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Polaroid DVD Recorder - Page 7

post #181 of 2859
6/18/06 at 11:24pm
I saw 10 bit Dac in my manual or somewhere. I was just fighting with that piss poor excuse philips uses for editing tonight again. It doesn't really let you know if you've hit the spot and if you don't it just skips the spot or ignores it so you don't know if you've dropped a segment for sure or skipped over too much Half the time I have to clear my edit points and start over, definitely not even close to frame acurate. I end up with part of the first commercial in each edit when I finally get it the way I want... At least the burner seems to do nice quality to every disk I've tried so far and the video looks good too.
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post #182 of 2859
6/19/06 at 2:06am
Hi everyone...
Does anyone know how to use the yesDVD on the 2001G... thanks
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post #183 of 2859
6/20/06 at 8:04am
To use yesDVD do the following.

1. Make sure the feature is enabled in setup
2. Use a DVD+RW disc
3. You have to use the one touch record mode. No timer recordings or hdd to dvd.

I have a question for others.
One time I was able to record from the DVD to HDD ( A home Movie DVD) but since have not been able to figure out how to do it again. Has anybody done this?
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post #184 of 2859
6/21/06 at 12:54am
anyone knows if the Western Digital WD3200JBRTL 320 GB 7200 RPM EIDE Internal Hard Drive would work to replace in this unit?

the description of this HDD on the internet says that it is IDE-ATA interface and require an Ultra ATA-capable system.

also do I need to install any extra fans when I upgrade the HDD?
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post #185 of 2859
6/21/06 at 3:54pm
Should I assume that by now all of these units at walmart will be the updated versions?

Is there a way to tell from the box/serial #'s??

How many have the updated ones? Seems like only 1 person posting here (?). Would like to know if others with the updated versions also have quite units or this one poster just got lucky.

Fleaman
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post #186 of 2859
6/21/06 at 5:53pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by fleaman View Post

Should I assume that by now all of these units at walmart will be the updated versions?

Is there a way to tell from the box/serial #'s??

How many have the updated ones? Seems like only 1 person posting here (?). Would like to know if others with the updated versions also have quite units or this one poster just got lucky.

Fleaman

few days ago I got a unit from walmart... well... the fan was very loud like a small vacumcleaner, so I went back to walmart and asked to try a unit before I buy it, they let me, and the first unit I tried had no fan noise what so ever so I took it, and I am very happy with it, I do not know if there is any way to tell from the box or serial #, I think the best way to try it before you buy... hope this info will help...
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post #187 of 2859
6/22/06 at 8:02am
I have bought this unit and am very frustrated. I cannot get it to perform as the "manual" explains and my remote is not like the one that is described in the manual. Tech/Customer service stinks!! Can anyone help me figure this thing out ? I really need this to work for my kids homeschooling for the summer....please respond if possible. Thanks in advance and may God bless you!!
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post #188 of 2859
6/22/06 at 8:57am
Quote:
Originally Posted by drkipp View Post

I have bought this unit and am very frustrated. I cannot get it to perform as the "manual" explains and my remote is not like the one that is described in the manual. Tech/Customer service stinks!! Can anyone help me figure this thing out ? I really need this to work for my kids homeschooling for the summer....please respond if possible. Thanks in advance and may God bless you!!

Return the unit for an updated version?

Fleaman
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post #189 of 2859
6/22/06 at 6:35pm
Quote:


So we don't really KNOW whether the Polaroid has a stereo or mono tuner!

It would be hard to believe they installed a mono tuner for a broadcast TV device since the U.S./FCC has mandated 4-channel broadcast audio since 1984. Here's the Wikipedia entry on the original mono audio plus the 1984-mandated three additional channels for all programs broadcast in the US:

Multichannel Television Sound (MTS), mandated in 1984.

Obviously, if a program was not recorded in stereo, it is received by both "stereo" channels as the same sound, rather than the "stereo difference" and, of course, it sounds like and IS mono, except on two channels if the receiver has that capability.

Most of the "mono-TV tuners" mentioned today seem to be more for computer TV cards and the like.

We really need more than the "sounds like" approach to let people know what kind of tuner the Polaroid really has!

"Maybe," one way, if your TV does this, would be to watch a program thru the Polaroid tuner that you KNOW has been recorded in stereo and see if the TV (or Polaroid?) "Display" shows Stereo or Mono sound. My TV shows this automatically so it is able to distinguish whether the sound is 2-channel mono or true Stereo (the "difference" channel plus the original mono channel)...might be Setup option others have to set to display such info. or a one time button push on the remote? Maybe a Polaroid user's TV also has a button or option for displaying program info like this???

