Just picked up a new Panny DMR-ES15 at BB! - Page 4

Hi kcrudup,

My question is does the disc label, title name and thumbnail navigation on a DVD-R recorded in Video mode work as per the instruction manual after finalisation?

I have had some negative experiences with Sony and LG dvdrs, where the above mentioned functions can be set up and work ok prior to finalisation, but after finalisation the disc label disappears, the title name is not shown fully and the thumbnails either don't display or freeze and don't allow you to toggle between pages if there is more than 1 page of thumbnails.

The ES15 appears to be the answer to my problems, but it is not released in Australia as yet and I am trying to get the opinions of those who have owned and operated it, on any aspect of its operation.

I would appreciate any feedback you are able to give. Thanks in advance.

Rob.

I don't own an es15 (I own an es20 at the moment which is basically the same with the exception of some new added functions) and I can assure you that the menu, title name, and thumbnail navigation works perfectly on all 5 of the DVD players in my house once the DVD-R/+R is finalized.

Not that I could see.

Same for the ES15.

Oh, and the title/thumbnail management on the Magnavox I'm replacing the ES15 with (see reviews in this forum, I don't remember the model name offhand) works perfectly, too.

Thank you gentlemen,

That gives me greater confidence to pursue the ES15 when it is released here in the next few weeks.

By the way, is the tuner in the US version of the ES15 analogue or digital, please? This may sound like a dumb question, but all DVDRs sold in Australia have analogue tuners only. Panasonic have a ticket price of AU$374 on the ES15. What would be a typical price in the US, please? Are there any 'red flags'/deficiencies in the ES15, in your opinions? All the comments I have seen in this forum seem very positive. My main use will be to transfer DV from a handycam via firewire (grandchildren, you see lol).

Thanks again.

Rob.

No digital tuners in DVD Recorders yet . . .

Thanks, I guess that means we aren't as far behind as I thought

I have just picked up the ES15 at BB as well. This is my first DVD recorder and I am excited. I still don't know if I will keep this one, I was waiting for the ES25 to come out with upconversion. But anyway, I needed a new toy to play with in the meantime!

This is probably a newbie question but here goes.

I have it hooked up to my Dish Network VIP 622 box, when recording to DVD a SD show, when I play it back on the ES15 or my laptop, or other DVD players, the picture looks thin and skinny, not filling the screen at all. I have my ES15 settings on 4:3, stretch but not sure what else I need to do. Feeding a HD show fills the screen ok, seems cropped but ok otherwise.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

Now kind of off the previous topics with this machine but does anybody know the remote code #'s for the 15? I called customer service and that was a waste of time. I'm trying to get the player to work with my Toshiba remote. The codes that the toshiba suggests are something like 045 - 050 . But those are for panasonic dvd players. They don't list any suggestions for a panasonic dvr. I've tried panasonic vcr, dvd and satellite codes but nothing works so far. I also have been all over remotecentral site and with no luck. I have a pronto pro downstairs and I could program that in learn mode but don't want to have to carry the remote up and down the stairs to what ever tv I might happen to be watching. Any suggestions? Thanks.

Did anyone try making an FR recording that crosses over midnight? The ES20 had a bug that if you cross over midnight, FR mode would use the lowest possible quality (8hr+ EP) regardless of the duration of the recording. For example, if you start a 90 minute recording at 11:30pm to finish at 1am, it should be at real nice quality. But with the ES20 bug it was recorded at 8hr EP and the remaining free space was consistent with that.

If anyone tries this, it is maybe a good idea to use a -RAM or -RW/+RW...

I am going to buy my first DVD recorder. Right now, I own a HTPC with MCE 2K5 software. Recording TV is ok but it lose the closed caption after I convert the wmv file and burn it to the DVD.

Does these DVD recorders keep the closed caption on the TV shows when it records to the local DVD discs (any type) ???

Many thanks.

Yes, CC is retained.

Has anyone tried to read a DVD-RAM disc recorded on an ES-15 with a PC? I have an ES-15 and a PC with a new NEC 4570 DVD Drive (DVD-RAM compatible) and so far it has not worked.

Now, there are a lot things that are new (at least to me) in this scenario and I only have the DVD-RAM disc that came with the ES-15 to experiment with. (More RAM discs here this week.) The NEC works fine for all other DVD formats (+R, -R, etc.) and I can retrieve media information from the RAM disc using various utilities but it claims that the RAM disc data is in an unreadable format. I then tried to format the RAM disc using the PC/NEC as UDF 1.5 and 2.0 and both failed at about 98%. The ES-15 works fine with this same disc although I have not filled it to the 98% level yet.

Interestingly, the ES-15 will format this disc in about a minute (must be a quick format) and the PC takes about 35 minutes to get to 98%. You can see by looking at the disc that the PC is actually writing the whole surface.

Comments, anyone?

I've been meaning to put one of the ES15's DVD-RAMs into my NEC 4550 drive to see what it's about with a bitwise disk editor, but haven't gotten around to it yet.

