Do I use a RW disc, a RAM disc. Are there advantages of one over the other? Where does one find the RAM discs? Do they cost more? Recomendations please, I want to start using my Panny Es15 as a replacement for my VCR tonight.

Do I use a RW disc, a RAM disc. Are there advantages of one over the other? Where does one find the RAM discs? Do they cost more? Recomendations please, I want to start using my Panny Es15 as a replacement for my VCR tonight.


RAM disk seem to be more reliable in the long run over RW media. I have had a number of RW fail, right out of the box, and after a few uses, but not one of the dozens of RAM disks I have used. Plus recording and chase-play use will probably be more reliable on RAM disk then on RW disks, if your model allows recording and chase-play back on RW disks.

RAM disk generally do cost more then RW media, most of the time 2 to 3 times as much, and in some stores maybe even more. But unless you have to buy a boat load (which I have) you make up on it with increased life reuse and reliability with them, hopefully! :D

Of course you do want to shop around for the best prices. The best I have found, except for a few specific short-term store sale, is from Panasonic's own web store, Club Panasonic.

https://www2.panasonic.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/vClubHomePage?storeId=15001&cacheProgram=11002&cachePartner=7000000000000005702

I bought RAM (formated for computer use) disks from club Panasonic for only 99 cents a piece and they work after a reformat in the recorder with no problems.

From online media stores like
http://www.rima.com

http://supermediastore.com/

or from local stores like Walmart, Target, Sears, depending on your location and local store availability. Take a look!

If you record in wide-screen for play back on wide-screen TV's RAM disks on Panny recorders seem to be the best to use. See your recorders manual for details on wide-screen, 16x9 recording for info.

The real down side to using RAM disks is that they are not as universally accepted in DVD players and computer DVD drives so you will not be able to loan/give a disk to someone unless that person has a RAM disk player/burner. If that is the case, use RW or DVD-R media. And will future players be able to play back the format. I don't worry much about this because I know for at least the near future I will be able to get computer RAM burners to use to rip and burn programs off of RAM disks and covert it to whatever format I will be using in the future, just as I do now when transferring it to DVD-R disks.

So for what it is worth, I think for using as VCR replacement, recording and re-recording over, RAM disk are probably the best option. But if you can not find a RAM disk tonight to use, a RW or even a DVD-R disk will work to record what you want now.

I am assuming that what you are recording is just for temporary storage since you are only asking about Rewritable media (Timeshifting, transferring to computer). Both DVD "+" or "-" RW media is rated for 1,000 recording cycles while DVD-RAM is rated for 100,000 recording cycles. The DVD-RAM will allow you to do chase play on the Panasonics. This feature allows you to watch what was already recorded of a recording that is still in progress. DVD-RAM does generally still cost a little more than RW media, but it's not as bad as it was a few years ago. Also if you intend to play recordings created on the Panasonic in other DVD players than you may want to use RW media instead of DVD-RAM because there are still a lot more players that are able to play RW media vs DVD-RAM media. One thing about purchasing RAM media is to make sure to stick with name brands like Panasonic or Maxell. I would stay away from Memorex DVD-RAM media since they don't manufacture media themselves you never know what you will end up with. For example I've had some memorex & k-hypermedia brand DVD-RAM disc's that were DOA or only lasted for several recordings, but never had any Panasonic or Maxell RAM media go bad. As to where can you get RAM disc's I would think that stores like OfficeMax, Best Buy, Radio Shack, WalMart just to name a few would carry RAM media. One tip if you decide to use RW media and want to play this disc on other DVD players make sure you finalize the disc in your Panasonic DVD recorder beforehand to make it compatible with DVD players.

The funny thing is that the unit came with a PANASONIC RAM disc and after playing around and recording a half dozen or so show snippets at different speeds to see the quality difference, I started deleting the titles one by one. When I got to the last one the unit started beeping and went into some sort of repair mode.. It shut down to fix the disc or something and now whenever I turn the unit on it just says: UNFORMAT ad will not let me reformat the disc. A few have suggested washing the disc....I will try that but how the heck did it get dirty when I removed it from its sleeve and put it right into the dvd and only used it for maybe 30 minutes! Its a PANNY disc as well.

The funny thing is that the unit came with a PANASONIC RAM disc and after playing around and recording a half dozen or so show snippets at different speeds to see the quality difference, I started deleting the titles one by one. When I got to the last one the unit started beeping and went into some sort of repair mode.. It shut down to fix the disc or something and now whenever I turn the unit on it just says: UNFORMAT ad will not let me reformat the disc. A few have suggested washing the disc....I will try that but how the heck did it get dirty when I removed it from its sleeve and put it right into the dvd and only used it for maybe 30 minutes! Its a PANNY disc as well.
That is the trouble with DVD disk recording, NONE of the disk options (RAM/R/RW) are as reliable as the well known well used VCR tapes. One will always have a certain number of failures of one kind or another with DVD disks. And one will never know when it will happen, so missed shows will be inevitable with recording direct to disk. The technology is so much more advance and so much more finicky then what we are used to with VCR's.