A pretty reliable way to tell if you are getting stereo through a tuner is if you play your audio through an A/V receiver with DPL, DPL II, DPL IIx, or whatever and, with a broadcast that has Dolby Pro-encoded audio (I'm pretty sure CBS' "Cold Case," among many other shows, is in Dolby Pro, also "24" on Fox), you can see if you get the distinct surround audio through your rear speakers.

If you get no signal through the rear speakers, or it's not distinct from the front L/R audio, then you are probably feeding mono audio into your receiver. But if you do get the distinct audio, then you have to be getting a Dolby Pro signal.
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post #190 of 2859
6/24/06 at 12:28pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by mchabbi View Post

Polaroid is doing a fine job of everything it is supposed to do. Image quality is really good even from analog cable source. It is pretty good from Digital cable through CVBS/Composite Video input too.

I changed the HDD to a 300GB and now I have 270 or so hours available and I am recording all the world cup soccer matches. So I can watch them late in the evening. I also added 2 more fans, one on top of the chipset and one below the HDD to keep them cool. I also reduced the voltage on the back panel fan so that it runs a bit slow and runs quieter.. All fans run quieter now.

Now the DVR is as quiet as it should be.

One observation, if your screen saver is turned ON in the setup menu, it might hang the DVR when the screen saver appears on the screen.
At least it happened to me once. The screen saver came on and I couldnt press any key on the remote or front panel to get it to do anything. I had to pull the power cord. I turned off the screen saver after that, so I havent tried testing it again. This might be a bug they can fix in a firmware upgrade.

The other thing that bugs me is the HDD makes a loud noise when the machine is turned on. like all the heads hitting an end and then starting to read the HDD.

The remote sensitivity bugs me because it has a very narrow angle of view.

But I am happy with the unit.
More testing to come after a few days..

I am curious as to what you had to do to upgrade the hard drive. Most recorders you have to have the code to enter the service menu
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post #191 of 2859
6/24/06 at 12:37pm
For me it was unscrew old drive and brackets, unplug everything, mount new drive in old brackets, set jumper to CS, plug back in cables, remount drive, turn on and wait for it to boot and do it's thing, 237 gig rather then 75
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post #192 of 2859
6/24/06 at 12:51pm
Set jumper to CS?
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post #193 of 2859
6/24/06 at 1:00pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by bobkart View Post

Set jumper to CS?


Cable Select on the hard drive (normally labeled CS) rather than Master or Slave.
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post #194 of 2859
6/24/06 at 1:02pm
Ah. Wasn't sure if that was a jumper on the hard drive or the recorder. Thanks.
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post #195 of 2859
6/24/06 at 1:05pm
You guys are confused about the mono tuner in the Poloroid. No where is mono mentioned in the manual. It says and I quote. It has a analog tuner which will output 2.1 or 5.1 audio. Analog is not the same as mono. Unless your using digital output which requires you to use the optical or coax out on the back of the recorder to a reciever or amplfier that has the same inputs, the standard output is ANALOG. Now some of the Lite-on models do have a MONO tuner and what a waste that is. I took my first one back as so as I found out about it. Best to buy at Wally World. They guarentee them for 90 days exchange or return.
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post #196 of 2859
6/24/06 at 10:22pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by dominator2 View Post

You guys are confused about the mono tuner in the Poloroid. No where is mono mentioned in the manual. It says and I quote. It has a analog tuner which will output 2.1 or 5.1 audio. Analog is not the same as mono. Unless your using digital output which requires you to use the optical or coax out on the back of the recorder to a reciever or amplfier that has the same inputs, the standard output is ANALOG. Now some of the Lite-on models do have a MONO tuner and what a waste that is. I took my first one back as so as I found out about it. Best to buy at Wally World. They guarentee them for 90 days exchange or return.


Can you reference the page in the manual that mentions "analog tuner which will output 2.1 or 5.1 audio"? I can't seem to find it in my manual.

Thanks
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post #197 of 2859
6/24/06 at 10:30pm
Does anybody know if the Polaroid DRM 2001G has a backup battery for short periods of power outages?? If somebody were to unplug their Polaroid for two minutes and then plug it back in and tell me if the clock still shows the correct time or if it shows dashes like on the original setup. I would be much apprecitative.. If it doesn't hold the time then thats the only thing that you will have to reset. The other settings are saved. I live in the mountains and we are always having short power outages. If it has a battery backup then it will hold any programing that you have setup to record. Pioneer does. It's good for about 20 mins.
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post #198 of 2859
6/24/06 at 10:42pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by m1_too View Post

Can you reference the page in the manual that mentions "analog tuner which will output 2.1 or 5.1 audio"? I can't seem to find it in my manual.

