I'd like input on the reasoning behind making DVDs in SP, LP, or SLP. I've seen traders list that they have a complete series on so many DVDs ("A" quality). The total number of discs makes it obvious that they're using the SLP or LP modes. How is this possible?

Even with using master copies, this is not possible with my Panasonic DMR-E50, and I'm wondering if there are DVD recorders that can actually make the quality of professionally manufactured DVDs, which I've never even seen in SLP mode. Or is it more likely that the people spouting this are over rating the quality of their stuff.

Thanks! :wave:

I record in SP only at this point, but one of the people I trade with (and trust completely) told me that she's begun recording for herself on her Panasonic DMR E80 (same model I have) in LP with no real difference in quality. I imagine you could see some difference on a really large screen, but I don't know that I'd put even my best stuff up on a really large screen and claim it to be A quality. To be honest, I haven't even tried recording in LP or EP. SP gives me the same quality I put into the disc from my DISH Network DVR, and I'm happy with that.

Compression is a big issue, even when you're talking commercially/professionally produced DVDs. There are a lot of people deeply unhappy with the DVD releases of Dawson's Creek, for example, because of the compression used on the discs. I've heard people complain that the quality isn't as good as their VHS tapes of (analog) cable broadcasts.

I record too much to go with XP all the time, but everything I record to disc is done SP. Some of my sources are older, like Beta tapes I recorded 20 years ago, and I don't want to risk any further degradation of those precious recordings. My VHS stuff is almost exclusively EP - an EP disc of an EP source seems like a pointless exercise to me. :?

I think the media makes a difference too, just as with tapes. I played with about 15 different brands before I settled on Maxell as my preferred media. More expensive than the cake boxes, but I'm getting 100% burn rate on my discs with no coasters.

From what I have noticed with my own vhs to dvd transfer is that pixelation (sp??) becomes more of a problem when I try and record in LP mode - My dvd recorder gives me the following options: 2, 2+, 3, 4, 6, & 8hours. I think these times are correct - my manual is on a slow boat to Kwajalein right now. Anyway, if I remember correctly, it states that 6 hours is vhs quality and 4 hours is "better than vhs". 2+ is even better and 2 is retail dvd quality. Anybody that owns a philipps dvdr80 certainly can verify if I have the times and quality written correctly:crazy:

I have only recorded a few tapes using the 6hour mode because they picture is way to pixelated for my taste. Most everything I do, I record on the 4hours option. I get pretty good results with that.

In my opinion, yes, there is a difference in the quality produced when recording via sp and lp. Of course, the "junk in, junk out" rule style applies - it comes down to if you want to make something worse by recording it too slow.

:wave:

Hey debwalsh I am new to the board, but was just skimming around and noticed you are using a Dish Network DVR also. What model? I have a Dishplayer 7100. Anyhow the point of my post...

Just wondering if you considered RIPPING instead of using your standalone DVD recorder. You can rip off your dish DVR verbatim to your PC without loosing an iota of quality from how Dish Network broadcasts them from the satellite in orbit. You can rip your programs off the DVR's harddrive (I recommend you install a removeable harddrive bay like mine (http://www.strangeseeds.com/interests/ht/images/dishplayerDVR_front.jpg)), so you can easily pull the harddrive, insert into the removeable harddrive bay on your PC and run the software from here (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dishrip/) to rip off the recordings. Then you can easily create Dish-DVDs that play in most standard DVD players. These discs play perfect in my DVD player (Panasonic RP91), but on my older Pioneer DV414 there is a black bar consuming 1/5th of the screen on the right. There is a chart on that last link in the group that members use to report how the Dish DVDs work in their DVD players, so you'll know how your player would treat these DVDs.

Anyhow, just thought I would mention the ripping method, so you could preserve quality exactly as Dish Network shows it to you. It's really not difficult to do once you've done it a couple times.

I'm not doing that because I don't have a DVD writer in my laptop, and I use my computer too much for other things to have the resources sucked up with burning DVDs. A tabletop DVD recorder is exactly what I wanted - and I am losing absolutely no quality from my DISH-sourced programs (I have a PVR 501 and a 510). I'm also converting to DVD recordings made on Beta tapes, plus VHS tapes in both PAL and NTSC, and cable channels not carried by DISH, so the flexibility of a standalone DVD recorder makes much more sense for my needs. I have a permanent installation with inputs from DISH, cable, a Beta deck, and two VHS decks (S-VHS and a multistandard), and my laptop can do what it's supposed to do - travel with me.

I also watched my best friend spend hundreds of dollars (much more than I spent on my standalone unit) on various equipment and software to create DVDs that still don't quite work because she can't seem to get the sound synched up properly. In fact, mutual friends of ours who've gotten discs from her are now asking me to copy the same programs for them from my recorder. She's a pretty savvy lady (develops software for a bank at their corporate level), but the software and hardware conflicts have been driving her crazy for more than a year, to the point she finally gave up and went with the Philips recorder a few months ago.

