[Dave (Belgium)]

Hi,


I'm new to the forum although I have already been reading messages for a few weeks now. So I have an idea of what’s already been discussed here. I know ‘editing’ has already come up last week but I feel most of my specific questions haven’t yet. Sorry if I would be wrong.


I’ll just shortly introduce myself. I have a rather large VHS (and a small S-VHS)-collection – mostly self-recorded TV – which I have built up during the past twelve years. And I’m still going. That’s why I wanted to move to DVD-recording as soon as possible. The format-war stopped me from buying before, but now I got reassured that the DVD’s I record now should remain playable in the future. I hope that’s actually the case.


What really pushed me over the line was the new Panasonic DMR-HS2. I want my recordings to be good and clean (without commercials but also without announcements etc.), so recording on the HDD first, editing and then recording to DVD seemed perfect for me. Although I have two VCR’s, I didn’t want to record, edit and dub on VHS in the past because there was too much quality loss involved in dubbing from one VHS to another. So I tried to get everything right from the 1st time: having to be home at the time of recording, trying to cut out commercials during recording, …). This would all be over with the HS2.


So, I first read a lot of your mailings on the HS2 and decided to buy it.


I’ve now had it for more than a week (if I want to return it, I have to do it within the next 5 days) and I must say I am kind of dissapointed with the editing possibilities. I expected to be able to do the basic editing you could do with a basic editing VCR in the past (like audio dubbing) and actually I thought there would be more possibilities. And I was also dissapointed by the quality of the editing you could actually do. The fact that the picture freezes has been mentioned here already. And yes, you can change to ‘seamless play’ in the menu (to go into a still unanswered question) but IMO that’s even worse. The image doesn’t freeze anymore but you lose the sound for minimum a second and also the first and last picture frames of each segment. Which is not the case when you turn seamless play off. In that case you get the image from the exact frame from which you selected it in the play list.

So although turning ‘seamless play’ off is better IMO, I do not really find this satisfying because of the picture freezes. But that’s not all. Whatever you do, I have found you always lose the first fragment of the sound of whatever you record or edit.


Now, I realise these complaints might be something for nit-pickers, but given the whole discussion here on the ‘black level bug’ (which, thank god, isn’t relevant to me as I live in Belgium) I would think this kind of stuff would also bother a lot of people on the forum.


Anyway, I now come to my actual question to you people. I know what the editing functions are like on the HS2 but I know rather little of what they are on the other recorders. Given that the HS2 is sold as an ‘editing machine’ I would expect them to be even more limited. Is that right?


Another draw-back for me, but that’s personal, is that, because of the high amount of recordings I make, this means a strong increase of time and work for me, in comparison to recording on VHS. I have to go through the process twice now: first recording on HDD (be it more esailly), then editing, and then dubbing over to DVD-R, again in real-time. So, being able to edit afterwards on the DVD itself, would be much better for me. Of course on the DVD-R that’s not possible and DVD-RAMs are obviously much too expensive to start archiving on them. Also I’m afraid they will become even less compatible in the future.

So, if on other recorders I could edit on the disk (DVD+RW and DVD-RW are much cheaper) maybe that would be better for me and maybe I should just hand my HS2 back in. That’s why I’d like to know what the exact editing functions are on other players, compared to the HS2.


Sorry for this long message, but I thought I had to explain my specific situation for you to understand my problem with the HS2 and to be able to help me fin dan answer on this matter. I would really appreciate if you could help me out and share more thoughts with me on HS2’s editing. Thanks!


Dave

 

[JeffWld]

Quote:

Originally posted by Dave (Belgium) Hi, Given that the HS2 is sold as an ‘editing machine’ I would expect them to be even more limited. Is that right?... I would really appreciate if you could help me out and share more thoughts with me on HS2’s editing. Thanks! Dave

You have to remember that the technology is still very young at this point, and the DMR-HS2 is quite an amazing unit considering that Panasonic has only seriously been in the market with a consumer-grade DVD recorder for about 15 months. In the videotape world, the kind of features you have become accustomed to (insert editing, audio dubbing etc.) took many years before they were available on anything other than high-end professional/broadcast equipment. Advances in DVD recorders are taking a fraction of the time to evolve, so be a little patient.


If you are looking for editing precision, it seems like a computer-based solution is more suited to your requirement. However, you will have to invest a significantly higher amount of time into each disc produced. The trade-off of time spent vs. finished product is a call you'll have to make. The HS2 serves a particular market segment that places flexibility in general recording options at the top of the list. Production values are not the focus at this time. By this time next year, the story may be quite different.

 

[oferlaor]

Dave,


This sounds indeed like a case of someone that's ahead of the curve. Of course, we would all like the "perfect" system, but it looks like technology hasn't caught up with our wants or needs yet.


I have a few questions:

1. Did you buy this unit online?

2. How much did it cost?

3. Did you buy it region free / multizone?

 

[Dave (Belgium)]

Well, I guess that I may indeed have expected a bit too much.


I did not buy it online, but in a Belgian store. It also seems to be more expensive over here, because in about every shop it cost around 1600 Euro, which is more or less the same in dollar, I think. That's also a reason why expectations grow. I'm actually not sure whether it's region free. I don't think it is actually, so I probably won't be able to buy DVD's online from the States.

Why did you ask?


Although I realise my expectations may have been a bit too high, I would still like to know what you can do with other recorders.

How far does the edting go on other recorders on the disk itself?


And shouldn't I better work with a DVD+RW or DVD-RW system, so that I could maybe leave them as they are recorded right now and edit those better with more sophisticated recorders in the future?



Thanks,

Dave

 

[bonapart]

I too am slightly disappointed with the editing function. I've obtained the best "edits" just by using the pause button while recording to the HS2's hard drive. If I'm dubbing from s-vhs (or ultimate tv), I've found that the amount of "black" nowadays between commercials is fairly generous. It's much more easy to "time" the press/release of the pause than I thought it would be. There are no freeze's or audio dropouts when using pause, because its still recorded continuously.


bonapart

 

[hroeder]

Proper editing is always going to involve either a switcher fader, or two sources and a third recorder. Even with tape. If you're going to come to a stop and hope to edit something out, it will just never be smooth unless you fade to black or cut to another moving machine.


Even when editing tape you cue things up so that you can synch the recordings. To expect a single machine to do that you would have at least three separate record/playback units linked together.

 

[oferlaor]

I'm asking because I'm looking for a cheap source in Europe. I want a European unit (or a US unit capable of PAL recording). I would prefer a region free model, but...


Anyway, it looks like many other companies have picked up on this trend. I was wondering why more companies weren't getting into the PVR market around the world (Tivo is limited to US and UK, and there are only a few cable/satellite operators around the world - which provide PVRs integrated into their STBs).


I guess they were waiting for recordable DVD to integrate their units with.


I think that next year, we'll be able to pick the type of recorder we want, harddisk size, editing options. Very cool stuff is coming.