality though (I've never tried squeezing that much onto a disc before), you'll need to do this to see if it's acceptable to your eyes and tv set.


Am I right in thinking you can only copy in hi speed when your recording speed is the same as the recorded speed including FR? And playlists and chapters will only copy in hi speed?

Once you've set the recorder-in the Setup Menu (Setup button on Remote>Disc tab>DVD-R High Speed Dubbing
>On), to enable Hi -Speed Dubbing, all material rec'ed to the hdd can be dubbed at hi-speed. Only playlist created programs made up of segments of programs made in different rec speeds e.i. 15mins of Lost rec in SP combined in a playlist with 16 mins of Heroes rec'ed in LP, will be dubbed to disc in real time.
All chapter markers made to programs on the hdd, ARE transferred when hi-spd dubbed to disc.

If I am going to be gone for a week and I want to timer record four of those movies in FR so I can get 4 1/2 to 5 hours on a dvd how would I set that up?
I would have to include early start and late finish and the inbetweens. How would I do that and how would that copy to the dvd in hi speed?
When a train leaves Chicago at 1pm, travelling at 90 mph, when will it reach New York...AAAAAAAHHRK! Math, get it away from me1 :p

Also on another thread it talked about using the divide function to seperate titles. I have been putting chapter points at the start and end of movies and then deleting the chapters in between. Is that okay or could that be causing any of my problems?

Divide title is often used when you press the record button to catch a show, or a succession of shows without setting a timer recording. You then use Divide to divy up that single title that results, to create separte titles on the hdd, so they show up individually, and you name them to know what they are.

;)

is there any way to put more than 1 movie on a disc and have a title for each? Since they were all recorded in SP and all are betweenn 65 and 70 minutes

1. Pick the movies that you want to put on a single disc and add up the total running time.

2. Put the first tape in the unit and cue it up to where you want to start recording.

3. Hit FUNCTIONS, then choose OTHER FUNCTIONS, then ADVANCED COPY.

4. Set the dubbing direction to VHS->HDD if necessary.

5. Set the recording mode to FR.

6. Set the time limit to the total running time you calculated in step 1.

7. Start copying. When you reach the end of the movie, hold down the RETURN key three seconds to stop copying. You now have a title on the HDD for the first movie.

8. Repeat steps 2 through 7 for the other movies. In each case, set the time limit to the total running time from step 1, and stop recording manually at the end of the movie.

9. You should now have a title on the HDD for each movie. Edit each title to add a name and thumbnail image as appropriate, and maybe trim dead time from the beginning and end.

To copy the titles to DVD, I use Advanced Copy again (because it's the same interface I used on my older Panasonic E85), but you can probably also use the normal Copy interface. Here's how I do it with Advanced Copy:

10. FUNCTIONS -> OTHER FUNCTIONS -> ADVANCED COPY, as before.

11. Set the direction to HDD->DVD.

12. Set the mode to HIGH SPEED COPYING.

13. Select CREATE LIST, click over to NEW ENTRY, hit ENTER, and get a screen containing thumbnails of the titles on the HDD.

14. Select the titles you want, by highlighting them and pressing the PAUSE button. Then press ENTER to add them all to the copy list.

15. Select START COPYING and press ENTER. At this point the unit asks you if you want to finalize the disc when done. You'll probably want to finalize, because the disc will be full.

[reference: pages 62-65 in the manual]

To jtbell:

From HDD to DVD I have been doing it a little different then what you said.
Instead of Titles I have the movies as chapters. Then I make a playlist and name the chapters (movies).
Then when I use advanced copy and create a list I highlite the title and hit "B" to get playlist and pick my chapters (movies) from there. I put my 8 movies on seperate discs last night with names and chapter points every 20 minutes and it worked out good.
Should I be using title divide instead of chapters, does it make a difference?
Instead of picking titles to record I have one title and have to open a playlist to pick a chapter (movie) to record. It sounds like a different route to get to the same destination? If I should be doing it different please tell me.

To everybody:

The one thing I still am trying to understand is FR and hispeed dubbing.
If I want to record a movie that is 130 minutes I should enter 120 as space available and 135 (or something) minutes as length and record it on the HDD. Then I can Title and chapter it and HI speed dub to DVD.
Same idea for other lengths and speeds.
Is this the right idea???

Thank you for all help so far.

In order to get a separate button in the disc menu for each movie, each movie has to be a separate title on the disc. With the setup you have already, this is fortunately easy. Instead of creating a single playlist, with each movie being a chapter in that playlist, create a separate playlist for each movie. Then name each playlist and give it a suitable thumbnail.