Thanks

ANALOG AUDIO OUTPUT....page 14 It actually says 2 channel or 5.1 channel. 2.1 spec is the same thing as 2 channel. Right below it it talks about SPDIF digital audio out. The owners manual is very brief and not well written. I don't recall seeing anything on high speed dubbing at all. Did I miss something??
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post #199 of 2859
6/24/06 at 11:13pm
[quote]
Quote:
Originally Posted by dominator2 View Post

ANALOG AUDIO OUTPUT....page 14 It actually says 2 channel or 5.1 channel. 2.1 spec is the same thing as 2 channel. Right below it it talks about SPDIF digital audio out. The owners manual is very brief and not well written. I don't recall seeing anything on high speed dubbing at all. Did I miss something??

But having an stereo OUTPUT is not the same thing as a stereo TUNER. The analog output could just be for commercial dvd playback. Admittingly I only browsed the manual at Wal-Mart but found no mention of stereo recording in the specs or the setup guide. Thats where the question comes from. I think most of us here understand stereo can come over analog-thats what turntables do.
It has been asked more than once if anyone with this player has played a recording made on it back through their stereo or ht system to see if its stereo or not. So far noone has answered that simple request, which is puzzling. And since were stating the obvious, the reason its a deal breaker is that the stereo audio on a broadcast also carrys the pro logic surround info. No stereo recording, no pro logic surround. So a recording would be inferior to the source, at least as far as audio goes. Heck, it would be inferior to a hifi vcr, which also has analog sound.
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post #200 of 2859
6/26/06 at 12:28pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by fleaman View Post

Should I assume that by now all of these units at walmart will be the updated versions?

Is there a way to tell from the box/serial #'s??

How many have the updated ones? Seems like only 1 person posting here (?). Would like to know if others with the updated versions also have quite units or this one poster just got lucky.

Fleaman

Wow, this thread went silent....otherwise I wouldn't normally quote myself (although I do enjoy it). But the question remains in my original quote of which only 1 poster mentioned trial testing the units in the store for fan noise which may not be the only indicator as to the post-recall possibility (I don't think ALL the pre-recalled players were noisy).

Fleaman
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post #201 of 2859
6/26/06 at 5:41pm
I agree the manual is very poorly written!!! I have had my unit 8 days. I do not have noisy fan. I am definatley still in a learning mode. I attempted to record from HD to DVD and have not been able to get my DVD +RWs to be recognized Comp USA, & Memorex brand have only tried 1 of each. Records on my HP DVD +Rs. I've had an ILO with 80 gig for a couple of years and it works great but alas they are out of production. There was a poster that I believe said he had an ILO that had crashed. If it was a hard drive they can also be replaced with a larger drive, but the drive must be formatted to fat 32. Hopefully as time go's by more people will write up their experiences
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post #202 of 2859
6/26/06 at 6:38pm
I bought one of the first 4 at my Walmart after they got them back in, probably that same day, they didn't have one on display yet and at that point almost nobody had one to figure out the fans were noisy. My fan sounds like a bad air conditioner but adding the soft rubber donuts I made for the screws quieted it down about 50 percent. I also have some other noisy fans I might try after I get a dropping resister to slow them down and make them much quieter as they move much more air then the stock one does.
The case is very thin metal and the fan bearings and whatever just resonate through the whole unit because all they used to dampen mine at least was a thin piece of black foam rubber gasket.
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post #203 of 2859
6/27/06 at 1:22pm
I'm into my second day of this purchase I am beginning to regret. Mainly because this thing only records in VR mode. You can forget popping a disc into your PC to quickly edit or copy something you have recorded. Those of you having trouble recording from HDD to disc, I can relate to. Press HDD. Add/Clear your selection. Press REC. What happens is it actually does begin high speed dubbing, but there's no way to tell what the heck is going on or when it is finished. It just goes back to live mode and your watching your input signal. I first used a Taiyo Yuden -R and it didn't record anything on three attempts. A Ridata +R worked fine.
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post #204 of 2859
6/27/06 at 8:05pm
Bought the last one at my local Wal-mart. I was lucky the fan is very quite.

I did some recording tests to the DVD (about 10 minutes each) to check
the recording bit rates & resolutions and they all make sence except the 6 hour mode.

1hr (HQ) was 720x480 at 9000kbps
2hr (SP) was 720x480 at 4380kbps
2.5hr (SP+) was 720x480 at 3750kbps
3hr (LP) was 720x480 at 3090kbps
4hr (EP) was 352x480 at 2130kbps
6hr (SLP) was 352x480 at 9396kbps

The manual says that EP is 3 hours but the screen display says its 4 hours
and the manual says that LP is 4 hours but the screen display says its 3 hours

But how can the bit rate be 9396 for 6 hours but only 2130 for 4 hours
at the same screen size.