That being said, since the only compatibility they even have to try and design to is other Panasonic units, I'll bet the DVD-RAM format is entirely proprietary.

Well, at least some of the earlier Panasonic-written DVD-RAMs have been readable by PC. Panasonic does provide Windows drivers on their website intended for use with their own PC drives.

Link to Panasonic Driver Site

These are necessary since only the later versions of Windows support DVD-RAM natively and some only to the point of reading them if formatted with the FAT-32 file system. Anything stored on DVD-RAM relating to video would likely use the UDF 2.0 file system and Panasonic adds this capability to Windows with it's own drivers. However, since Panasonic originated the DVD-RAM media and drives, any other vendor producing DVD-RAM compatible PC drives has stayed pretty true to Panasonic's implementation. Because of this, the Panasonic drivers generally work with other vendor's hardware.

Having said that, I sure would be interested to know what an ES-15 formatted DVD-RAM disk does in an NEC-4550 drive. I'm hoping I have nothing more serious wrong than a bad media.

I'll know something tomorrow when I get to that equipment. Ping this thread again late tomorrow night.

RAM discs are written in VR mode. The VR mode file structure differs from DVD-Video mode to enable certain functionality such as on-disc editing capability and playback features such as chasing play/time slip, on-disc chapter marker, thumbnail, and titling capaiblity. A VR mode disc is comprised of a DVD_RTAV folder that contains three files: the ifo file and its backup (.bup) that contains information about the vro file including titles, marker pointers, and thumbnail info and the vro file itself that is a single contiguous DVD compliant mpeg2 video file with either a multiplexed PCM or AC3 Dolby Digital 2.0 audio stream (this is a single file regardless of whether you have a single or multiple programs recorded on the RAM, the ifo file takes care of the indexing). Note that this differs from a DVD-Video mode disc in that the video/audio streams are contained in multiple 1GB vob files. If you have native UDF 2.0 read capability (e.g., WinXP SP2) or a UDF packet writing program, then you should be able to drag and drop the entire DVD_RTAV folder to your PC's HDD and manipulate it from there. In order to manipulate the file you need either an mpeg2 editing program or a DVD authoring program (or combination of the two) that has native VR mode support. Popular programs that have this support include: Womble, Panasonic's DVD-MovieAlbum, TMPGenc DVD Author, Ulead's VideoStudio 7 or DVD MovieMaker 3 or greater, Intervideo's DVD Copy 4. Programs that can typically handle on DVD-Video mode discs/files generally choke on VR mode discs/files. Alternately, you can simply rename the vro extension to mpg and import the frenamed file into a standard mpeg2 editing/authoring program but you may have problems if you have more than one program in the vro file since you no longer have the benefit of the ifo index plus you lose any chapter markers you manually placed.

Personally, I use Panasonic's DVD-MovieAlbum program for editing, titling etc. on the DVD-RAM and then I import the edited DVD_RTAV folder from the HDD into TMPGenc DVD Author (TDA) which can read the VR mode file structure natively including any program titles and/or chapter stops I've inserted on the RAM using the deck or the MovieAlbum software. I do this so that I can add more sophisticated titles and auto chapter stops before I author a final DVD-Video mode DVD-R (vs. simply burning a DVD-R using the deck with its rudimentary menus etc...).


Well, don't confuse the media (DVD-RAM) with the file structure (VR mode). VR mode is not Panasonic proprietary so as long as it conforms to UDF standards it doesn't nmatter if its written to a DVD-RAM or DVD-RW, it should be readable (as long as the drive is compatible). VR mode is a "universal" on-disc DVD editing/playback mode developed by the original DVD forum/consortium and is supported on both DVD-RAM and DVD-RW rewriteable discs. It was developed before the DVD+ consortium came up with DVD+R/+RW as a competing medium/format due to greed resulting in the pathetic/confusing/detrimental to the consumer DVD format wars that appear to be continuing into the HD realm with HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray. Simply disgusting that these manufacturers can't come up with a universal format. [/end rant] Anyway, VR mode not Pansonic proprietary even if it seems that way because of DVD-RAM's limited compatibility (although Toshiba, Samsung, JVC, and now Pioneer support DVD-RAM recording) and the fact that for video recording purposes, unlike DVD-RW, it cannot be recorded in Video mode (you could drop a VIDEO MODE file structure onto the RAM but not program or player will be able to read/play it as a video disc). Like I said, VR mode is universal among the "original" rewriteable disc formats -RAM/-RW. Panasonic continues lead the field when it comes to standalone home DVD recorders and they also continue to refine/improve their product line with each subsequent generation. My only real gripe with them is their stubborness in supporting VR mode recording to DVD-RW (though they do support VR mode playback and video mode recording to DVD-RW).

HTH,
Vic

Your explanation reinforces what I thought I understood about the process. Thank-you!

