Magnavox 537, 535, 533, 515, 513, 2160A, 2160, 2080 & Philips 3576, 3575 - Page 759

Her.

Lucky you - haha. I've been gone all day, so since I had the unit unplugged this whole time, I tried the soft reset with no luck. I have gone through every setting in the general settings and entered through them all, with no luck. I am now going to do a hard reset in a last ditch effort to get this to work. And I have considered the possibility that maybe its just broken and doesn't have anything to do with the set up. I would like to add though, in the Quick Start Guide, under step 2, in Big Bold letters is says "Caution, The disc tray does not open without completing the Initial Setup" so that is why I have felt like that must be the problem (even though it might not be).

The good news is the hard reset did get the Initial Setup menu to appear. The bad news is that after going through the set up, the dvd tray still won't open Bummer.

Sorry

I will knock on wood my luck continues LOL

Free preview on Showtime. Time for some of us to give our machines a workout.

Just wanted to let everyone know that the Taiyo Yudens and the Verbatim AZO DVD-R's are working well.

Also I recorded a show off the tuner (Elementary) whilst watching a DVD at the same time with the 537. Sweet!

I have a new 537 and two older 515's all hooked up to my Kosmic SuperQuad antenna. I get all the local UHF stations and the one VHF station (real channel 9) in my area. Thanks EV!
Edited by SonicLogic - 1/11/13 at 9:00pm

I finally bought one of these, the MDR537H.

What immediately impressed me is the solid build of the unit, especially the front panel. When I saw an earlier version of this DVR last year, it seems a bit cheap to me. I'm glad they improved on it.

Another immediate impression is the AMAZING CLARITY of broadcast signals. I had used a few other digital-analog converters, one made by RCA, and the broadcast quality was certainly better than what I had before... but now it looks inferior compared to what the MDR537H delivers. I'd swear I was watching cable.

Another thing I noticed is the sound level. There is definite amplification from this unit, about 50% more than what my other tuners delivered.

I had seen it mentioned that you must put the DVR's video format to 16:9 if you want it to record as such. When I tried this, it warped the display such that the video was "squashed". There are two broadcast signals for each major network, one being normal and the other widescreen. But I find that on the normal channel I get a widescreen view naturally. And when I recorded, it preserved the display. It looks terrific, too. What is recorded appears exactly as it was broadcast.

---

I haven't fully explored the dubbing and editing features. I'm wondering if someone could answer some questions I have, to save me from having to read through everything right now (I do plan to once I have more time).

• Is there a way to "trim" recorded video to remove commercials? I have been able to take care of them when recording manually, but with auto-recording they're still present. I do appreciate the "skip" feature which seems to help a lot, but still... would be nice to get rid of them altogether.
• Is the recorded video actually 480i? It just seems to extraordinarily clear and sharp, as if it were 720p.
• If you make a copy of a DVD, does the DVR record it at 480i no matter what the quality level you select?

On the HD it's called scene delete in the edit menu. On DVD it depends on the DVD type what's possible via edit menu.


Maximum is 480 for SP & HQ. Lower quality modes produce lower resolution.


High speed dubbing amounts to little other than copying a file, so there is no conversion, and no relevance to the resolution of the title being copied. Other copying is recording. At SP or HQ it's at 480, lower for lower quality modes.

Yep 480i, but the image in our machines have a native frame size of 720x480 pixels...

I have a 515 and have a question. I had a company transfer some High8 and VHS videos to DVD. I want to record the DVDs to the HD of the 515 so I can edit and rearrange the images. The manual says you can dub from the HD to DVD and vice versa but for dubbing from DVD to HD the info is vague. The dubbing selection is grayed out also. Anyone have suggestions?

Pikey described poorly what's necessary, but it would work the same for any of our machines.

1-Any live Linux can do it.

2-Anyone already running or multibooting Linux can do it.

3-Anyone who knows how to clone a HD can do it, with or without Linux.

4-Our HDs don't have a filesystem recognizable by any PC operating system, so the HD cannot be "mounted".

5-What Pikey likely used was the dd command, something like .

What I would have used to clone is the same program I use for all low level HD activity for the past decade or so, DFSee, a non-free tool that runs identically under DOS, OS/2, Windows, Linux and Mac.

I think that you need to start playing the DVD before it will allow dub options to HDD to occur.

Thanks. For some reason the dubbing button on the remote or unit only gives the red slashed cirle warning. Also in the menu dubbing is not selectable no matter if following the finalized or unfinalized instructions. I have 4 different disc that I want to record to the HD. One of them only has a short sequence on it. I was able to copy that to the HD but another disc with multiple titles won't copy.

Ok, I'll give it another go and thanks again.

1-13-2013

Walmart

Magnavox MDR537H/F7
258.00 35% off

Magnavox MDR535H/F7
228.00 35% off

MDR533H/F7
218.00 27% off No Change in past week(s)

www.walmart.com


Mark

I just bought a 535 and have it connected to a Kuro monitor so I rely on the tuner for all my watching of tv. If I am watching an HD channel is it HD or 480i and then upsampled?

