Compiling programs on the E80???

Maybe this can be made a little more clear.


First, the limits for individual programs are:


Hard Drive = Limit of 250

Disk = Limit of 99 (RAM or -R)


Secondly, when your unit is set for "Seamless Playback", all programs play consecutively. Once you choose the starting program, all others below it (on program list) will automatically play in order until you reach the end of the list. No manual activation required for each program.


Thirdly, the "PAUSE" between each program is largely a function of how effectively you edited each program (i.e. shorten segment).


When I shorten segments (programs) I always use PAUSE and buttons to cut as closely as I can to the beginning and the end of each program. When played back "seamlessly", the "PAUSE between segments is so fast that you hardly have time to blink. Yes, the scene change can be abrupt if the background changes or severe audio change, but I can almost guarantee that 98% of users will never be bothered by it (far less than a full second). I personally don't like black screen transitions in my recordings, but whatever floats your boat.


Remember too that the brain cannot process changes as fast as the eye can see them. Moreover, I think most if us tend to measure this "transition dropout" effect by what we are accustomed to with VHS tapes. I'm sure you know how crummy it is for the scene to disintegrate unto a second or two of garbled color crawls, followed by a fairly loud audio whine. Properly done, the transition interruption (dropout) via DVD is about 1/10th of what you typically get on VHS. No color crawls at all!


Finally, particularly for the Hockey footage collector, if you want truly seamless editing (one long program) your other option is to dub back to your recorder from another player. Yes, external dubbing will cause a re-encode and reduce the picture quality, but if you start with a good clean source recorded at SP or XP quality, you can get a very good result after dubbing a second time, Also, the quality loss can be minimized by having a second unit that plays DVD-RAM. Since the Panny does not re-encode when dubbing to RAM disk, if you dub first to RAM disk, the re-dub from a second player back to your recorder is technically a "first dub" in terms of quality reduction. Virtually all Panasonic models will play RAM disks and can be purchased at Walmart for well below $100.


It seems that too many people moving into DVD recording are determined to match the pristine quality of commercial DVD's for almost everything they record. First, that isn't possible at all with home units. Second, the quality you CAN get for average home recordings (i.e. home movies, TV, from VHS, etc.) is way better than previously possible. I just think some people are chasing a dream and expecting too much. If you just want to watch better picture than you've ever had before, as well as having the advantages of quick navigation through scenes, etc. --- it ain't a problem. However, producing flawless commercial quality video is a whole different matter and requires much more expensive gear.


Hope this helps.

Thanks. I do plan on using "shorten segment", that much seemed clear. What's confusing me is: 1) The best approach to minimizing my number of programs on HD in terms of catching a number of news clips (e.g. can you maintain an extended pause when in recording more); and 2) Seeing that it looks like I'm going to end up with quite a number of programs on the HD, what's the best method of laying it onto DVD-R in order to end up with a finished product which will play all of the programs seamlessly but with navigable chapter marks (the default 5 minute markers would be fine)?


After the answers given here, I'm even a bit MORE confused. It looks like I can make a playlist out of all the programs when burning to disk, but then again, even if I don't, it looks like the player would STILL play all the programs on the finished DVD continuously and without interruption. As such, why would one make a playlist? I'm glad to see that a seamless playback can be accomplished in SOME fashion though as I'd prefer not to dub between machines and loose an analog generation. I have a pretty good 40" HDTV and losses in quality can be quite noticeable.


Additionally, even though the HD has a max of 250 programs, the DVD-R has a max of 99, so as far as I can see, I'll have to archive off to DVD-R at the 99 mark regardless of if I could fit more on the DVD-R capacity-wise. Correct?


As to abrupt visual transitions between scenes, I'm not concerned about it. This is a hockey clip compellation, not Citizen Kane. I'm only concerned about noticeable glitches, digital noise, or pauses. Hopefully they can be avoided. I guess I'll have to see how good the unit is with this. I'm not expecting the unit to be able to produce commercial video (criminy, I'm recording a composite signal off of a digital HD cable box, not Digital Betacam) but what I would expect is decent quality video editing software - though I'm getting the impression that this unit doesn't have that. I mean, I used to do some video editing at a high-end outfit about ten years ago (though I was more on the graphics/animation/3D side of things) and we were occasionally toying around with fairly capable non-linear software back then (Avid) and well as some pretty passible stuff on consumer harware so I would have figured that at least the basic capability of those products would have found their way into HDD/DVD devices by now, but it looks like they're still somewhat in the stone ages. I wonder why. I guess I'll have to wait and see for myself, but I'm getting the impression that at this stage of the game just getting the footage pressed to disk will be my goal and I'll worry about making it all be nice and smooth in years to come. (Unless I do get that new Mac and just do a quick, but better, editing job with the source material that the E80 gave me to work with.)



Thanks again,

-Chris

Quote:
If you make a playlist out of say 50 programs on the hard drive so it's all on the one playlist, and then you dub that playlist to the dvd-r, it will show as 1 program on the finalized dvd-r with 5 minute chapter stops.


And to confuse you more: I do believe if you have multiple programs dubbed to the dvd it will play from one to the next... but I did not think you could go to the previous title/program without going back to the main menu.


I agree the editing capabilities need much improvement. Connecting programs would be great and a better editing so it truly is seamless editing... now transitions and titling over the screen would be very good too! Not to mention dubbing/adding audio tracks. (would be cool to put a commentary on some vacation footage! )