You go with what works for you.

Ah.. that makes perfect sense. :)

Honestly I am a cheapskate when it comes to buying media to archive my favorite shows, so I had been ripping and encoding to high quality divx (which is very time-consuming (the encoding anyhow, 2-pass, slowest, etc), so I could fit my shows on free-after-rebate CDRs. LOL
I only recently got a DVD burner around Christmas which has facilitated the ripping=>DVD. I don't have to spend the time re-encoding the files if I don't want to anymore, so the DVD burner has definitely been a time-saver for me. I'd imagine DVD burners for laptops are very pricey, so I can see why this option wouldn't be as lucrative for you, considering you already have a set top DVD recorder that can record from all sorts of equipment and instantly put the video in standard DVD spec. I am glad DVD players are starting to support DIVX avi playback (Best Buy is selling one just recently), so that makes all the encoding I had done easier to play back on TVs I don't have a home theater PC hooked to. I'm not totally 'dishripping' to DVD just yet. :)

You do lose a tiny bit of quality (probably not noticeable to the naked eye) with your standalone DVD recorder when recording off your Dish DVRs because the signal goes through one digital>analog>digital conversion (since you are using an analog connection.. S-video/RCA stereo connectors, right?). That's why I mentioned the ripping method, so you could burn the actual files stored on the harddrive from your PVR501 without having your source ever enter the analog domain (not sure if the group has support for the PVR510 yet).

I've never had an audio sync problem with my dish DVR=>DVD ripping. It does take a bit of stepping around programs to trick other programs into allowing the native files to be edited (such as temporarily adding DVD headers with DVDpatcher to the dish mpeg2 file so TMPGEnc DVD Author will import the video correctly and allow VOB generation to create the DVD files for burning). Plus the time it takes for those processes and the actual DVD burn time.

Suffice it to say it's much easier and faster with a standalone DVD recorder to press record and just let the dish DVR play back your show as the DVD recorder records to standard DVD format with great results! :) I'm not sure I'd be able to seriously trade my dishrip DVDs because I could see the recipient getting pissed cause their DVD player is very strict and doesn't know how to stretch the image properly or something. Your way is definitely more standard across the board.

I'm a computer geek with lots of hardware, so I like to tinker and take the longer, complicated way for everything. LOL :D

Ah, I'm a computer geek also (as is my friend), but most of my programming and network management work has been directly related to user support, so I'm more focused on getting the results than playing with the toys. With a video collection stretching back 25 years, I held out for a high-quality DVD recorder with a hard drive and editing capabilities - I finally got what I always wanted in a VCR with this unit. And I'm finding the DVR 510 has slightly better quality than the 501, and I'm not seeing any degradation of image or sound on the DVDs.

The best thing is that I'm not seeing any image loss in recordings made from tapes. In fact, in some cases, I'm seeing a tiny bit of improvement, possibly due to the comb filter. And the enhancer I've got plugged into the mix.

My hardware is mostly video in nature. 8 VHS VCRs (including 2 multistandards), 3 Beta decks, 2 single-disc DVD players, 1 5-disc changer, and the DVD recorder. Plus the 2 DISH DVRs.

Ah, toys. What *would* we do without them?

I'm wondering if there are DVD recorders that can actually make the quality of professionally manufactured DVDs, which I've never even seen in SLP mode.
There are no dvd recorders that do as good a job as the professionals use. I find that 2 hour speed is the lowest quality I will use, or accept in trade.

Or is it more likely that the people spouting this are over rating the quality of their stuff.
Absolutely. I got a disc with 19 episodes of a half hour series on it once that was touted as being 8 or 8.5 or 9 out of 10, I call it a 2 or 3. It was unwatchable as far as I'm concerned, even on my little 13" tv, so I threw it away.

I've noticed this being done more by dealers, who want to sell complete series in a convenient fashion, than by collectors who really care about the quality of their recordings. Remember, to a dealer, it takes just as long to dupe an 8 hour disc as it does to dupe a 2 hour disc since the amount of data on each disc is the same. So while a dealer might only be able to sell a disc with 2 eps on it for $10, he can sell a disc with 8 eps on it for $30, without putting in any more time and effort. Net result: he makes a lot more money for his 30' of ripping/burning time (4X) and his $1 investment in a blank.

Your DVD recorder sounds impressive (and expensive - LOL) :)
I wasn't aware any had harddrives in them to edit, but that makes sense that the advanced ones would. Cool! Can I have one? :)

As far as the quality between the PVR 501 and the 510 the truth to it is that the source material stored on both harddrives is identical (as it is to the Dishplayer 7100/7200 also). Same satellite in orbit sending the same signal to all Echostar receivers. The difference is how your units handle playing back the stored streams off the receivers. It sounds like the 510 does a better job of displaying the source material for playback than the 501 (which makes sense since the 510 is newer and probably is manufactured with better components). I believe the 510 goes one step further with the source and also encrypts it as it is being stored on the PVR's harddrive (and that's why due to the DMCA no one has written software to rip the programs off the disk.. cause you'd have to reverse engineer the encryption to decrypt it, which is illegal).