I guess i will need to do the tests over again at longer times to see if
SLP mode is really 6 hours and not 4 hours.

The biggest mistake is the 24 hour clock display mode instead of AM/PM
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post #205 of 2859
6/27/06 at 8:16pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by pad77 View Post

But how can the bit rate be 9396 for 6 hours but only 2130 for 4 hours at the same screen size.

Resolution ("screen size") doesn't matter as far as bitrate is concerned. More time equals less bitrate (they have a reciprocal relationship in other words). The bitrate for 6-hour mode should have been around 1500 according to the other numbers. Something is wrong with how you're determining that number to arrive at 9396. In fact, for the video portion of what's encoded on a DVD, 9200Kb/s is the maximum allowed by the DVD Standard.
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post #206 of 2859
6/27/06 at 8:43pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by pad77 View Post

The biggest mistake is the 24 hour clock display mode instead of AM/PM

If that can't truly be fixed, then it would be very inconvenient, stupid in fact. And I grew up on ocean yachts, so I'm not normally resistant to maritime/military time code, but on a video recorder that will record shows listed only in am/pm formats?? What were they thinking?

Do we even know for sure that all the units at Wally world are update units?

Fleaman
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post #207 of 2859
6/27/06 at 8:44pm
Ok, I just completed a 1 hour test recording in the SLP mode.

The recording used up 757Mb of the DVD so 6 hours would have taken 4.5Gb which is the size of the DVD.

So SLP mode is 6 hours.

But the program i'm using to read the bit rate still says 9396kbps so there must be a bug in TMPGEnc DVD Author 1.5 that reports the wrong bit rate in the 6 hour mode.

bobkart must be right, that it has to be near 1500kbps in 6 hour mode. All the other numbers look right but the bit rate i got in the 6 hour mode just looks wrong.
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post #208 of 2859
6/27/06 at 8:48pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by fleaman View Post


Do we even know for sure that all the units at Wally world are update units?

Fleaman

I only heard that the recall was for a mistake in the printing of the manual. Did you hear that there was a hardware or software problem ?

(Just to be clear .... To record a TV show you can use AM/PM for the start and end times, Its only the front panel display that always shows the time in 24 hour mode.)
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post #209 of 2859
6/27/06 at 11:53pm
Pad77,

This was posted on June 6th of this thread:

Quote:
Originally Posted by free4all View Post

The fan is not as noisy - barely noticable. The remote is the exact same but on the old one, the unit did not respond unless the remote was directed straight at the recorder. Now it is more sensitive. On the returned unit, after recording to +r, the disk would not play on the unit until finalized so I could not edit it. No such problem on the replacement. On the returned unit, I could hardly see the menu screen because the Polaroid logo was not faded into the background - that is what I meant by cleaning up the screen.

Couple of questions - when I record two titles to dvd+r - does anyone know how I can delete one before finalizing? I can only figure out how to delete the disk and not one title. Has anyone figured a region free hack?

So either the recall was for more than just the manual, or there are some serious QC differences between units.

Fleaman
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post #210 of 2859
6/27/06 at 11:57pm
And this was free4all's previous post about the 1st polaroid unit he got:
(sorry for the out of sequence post of his quote)

Quote:
Originally Posted by free4all View Post

I have this recorder about three weeks now. As others, Walmart registers would not allow sale and clerk overrode the system. I had an ILO recorder that just gave up and this is my first hdd. Agree that the remote is cumbersome and has to be lined up just so, the fan is very loud, the users manual is all over the place, the set - up menu uses am/pm but the display clock is 24 hour and can't be changed The pause tv works great, the picture is great. So far I have used it mostly to record from TV in 2hr mode using DVD+R and no major problems til today. The dvd burns but will not play until finalized. I take it out of the recorder before it is finalized and it plays on my computer, I put it back in the recorder and it will not play but allows me to finalize and then plays. The second major problem is that it has "lost' a recording. I used otr to record a one hour show to disk while in the SP 2hr mode, I stopped the recording and started a new one recording. Only the second show is on the disk and the disk is full! This seems to have started when I set it to insert automatic chapters every ten minutes. I will play around some more and contact Polaroid before bringing it back. Maybe it is one of a bad batch - hence the recall which both Walmart and Polaroid deny. Oh and I used the YesDVD once and it destroyed the disk. I may also use different media to see if that is the problem. But I don't find it at all user friendly. It is almost impossible to figure out how to finalize a disk. The manual references the "disc operation" mode which can be accessed by pressing the "disc open" button, a button that does not exist and also references the p and q button which also does not exist. If they would restock at Walmart I would bring it back and try another. If anyone has figured a region hack, please post.

Fleaman
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