When you're ready to copy the movies to a DVD, start as I describe with the Advanced Copy function. When you get to the screen with thumbnails of all your titles, hit the "B" button on your remote to change the screen from a list of titles to a list of playlists. Then pick the playlists you want as I described (for titles), and burn the disc.

The one thing I still am trying to understand is FR and hispeed dubbing.
If I want to record a movie that is 130 minutes I should enter 120 as space available and 135 (or something) minutes as length and record it on the HDD. Then I can Title and chapter it and HI speed dub to DVD.

When recording (or copying) to the HDD in FR mode, you enter only one time. In your example, when the unit asks you for the "time limit" (when doing FR mode in the Advanced Copy function), you would enter 130 minutes (actually 2 hours 10 minutes). Unless you stop the recording part way through, it automatically stops after that time, and you end up with a file on the HDD that is not quite big enough to fill a single-layer DVD. In my experience, this turns out to be about 4000 MB, whereas the actual capacity of a DVD is about 4400 MB. If you stop the recording early, you end up with a smaller file, in proportion to the shortened running time. Then you can high-speed dub that file to a DVD.

The key principle is that the unit assumes that you want a recording with the specified running time to nearly fill a DVD, and adjusts the bit-rate accordingly.

Playlists are great for combining different chapters into one title. Otherwise, I think they take too much effort to just record multiple titles onto a disc.

Don't bother with playlists or chapters. Stick to jtbell's 08:42 instructions using titles and Advanced Copy to get what you want. Much easier and quicker.

FLSTFI,

Wow, at this point I'm not sure where to start. You are using a lot of wrong terminology which is causing you to think along an incorrect paradigm, which I think is why you are confused. If I put a pot of water on the stove to boil, and I had the control set to low, would you say the stove was to slow? Would you say I had to increase the speed to boil the water? No! So forget about the word speed, as in record speed. In fact, completely forget about VCRs. That "model" of thinking is messing you up.

First, I always recommend setting Hi-Speed dubbing to "on". This restricts the DVD recorder in some ways when it records. I suppose someone will say that the recordings are not quite as good because of this restriction, but I don't know of anyone who has been able to tell, so I assume it's not an issue.

When you record a program, you choose what record mode to use. This is in effect NOT A SPEED, it is a compression rate. The analog video signal is digitized by the MPEG-2 chip in the recorder and it outputs a digital computer file. XP is the least compressed, SP is more, LP is more yet and EP is the most compressed. The same move, if recorded using different compression rates will result in digital files of different sizes. High speed dubbing is the process by which the recorder takes that digital file, reads it from the hard drive and sends it to the DVD blank without decoding or reencoding the information. It is a bit-for-bit copy of what's in the file on the hard drive. That's why it can be done in high speed, , and by high speed I mean if you have a 16x drive and 16x disks it will copy the file at up to 16x. (The 'x' in the case is the rate associated with XP mode, or one hour for a DVD-R disk. 2x is 1/2 hour per disk. 3x is twenty minutes, ans so on.) If you recorded the original title using insufficient compression to fit on one disk, you have two options, put part of the title on one disk, and the rest on a second disk, or you can reencode the content using greater compression. This is a real time dub, because the machine has to decode and then reencode the video content to get the new compression rate. The MPEG-2 chips only work in real time. Since this process involves converting the digital file to analog, any chapter marks are lost since they are in the digital file, but are not carried in the analog video stream at all. When you do a real-time dub, Panasonic machines automatically put in a chapter mark every five to ten minutes for your convenience. The DVD-R disks hold 4407Mb of data. this can be used up by a single title, or any number of titles.

When you copy a title to the -R, it becomes a title on that disk and will show up in the top menu. A title can have many, many chapters in it, but they don't show up anywhere. Titles are the only things that show up in the top menu of any disk (on a Panasonic machine at least). What you want is a separate title for each movie, NOT a single title containing more than one movie. If you have several titles on the hard drive, each containing one movie, don't make a single long playlist out of them, make individual playlists and dub them separately. You can have more than one title in a dubbing list.

(I do recommend using playlists, especially if you are editing out commercials. I have accidentally deleted part of a show because I missed putting a chapter mark in a spot. A playlist does not alter the title on the hard drive it came from, so you can edit and delete stuff all day and not actually lose any actual data from the hard drive. This has saved me. Additionally, when my E85 was new, I was doing a lot of divide and shorten, and at one point my hard drive file system became corrupt and ALL my titles disappeared. I had to reformat the disk before the machine became usable again, so now I recommend the use of playlists rather than editing the titles themselves. There was a rumor of a warning on the Panasonic Japan site against the use of divide and shorten, recommending the use of playlists instead. This warning was never posted on the US site, and since I don't read Japanese so I can't really confirm it.)

