[Stacy Huff]

Thanks to the posts on this board, I've finally found out how to use shorten segment. However, I'm a little concerned by the reports of hard drive problems from those who do lots of editing.


If I record a program to the hard drive (like an episode of Lost), would I avoid any potential hard drive problems by dubbing the full program to RAM for editing? I assume that once I finished removing the commercials I could then high-speed dub back to the hard drive, and then burn a DVD-R. Would that save me from potential problems with fragmenting on my hard drive?


Thanks for any input. This is a new world for me, and unfortunately, the manual is not very helpful.

 

[Westly-C]

From what I've read here, the problem occurs when you use Shorten segemnt, removing commercials from a show, then record something new before transferring that shorten program to a disc.

The recorder doesn't record the new show on the hard drive at the end of the last program (like a vhs tape would), but it records starting at the first "empty space" on the hdd, filling in all other empty spaces-like the places where you've deleted segments, before getting to the free space after the last show recorded. Keeping track of where the data for a new recording is scattered across the hdd-and over working to play it back, I believe is where the possible damage would come from.

So based on what's been said here, when you use Shorten segment, it's best to transfer it off the hdd, and then erase it, before starting the next recording.

 

[Stacy Huff]

Thanks.


That's how I interpreted what I read. So if that is correct, then transfering the entire program to Ram before editing should keep me from producing those gaps on the hard drive when I edit the commercials.


Thanks again. I'd like to keep this E80 running for a while. The price was too good for me to go screwing it up (I liberated it from my father, who wasn't using it in favor of a computer burner).

 

[Spoffo]

I've been using my E100 for well over a year, doing a LOT of "shorten segment" editing, and so far so good. The two things I do to be safe are . . . a) Never let the hard disc get anywhere close to full. I always keep the disc showing at least 20 hours (at SP) available, which means always keeping about a third of the disc capacity free. and b) Per Westly's comment, I try to avoid doing a lot of cuts and then recording something new before I've removed the heavily-edited program. I'm far from perfect on the latter, though. If I've just trimmed the beginning and end of something, I sometimes leave it on the hard disc a long time, so there's no doubt a moderate amount of fragmented stuff on there.


My personal theory is that the problem occurs from a *combination* of fragmented files and a lack of headroom on the disc. If you only have 10-15% of disc space available, and it's heavily fragmented, you're asking the OS to work pretty hard to cram in something new. (In the early days of the E80/E100, these were the circumstances under which most people reported the hard disc locking up and requiring re-formatting.)


Just for insurance, I've cleaned all but 4-5 hours of stuff off the HD (i.e. about 90% free) a couple of times since I got it. I figure this is just about as good as doing a re-format.

 

[doxtorRay]

I noticed with my E80s and my Pioneer 510, one early symptom of disk fragmentation is that the remaining space on the hard disk is reported incorrectly. If you delete a one-hour program, and the space remaining does not register as going up by the whole hour (or does not register as going up at all) it is time to reformat. On the Pioneer (and other models which do not have a user-selectable format option), I suggest "erasing all" content on the disk (after offloading it to VR media or DVD-R, of course). This seems to fix the problems.


I have found that once I top 90% capacity, as Spoffo mentions, this procedure becomes all but mandatory to restore an accurate measure of capacity if I have been doing anything but minimal editing.

 

[cglenn]

With my E85, I've noticed the same thing. The symptom for me is during a dub, it fails in the middle, and depending on how insulted the HDD was, it's own internal self-check works, up to needing to do an unplug.


As I archive my VCR collection, after I copy in three 6 hour tapes (at XP, so it leaves about 9 hours XP empty), I've gotten in the habit of immediately dubbing if I shorten. In fact, I try to open up 2-4 hours at the beginning of the HDD for any recording I might do, as it takes my old hands a day or two to work through shortening 18 episodes of a TV show, especially on the series that leave no or one frame blank.

 

[zhenerale]

The key is when you perform alot of shorten segments is to reformat your hard drive periodically, say monthly.


This means that roughly once a month, you'll remove all your HDD contents (either via burn to DVD-R or to DVD-RAM which then you can put back onto your HDD). You'll then reformat your HDD so that the pointers are cleared up.

 

[Benfica]

How about using "Playlists" for editing ? Is this not the best method to avoid HDD fragmentation ?

(I suppose both E80, E85 and E100 models referred in this thread do support them, if don't please correct me).


Benefits with Playlists: You don't fragment the HDD, you don't affect the original titles content when editing.


As aditional points, here is what I always try to do in order to not have fragmentation problems on my HDD:


- never do editing on HDD; I do it in "Copy Lists" (I've a Pio 510)


- I try to use a LIFO aproach (LIFO = Last In First Out); I usually edit and burn titles, starting from the last one I've recorded; after burning I delete the original title (the last that was recorded); If I can always do like this I think I don't have any fragmentation on HDD;


- If for some reason I want to combine in a single DVD more than one title, and those are not the last ones recorded, after burning I don't erase the titles; I wait until I've edit and burn all HDD content to DVD and then I do an ERASE ALL on HDD;


Doing this I've never experience a problem.


Best regards,

 

[Rafael2K]

Playlists are a great idea for editing/dubbing in the E85 and above models. Unfortunately you cannot HS-dub playlists in the E80.

 

[alan halvorson]

You could adopt my procedure. Any title I want to save I edit immediately and dub to DVD-R. Anything I don't dub right away I've decided I'm ok with losing if I experience HD problems. If you're dubbing multiple programs to a single DVD-R, don't finalize the disc until you've dubbed the final title; you do not have to finalize right away!


Like Spoffo, I always leave at least 1/3, most often 1/2, of the HD clear. Every three months or so I initialize the HD, just so that I'm not surprised when recording something I want to keep.


So far I've not lost anything I really want to keep.

 

[Benfica]

Quote:

Originally posted by Rafael2K Playlists are a great idea for editing/dubbing in the E85 and above models. Unfortunately you cannont HS-dub playlists in the E80.

Sorry to hear that.


Best regards