I do have XP SP2 and expected to be able to read a UDF 2.0 disc with a DVD-RAM compatible drive. The error occurs as soon as I try to open the disc in XP. Some thing about incorrect media or invalid or corrupt format. As I mentioned in my earlier post, the fact that when I format the DVD-RAM disc under XP and it fails at 98% has me suspecting the media. However, I don't presently have any other DVD-RAM media to verify that theory. That's why I was curious if anyone else had successfully read a DVD-RAM written specifically by an ES-15 on a PC.

What exactly do you mean by "open the disc", do you mean open a file or folder on the disc? Have you attempted to simply drag and drop the DVD_RTAV folder to the HDD and it failed? If you don't have a VR mode compatible application on your computer, WinXP alone will neither recognize nor be able to open the vro file. You will merely be able to "see" the individual files in the folder, rename them, or move them around and that's about it. Otherwise, WinXP alone won't know what to do with them and will not recognize them. This is not the fault of either WinXP or the disc, but is expected behavior. If you cannot open the DVD_RTAV folder to reveal the individual files within, then you may have a problem. It's not clear me, however, to understand what you are doing simply from the description "open the disc", can you be more specific?

Vic

I don't even get to this point. If I double-click "My Computer" and then right-click on the DVD Drive and choose "Open" or "Explore" the following error message appears:

"Windows cannot read from this disk. The disk might be corrupted, or it could be using a format that is not compatible with Windows."

Something else I just noticed is that when the DVD drive is empty it appears in "My Computer" as "DVD-RAM Drive (F: )". When I insert a DVD-RAM disc in the drive the label changes to "CD Drive (F: )". May be of no significance.

Even though I can't open the disc, I can use DVDInfoPro to view the media info like so:

Media Information
Region information N/A not a DVD-VIDEO
MediaCode MatsushitaElectricIndustrialCO.,LTD.M01J3004
Book Type DVD-RAM
Media Type DVD-RAM
Available Write Descriptor zCLV 3.0x 4155KBps
Available Write Descriptor zCLV 2.0x 2770KBps
Data area starting sector 31000h
Linear Density 0.280um/bit
Track Density 0.615um/track
Number of Layers 1

Complete Media Code
00000220 0C 09 0A 0B 0B 09 0A 0A 0B 4D 61 74 73 75 73 68 .........Matsush
00000230 69 74 61 20 45 6C 65 63 74 72 69 63 20 49 6E 64 ita Electric Ind
00000240 75 73 74 72 69 61 6C 20 43 4F 2E 2C 4C 54 44 2E ustrial CO.,LTD.
00000250 0D 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 4D 30 31 4A 33 30 30 . M01J300
00000260 34 0D 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 01 01 82 00 6A 2D 2D 4. ....j--


So, the drive has some ability to read the disc but not as much as I expected. I should also mention that the PC is running XP Media Center Edition Version 2002, Service Pack 2.

I have a Samsung DVD-ROM drive on the PC with WinXP Pro. I am able to get the recordings to play using the PowerDVD program that came with the drive. I haven't tried those from an es15 though.

What packet writing software do you have installed (e.g., InCD sometimes causes conflicts)? The drive name issue sounds like there is a potential conflict issue, ideally, if properly formatted (UDF or even FAT32) the DVD-RAM should appear to WinXP just like a HDD (albeit a slow one). Did you reformat the drive in the ES15 after the failed attempt to format on the PC (note that the file ifo, bup, vro file structure will still exist after formatting on the deck even if no video has been recorded to the RAM)?

yesterday I bought the ES15 myself from BB. So far I'm very happy with it, I specially love the recording quality in LP mode, the full 720X480 resolution at that speed sure makes a big difference. Does anybody know how to check the firmware version? Do I need to upgrade it?

No InCD, but it does have the Dell version of Sonic DLA. I've deactivated it for the NEC DVD-RAM drive.

I investigated this a little more. With a music CD in the drive the name becomes "Audio CD (F: ). With a commercial DVD the name becomes "Title_of_the_DVD (F: )". I think when the drive senses the presence of a disk but can't otherwise determine specifically what kind of disc it might be it defaults to the lowest common denominator - "CD Drive (F: )".

Yes, I did reformat the DVD-RAM on the ES-15 and it worked fine. The original files were gone since the PC format actually over-wrote 98% of the DVD-RAM during it's 35 minute duration. Since the ES-15 format takes less than a minute I don't think it would find a media defect unless it was at the very beginning of the media. The PC format failed at 98% and I haven't written data out to that point with the ES-15 to know how it reacts at 98%.

Not sure, but the usual game played by the HT retailers over here is to put on a high ticket price then magically slice $$$ off it if you 'pay cash'. If you are silly enough to just walk in and pay the ticket price, then that's a bonus for the retailer.

Rob.

FWIW, I was able to play back the .../DVD_RTAV/VR_MOVIE.VRO file I'd recorded onto a DVD-RAM using "MPlayer" on Linux.

The ES-15 just came out. I think it's a bit early to be looking for a firmware update. If you are happy with it, just enjoy it.