I don't have any trouble dubbing a title to a DVD as long as it is only one movie.
What was (and still is but not as much) causing my problem is a lot of movies I am copying are in a block of 4. For example I program it to start at 7:58 and end at 1:05 to get 4 movies scheduled for 8-5 with all the BS in between. This is on the HDD as ONE title. Since I still haven't figured how to make that 4 titles I have been putting in the chapter points and after edit I have four chapters. Then the playlist and so on.
It looks to me like I get the same end result. Please tell me if it is not. It is a PITA and if seperate titles are easier I will work on that.
The other BIG problem was understanding Hi Speed dub and what goes with it.
But this last explanation by Church AV Guy is a good one.
Now my hardest part is what am I going to do the next 2 weeks I am gone and there are 20 OLD movies I want to copy from TCM. They are 1, 4, and 8 at a time.
I don't see how I could use FR because of the BS between 8 movies adds up. So I am going to do the whole thing in LP and put 2-3 movies on a disc. The are all 65-75 minutes so no matter what speed I use I will waste almost half a disc. They are all 30's-40's B&W so they don't have to be SP and EP probably wouldn't be much better then the crap I HAD been buying on E-Bay.

I wrote this like I know what I am talking about. If I don't please let me know. And you can probably tell that a one time dub in Hi Speed is what I want, and maybe that isn't always right. Let me know about that one also.
If you have a better idea about these next 20 movies let me know. I am programming the recorder tonite and out of here in the a.m.

Thanks to all of you. I appreciate all the advice.

If you really CAN stand the quality hit you get by putting multiple movies on disc, then your strategy to use LP mode vs. FR mode is a good one for multiple, back to back, unattended timer recording. The one big title that results from recording continuously for 4, 6 or 8 hours continuously can be divided up using the playlist method that you are using (safer from the standpoint that you can't accidentally delete a title, but more cumbersome than the next option) or alternatively you can divide that title up at the chapter points using the divide title editing feature by navigating to the chapter stop in the divide title interface and chopping at the chapter point. Doing this at each chapter point will divide the single title into multiple titles on the Hard Drive. Good luck.

I have to agree with vferrari, as usual. I would not hesitate to make the one large title on the hard drive, then put in chapter points at the start of each movie. Make a playlist for each individual movie by selecting the title, but then moving down to the middle row of thumbnails on the "create playlist" screen and only select one chapter for each playlist title. When each movie is in its own playlist, remove any extraneous stuff, and dub them using the FR mode if they won't fit comfortably on a disk. yes, you do take a quality hit, but it isn't too bad unless you start with LP mode. Since you are going to real-time dub it anyway, I would recommend you use XP for the initial recording, if you can spare the disk space. That way the reencoding has the best possible signal to start with.

Has anyone been able to replace a hard drive on a Panasonic unit yet?? I own a EH-75 and
I would like to have a spare drive or even increase the storage capability.

Has anyone been able to replace a hard drive on a Panasonic unit yet?? I own a EH-75 and
I would like to have a spare drive or even increase the storage capability.
Panasonic's software will not permit a larger hdd to be installed, and make the extra space available to be used. Install a drive larger than what was originally equipped (Say 300gb), and the software will format it to the unit's original size. It will only record to the hdd size in came with. The extra space will go unused.

Has anyone been able to replace a hard drive on a Panasonic unit yet?? I own a EH-75 and
I would like to have a spare drive or even increase the storage capability.
I believe several people have reported here that they have successfully replaced the hard drives in their Panasonic DVD recorders. Like Westly-C has stated, the drive size is apparently hard coded in the firmware of the recorder, so there is no way of increasing the usable hard disk size of these units. If I remember correctly, you just put in another disk of the original type and turn the machine on. It says something like the hard drive needs to be formatted, and after you do that, it works just like the original. Pretty easy, if I remember the post(s) correctly. I have never done this.

As far as multiple drives and swapping, this has been tried and was unsuccessful, I believe. Every time you swap one drive for another, the recorder makes you reformat that drive, so you cannot save info on a drive, and swap it for another, then put it back in. The machine will insist on a reformat erasing the info contained on the drive. I have never tried this either, just going from my memory of what has been posted in the past.