[mikeg13]

Okay...Ive recorded a few things to DVD-R and I must say that so far I am unimpressed. What I did was transfer two football games to the HDD, and then edited both of them by removing the commercials. I got the one to under 2 hours...and then burned it to the DVD-R in SP mode. Note that I didn't trasnfer to the HDD with this game with DVD-R Compatible recordeing enable, so I could not high speed dub. During playback, the quality is quite bad...I mean I can see what is going on, but all the colors are "blocky" edges aren't sharp...just looks really badly encoded or something...The question I have...what exactly is the advantage of high speed dubbing? Is it lossless? Also, can I only do high speed dubbing in XP mode, ie does my source material need to be 1hour or less, or can you do high speed dubbing in SP...LP etc? Hopefully I am just doing something dumb which is why these two DVDs are coming out crappy, because for the money you pay for this recorder, iIwould expect better results, but I am still assuming operator error and hoping for some advice.

 

[JeffWld]

You said you transferred the games to the HDD, but you didn't say from what sources. Was the program material initially compressed? (Digital cable, satellite). Was it transferred from a PVR which would introduce additional reencoding? Was it a VHS source (SP or EP)?


High-speed dubbing is lossless. Your regular dub would have introduced reencoding.


You can high-speed dub from the HDD no matter what the original recording mode (XP, SP, LP, or EP) as long as the finished product produces a finished file size that matches the capacity of a DVD-R disc.

 

[mikeg13]

Jeff,


The one game was off of Digital Cable (SD) and the other was from a VHS tape in SP mode. While watching both of them on the DVD recorder using the playback off the Hard Drive, the image quaility was the same as the source. But when I dubbed it, it came out really bad, which I attribute to the re-encoding. So I guess to maintain PQ, the best process is:


1) Transfer to HDD w/ DVD-R compatible recording enabled and edit out commercials

2) High Speed dub to DVD using the appropriate mode for the length of the source (XP

And I will assumed that doing the high speed dub, since it is lossless, will give me the same PQ as if I was watching it from HDD playback.


One more thing. Once I have recorded something to the HDD not using DVD-R compatible recording (which I don't do any more, just did it this one time) is there any way I can record it in such a way as to enable the DVD-R compatibility flag and then burn it back to the HDD for high speed dubbing? Maybe a dumb question, but if I can't it's not really a big deal. I will just make sure that in the future, for anything that I want to copy to DVD, I will use the DVD-R compatibility flag when recording to the HDD.

 

[shutterbug]

Mike, I don't think you mentioned which recording mode you initially used to record the game to your hard drive (XP/SP/LP/EP). XP & SP are excellent. PQ drops off when using LP and EP. I've had the same result when recording a VHS tape to the HDD in LP mode (tape was in EP and not that great to begin with). Crummy PQ, blocky and lots of artifacts. Personally, I won't use LP or EP anymore.


For a good recording turn DVD Compat. mode ON (allows a program to HS Dub w/no re-encoding--Lossless in any recording mode), set Hybrid VBR to fixed and record in XP or SP (you'll hardly notice the difference between the 2--even if re-encoding)


Setting Hybrid VBR:

Click *Functions* on your remote--go to Setup---then to Video--then to the right select Hybrid VBR and set to fixed using arrow keys.

 

[mikeg13]

I transferred both to the HDD with the XP recording mode. I will try a High Speed dub of the one that I did record with the DVD-R compatible flag set and compare...I'm sure it will be better. Thank you both for your replies.

 

[mikeg13]

OK...someone answer this. How do you high speed dub a 2:15 program that has been recorded to the in XP mode. 2:15 is the length after all editing. When I try and high speed dub, it tells me there isn't enough room on the disk. So it seems that you can only high speed dub things that ar 1 hr at most, is that correct? So would I have to divide the program into 3 segments? 2, 1 hour segments and then 1, 15 minute segment and high speed dub each segment to a seperated DVD? There has to be a better way than this, or is this the best you can do?

 

[PatsWonSB]

The Pannys let you high speed dub 4411 MB to a DVD-R. This provides the following record mode/lengths:

XP - 1 hour 5 minutes

SP - 2 hours 10 minutes

LP - 4 hours 20 minutes


Note: These are approximate times and may vary with program content a minute or so in either direction.


Your best bet (assuming you want a single disc) is to record in SP and try to edit out another 5 minutes or so.

 

[mikeg13]

OK...so basically...it is because I am a dumbA** and recorded these two footbal games in XP mode, which then forces the high speed dub to only allow XP length (1hr) = 4411MB. So had I recorded the game in SP or 2 hr 10min mode, the high speed dub of that material would allow 2hr 10min to the 4411MB DVD-R....Got it...thanks for your help....

 

[shutterbug]

Mike, sounds like you're almost there. You might need to just clear up a couple things with understanding recording modes. I took part of this from a post I made in another forum.


When you set the recording mode for a program you need to consider a few things:

1--How long the end result of the program will be (playing time after editing).

2--Depending on the length of time--How many dvd discs do you want to use to burn the program to.

3--What type of Picture quality you want vs. how much time/length of program you want to fit per disc.

Think of the recording modes XP/SP/LP/EP in TWO ways when you record to your Hard Drive:

--The amount of time that will fit on a DVD Disc AND picture Resolution.

XP=1 hour of programing per dvd disc @ 704x480 and approximately 10Mbits/sec

SP=2 hours of programing per disc @704x480 and approximately 5Mbits/sec

LP=4 hours of programing per disc @ 352x240 and approximately (I think 5 mbits or less)

EP=6 hours of programing per disc @352X240 and approximately (I think 2.5 mbits or less)


As you increase the amount of time that will fit on a dvd disc, you decrease the picture quality. High Speed dubbing mode will burn a program to dvd as data no matter what mode the program was recorded in (xp/sp etc..). It's lossless and will actually allow you to squeeze additional minutes onto the disc in each recording mode. Think of HS Dubbing as a data mode. Whether your program is 1hr or 6 hrs, it should high speed dub to a DVD in less than an hour. You can fit 4411 MB's of data/programming to a disc. So you are always HS burning up to 4411 MB's of a tv show/movie etc. --don't only think of it in hours.


Put a blank disc in your recorder, pick a progam, choose HS dub mode and you'll see the data size of the program listed in MB's on the dubbing screen. It's a good way to gauge how much you can fit on a disc.


If you have a program that's 2:15 in XP mode, the only way to possibly high speed dub it is to divide the program in 2 and HS dub it to TWO DVD-R's. And I don't know for sure if you can fit 1 hr 7 mins of your program on 1 dvd in XP mode. If you recorded it in SP mode, you would most likely be able to HS dub it to one disc. If you want to check it out, select the 2:15 show for HS dubbing, pop in a blank disc and check the program size in megabytes. If it's less than 8822 MB's, you might be able to split it and dub to 2 discs.


Ok, this is long enough, hope it helps you out.