This is why a recorder with a hard-disk drive to record programs on first, and then transfer the program off to disk if one wishes to keep it is the best option. Doing it this way will allow one to re-burn to another DVD disk if the first burn to disk would fail.

Welcome to the wild and wacky world of DVD recording :)

I looked into that. It was 3 choices:

1) By a $50 VCR
2) By a $100 DVD recorder
3) Rent a DVR from cable company for $13 a month.

**Could get a DVR but run the risk of issues in 2009.

I opted #2 figuring I could start to move my VHS home movies to DVD.

I would try to get ahold of another -RAM disk asap to make sure it is the disk and not the recorder. -RAM disks should last a very long time, so your messing with it should not have damaged it at all. If you had been doing that for months, well, maybe, but not an evenings worth of fiddling.

For long-term storage I use T-Y premium -R disks. I use -RAM disks for temporary storage.

In almost 3 years I have yet to have even one RAM disc fail. I thought one had, but washed it and it is good as new.

That is the trouble with DVD disk recording, NONE of the disk options (RAM/R/RW) are as reliable as the well known well used VCR tapes. One will always have a certain number of failures of one kind or another with DVD disks. And one will never know when it will happen, so missed shows will be inevitable with recording direct to disk. The technology is so much more advance and so much more finicky then what we are used to with VCR's.

Welcome to the wild and wacky world of DVD recording :)
I've been thinking along the same lines...but maybe a "little" different.

With DVDs, the recording tracks that must be read are so close together, they're measured in micrometers (um). A female dust mite, also measured in micrometers, on the laser lens would be fried like an egg and the blood and guts would sit there, blocking more than 400 tracks on a DVD!

Imagine a dust mite on a VCR tape...it would be squashed and the blood and guts would be brushed off by the rollers! :D ;)

That is the trouble with DVD disk recording, NONE of the disk options (RAM/R/RW) are as reliable as the well known well used VCR tapes.
I have a load of old, broken-taped, VHS cassettes I'd like to introduce you to :rolleyes: :).

I looked into that. It was 3 choices:

1) By a $50 VCR
2) By a $100 DVD recorder
3) Rent a DVR from cable company for $13 a month.

**Could get a DVR but run the risk of issues in 2009.

I opted #2 figuring I could start to move my VHS home movies to DVD.
And there is nothing wrong with your choice, as long as you know its limitations and not be to upset when you miss that show because the disk failed.

As far as copying over home movies, as Church AV Guy mentioned, TY DVD-R disks is best. With a copy on RAM disk and a couple copies on TY DVD-R and another brand or two DVD-R disks is your best bet. And for the foreseeable future it would even be best to keep your original tapes.

Do not fall for all the marketing hype of these disks, if you seen 20 or 30 or 100 years they should last, well no one really knows, and there have been plenty of people who have lost their programs and computer data on their disks over just a short span of a few months or a couple of years to know that there is no guarantee that these disk will last and last. Maybe some will, but most certain some will not. That is why you want back up copies, just in case, and as many on as many different media as you possibly can until something better comes along in the future.

There are a couple of programs for computers if you have a computer DVD burner that is compatible with the programs that can be used to test the quality of a disk recording to see if it is good or poor which may help to know in the long run if it may fail sooner then later. If you look over or search this forum you will see a number of past discussion on disk testing and opinions on longevity of the disks.

I have a load of old, broken-taped, VHS cassettes I'd like to introduce you to :rolleyes: :).

That is right :rolleyes:

But seriously, I Never said that they could not wear out or be broken. But for the millions of people that have used VCR machines over the past 30 years how much of a problem did they have besides playing that tape over and over again again wearing it out.

I for one have never had a problem with hundreds of tapes over the years except when the machine itself broke and would start to eat the tapes. And that did not happen too often. Not like the dozen or so bad disks I have had with the DVD recorders I have used in only a couple years time.

Even with DVD disks problems, I still would use them over tapes any day because they do offer some advantages that make using them a better option. But I do know their inherent limitations and problems and hope new users quickly learn them so they will not be too disappointed when something goes wrong. ;)

Thanks. I am not throwing out my VHS after I copy them. I will save them. I am really just trying to preserve what I have since VCRs are now becoming scarce...for better or worse. NO doubt a replacement for DVDs will around at some point and I will then look to preserve my DVDs on that format. Thanks!