Right from the book ... page 42 ...

"All high definition pictures will be down converted to the standard definition pictures when they are recorded on this unit."

Just so I'm clear on this part ... SPP is the lowest quality setting that saves the full 720x480 "HD" frame? Seems to me I was getting half frame (352x480) at LP and lower when experimenting with playback quality.

Thanks for the response. I was afraid that would be the answer. Can you pass 1080i/p through component out? Thanks again.

I have been using my 515 in an unusual manner, so Wajo suggested I post this, an explanation of what I am doing in case it of interest to others.


Using the Magnavox 515 as a Digital Tuner between DirecTV and Non-Digital Panasonic DVD Recorder for Superior Editing Purposes

I have been been getting all my TV from DirecTV (with local channels) for many years. There were programs on local subchannels that DirecTV just did not carry. I found a way to record these shows and other important stuff, many of which appear in blocks as "marathons", using a 515 as a digital tuner. The signal path goes from the antenna to my 515, then to my Panasonic recorder(s) so I can use their superior editing capabilities. None of the Panasonic DVD recorders I own have a digital tuner to record the shows directly.


Old Process

I had been recording everything I wanted to watch on my DirecTV DVR. I would copy the programs I wanted to "save" from the DVR to one of my analog Panasonic DVD recorders.

However, as I said, there were programs I wanted to record that were on subchannels that DirecTV does not carry (but were were available OTA), so I could not program my DVR to record them. I set up an antenna, but it turnd out that some of these shows were on at very inconvenient times to watch live, and many of them are shown in blocks of two, three, even four hours. That is very inconvenient to sit through in one live marathon viewing session, and again, I couldn't record them with my analog Panasonic DVD recorders.


New Process

So, I purchased a Magnavox 515, connected the antenna, did a channel scan, and HEY! got all of the "local" digital channels I get with DirecTV, PLUS all the subchannels that DirecTV does not carry. However, the Magnavox just doesn't have the editing capabilities I am used to with the Panasonic. I do LOTS of complex editing and "fiddling around" with titles I want to save on optical media. So, the problem was, how to get the content from the Magnavox to the Panasonic.


The solution was absurdly simple.

I tried -RW disks, but was unhappy with the results, so after consulting with Wajo in a few PMs, I started to record everything I wanted to save to HDD in HQ mode on the Mag 515. This resulted in as high a picture quality as possible. I then connected an S-Video+audio cable from the back output of my 515 to a line input on the Panasonic, made sure Progressive Scan was OFF (or no output from composite or S-Video on the 515), then just played back the recorded program on the Magnavox while simultaneously recording it on the Panasonic. Simple! Any degradation in the picture quality turned out to be so small, it was all but unnoticeable

Once in the Panasonic, I can separates the single title into individual episodes and, using the Playlist feature, I can further edit and title them appropriately. When I get a disk full of episodes, I save them to a DVD.


Moral of This Story

In essence, I'm using my Mag 515 as a DVR rather then a DVD recorder. It does this very well, and I'm is very pleased with the ability to record off any channel I can get from my antenna. The 515 has proven to be completely reliable (never missed a recording so far) and the picture quality is excellent.--as good as my recordings made from my DirecTV DVR. Of course, this is all SP.

One last thing, as I am learning how to edit recordings on the 515, I am starting to use it as it was intended, as a DVD recorder, and I expect to be using it that way more and more. Since I first set this up, the number of channels I want to watch but can only record on the 515, not my Panasonics, has increased (new subchannels appear ) and I'm using it more. It has turned out to be a very cost-effective purchase and an important part of my video suite. Of course, my "video suite" consists of just a big stack of stuff with a rats-nest of wiring behind it.
Edited by Church AV Guy - 1/15/13 at 1:31pm

Why? Why not use the Magnavox as your digital converter box and record directly to the Panasonic? Wouldn't that save one record-playback operation.

That's what I would do, use the Maggy as the tuner, and record on the Panny. No conversion loss at all, one real-time step eliminated.

AFAIK on a Magnavox only HQ and SP are full D1 resolution, even dropping to SPP will be 1/2 D1 but note many people including my father are fine with SPP but notice the big drop going to LP. If I were recording on a Magnavox I'd probably stick to SP but thats just me

My guess is Luke may be recording from multiple channels and there would be no way to have the Maggy switch channels unless actually recording. Now I guess he could use a CECB that had channel change ability(like the Zinewell or Pal) or he could also do as I did before getting my Tivo, use the IR blaster with a HDD Panasonic and compatible CECB like a EH-55 but I'm guessing he feels his RW method might be easier. Setting up and programming such a Panasonic without TVGOS can be kind of a pain, it's one of the reasons I switched to exclusively using my Tivo, well that and it's full HD for playback