Is an External HDD possible w/ a DVDR? - Page 5

Everything you say is correct. The short male/male IDE cable was used to create a disconnection point between the external enclosure and the Polaroid. When I was using just the external IDE removable drive rack I didn't need it because the drive rack is light and easy to handle and has the IDE connector right on the back. I disconnected the fan because when using the drive rack externally there is little thermal build up. It was unnecessary. Also, any IDE cable will work as long as it is long enough for your application. You just need to grind down the "nub" and reverse the cable when using it for a HDD.

Really great stuff - thanks!

I looked at one HDD I use with the Polaroid using PartitionMagic and the drive shows as unallocated. Works great with the Polaroid. It does not show up as a drive under Windows XP.

I looked at another HDD I use (with the Polaroid) and this one shows as an NTSF drive. I had set up an NTSF partiton on the drive a while back when testing and continued to use it as such. This drive shows up under My Computer. Under properties it shows the proper size and also shows 71GB used - which is correct, there are recordings on the drive. But it shows no files on the drive. I've set up folder options to show everything down to the system file level. Still nothing.

Both the unallocated drive and the NTSF formatted drive work fine with the Polaroid.

Not sure what this means but I thought I'd report it.

The OEM burner is a standard size DVD burner. So a replacement should fit right in there. I have not done this on the Polaroid but on other DVD recorders the procedure is something like this:

1. Eject the DVD tray. Remove the front face plate. This allows you to remove the drive from the case.

2. Pull the power plug and the IDE cable from the drive. Remove the drive.

3. Remove the face plate on the replacement drive.

4. Install the new replacement drive into the recorder. Hopefully the bracket screws line up. And hopefully the drive tray lines up properly with the front of the machine. They usually do. Plug in the power cable and connect the IDE cable.

5. Eject the tray on the new drive. If you can do this manually fine. If not power up the recorder to do this.

6. Install the face plate on the front of the ejected drive tray. This could be the toughest part and might require a bit of customization to fit right.

The good news is I don't think you'll have to dismantle the replacement burner at all. It should fit right in.

Yes there is. But it is not enabled in the firmware. The main board that the Polaroid uses is also used by other DVD recorders released in other countries under other brand names. Some of those recorders have USB capabilities as part of their feature set. But not so with the Polaroid.

Packard Bell, Eltax, Denver being just a few.

Yes. What you list will do it. Maybe order extra drive trays for extra hard drives if you want to add them. I think you can order just the trays without the rack. You'll need two right out of the box. One for your new 250GB and one for the original 80GB that you'll be pulling out of the Polaroid. So you'll be up to 330GB - and counting.....

Only thing to add is remember you will need reverse the IDE cable which means you'll have to grind off the positioning "nub" of the new cable. Pay attention to pin one - the red line side of the cable. This is posted earlier in the thread.

That's a tough order to fill. The Polaroid is not DL capable. I did see a post where the HDD can be swapped with the Philips 3455 but you won't gain anything on the editing side.

You can high speed dub Polaroid discs to the Accurian and this does offer better editing (file merge for example) but the Accurian does not have DL capabilities and cannot do a rate conversion dubbing from the HDD to disc.

You can dub Polaroid recordings to the HDD of the Toshiba XS series. And then edit and merge files. You can then do a rate conversion dubbing back to disc in order to fit to one disc. But this is time consuming.

Biggest problem is once you split a recording on the Polaroid you can't merge it back together on the Polaroid.

I think your strategy of an analog copy from one Polaroid to another is a good strategy. Yes there is a generational loss. But your original recording is in HQ from a HD source. And your analog copy is via component. I bet the quality looks pretty good. You might try recording the copy in SP mode that will fit on a disc. Test the quality. This my be easier for a movie for example.

Another thing you might want to consider is making your original recording at a quality that will fit on a disc. SP for example instead of HQ. I use both HQ and SP depending on what I am recording. If I know I want to have portability I'll use SP or SP+. The quality is still very good. I use HQ for things I know I want to archive to the HDD. For example I did an HQ recording of the extended versions of LOTR. I edited out the disc changes ( 6 discs total) and ending credits and now have something like a 11 hour continuous recording at HQ backed up to a HDD. Sounds crazy I know but it was one of those because I could things.

I have not even opened the case on the Accurian yet. But my thinking is that the HDD swap is more involved. Similiar to a LiteOn 5045 swap. Dubbing a polaroid disc to the Toshiba HDD is in real time. Rate conversion dubbing allows you to burn a file that is too large for one disc onto one disc. The Toshiba transcodes the file down to the right size - rate converts.

- Yes there is a PQ loss when using rate conversion dubbing. It depends on how much the bit rate reduction is.

- I run one analog audio out of the SA8300HD to the Polaroid and a second analog audio out of the SA8300HD to the TV - the SA8300HD has two analog audio outputs. I then run analog audio out of the Polaroid to the Toshiba. I also run digital audio out of the Polaroid to the TV. My TV allows me to assign the digital audio to a specific input - I assigned it to component input #1 that also has the analog audio from the SA8300HD running to it along with the component video from the Polaroid.

When the Polaroid is powered off the TV gets the audio directly from the SA8300HD analog feed and the component video passes through the Polaroid to the TV.

When the Polaroid is powered on the digital audio from the Polaroid to the TV becomes dominant and over rides the analog audio feed (from the SA8300HD to input #1 of the TV). As mentioned above I have the TV component input #1 set up with two audio feeds - the analog from the SA8300HD and the digital audio from the Polaroid. Being able to assign a digital audio input to different video inputs is a feature of the TV.

With the Polaroid powered off the Toshiba gets a passthrough of both audio and video because I have s-video running from the SA8300HD to the Polaroid (in addition to the component mentioned above). The s-video and analog audio pass through to the Toshiba with the Polaroid powered off - a normal feature of the Polaroid. HD channels are letterboxed but SD channels operate as they should because the video is passing through the Polaroid as s-video (in and out).

When I power the Polaroid on and choose the Polaroid's component input the component to s-video conversion kicks in to the Toshiba and I get a full wide screen 16x9 image to the Toshiba. Also any CP issues that might effect the Toshiba go away. For example I can't record ON Demand without CP kicking in with the Toshiba. With the Polaroid powered on I am able to. The Toshiba is hooked up the the TV via HDMI.

I have seven input choices with my TV so I have a lot of options. For example I have COAX out of the wall to the TV so I can get high def to the TV via its QAM tuner. And a couple other components hooked up to it. I decided on this setup because it requires no A/V switch box, matrix switch, etc. Most components as well as viewing choices are controlled with a universal learning remote - the inexpensive Sony VL600. My concesion right now is I'm not taking advantage of digital audio out of the SA8300HD to the TV.