That's some serious equipment in your arsenal! 8 VHS VCRs!! woah! You're a serious TV watcher? :)
Admittingly I'd love to have your DVD recorder for archiving old stuff off my VHS tapes that I can't buy on DVD (or record again on my PVRs). I use a Pinnacle DC10+ capture card to record my VHS/8mm stuff and lemme tell ya how much a PITA it is (original hardware conflicts during install, drivers, dropping frames, software editing, etc) . Plus I have to re-encode from the capture source in any given final format, which consumes a lot of time.

I've briefly read about using a standalone TiVo to record from VHS (or any source you can plug in via s-vid/composite) by fooling the TiVo into thinking it is recording a TV channel's program. Supposedly no dropped frames! I have my TiVo hacked on my home LAN, so I can extract the recordings from it. One of these days I am going to try fooling it into accepting my VCR and then digitally extract the recording in my network (then burn to DVD). It may actually be less frustrating than using my capture card on the PC.

That said.... I still love my geek computer toys. :)

Personally, I don't mind receiving DVDs in LP in a trade, but whether or not I can dub them decently for a trade to someone else is another story. We don't have a large TV screen so it's not that big of a deal to us. And we don't trade just to have more stuff to trade, if that makes sense. Many times I don't have much choice in the matter since our tastes in shows are so difficult to find.

I'm glad that I'm not the only one that feels this way regarding speed modes, though I wish I could get more input on this issue.

Hi all,
I'm new to this forum and found Agent 13's posting and all of your replies. Do refer to www.dvdrhelp.com and its FAQ.

I'm new to the trading forums and have yet to trade something from my VHS tape collection. I've already transfered some of my tv series to DVD+RW's using my Philips DVDR985 (which is a lemon, but that's another story).

My picture quality mantra is "THE CLEANER THE SOURCE, THE WIDER THE CHOICE" . I personallly have always compressed every recording to VHS in EP mode to save space and costs. I used to record about twelve hours of shows a week for ten years... do the math. I was lucky enough to buy a great 27" Hitachi tv which is still forgiving enough during playback as to be near broadcast quality... only a little softer. On another set and vcr my recordings look rougher. Same goes for DVDs but with one caveat related to my mantra:
The cleaner the source, the lower you can drop the speed without sacrificing a lot of quality. If your source material looks bad, no matter what speed you record in, it will still look bad regardless if recording in LP (3hr) or EP (4hr). From my experience, the higher speed such as SP (2hr) only looks worse because the resolution is higher due to the higher bitrate. The lower speeds look softer with a little digital artefacting during recording monitoring but looks better during playback. You mostly notice it in high action sequences which you won't see so much in studio shows. As for higher quality sources, you can still record at lower speeds without sacrificing much. and saving shelfspace and media costs. Do refer to your owner's manual. You'll find the bitrates and speeds explained.
Here's the lowdown on speeds:

HQ (+R)) or XP (-R) = 1hr mini-DV quality (D1 broadcast)
SP = 2hrs DVD mpeg2 quality (D1 broadcast)
SP+ = 2.5 hrs DVD mpeg2 quality (D1 broadcast)
LP = 3 hrs S-Video quality (half-D1 broadcast)
EP = 4 hrs VHS sp-quality (half-D1 broadcast)
EP+ = 6 hrs VHS ep-quality (quarter-D1 broadcast)
Even Broadcast Quality is not a standard but relative to the network!

As for Agent 13's concerns regarding ratings, the thing to remember is that ratings are subjective and personal. And where lazygrae's taste were at the opposite end of the scale from the seller or trader, ratings are complicated and relative. It depends on many factors such as comparisons to the original source, color, noise, etc... where formats such as satellite broadcast, VHS, betamax come into play as well as how well or badly adjusted your viewing monitor is. A sharper tv setting will bring out more imperfections than a softer setting as will the screen size for the same amount of lines. If you turn off the tv's auto-color setting and adjust it using THX like those found on Disney/Pixar DVDs, you'll notice that even your SP recordings will look faulty. Recordable DVDs are dye-based and do not follow the same technique or quality as manufactured "indented" or pressed DVDs which have a longer shelf life.

As for ratings, you could always questionperson you're trading with to inform you as to their set-up and material sources, but you may risk offending that person if your questions are too probing. They may even get the impression that their material will never be up to your standards. In the process they may just cut the communication lines. Where are you left if this is the sole source for that rare find you've been searching for long?

You then have to ask yourself what are your true motives pushing you to collect?:

Are you collecting for the quantity of content OR the quantity of material to hold the content?
Will you be lending these out to people within your viewing circle or just for trading?
High quality on mass quantity (i.e. more discs at higher speeds) or smaller media quantity at a lesser quality?
Are you converting to digital from anolog to save shelf space or only to improve quality?
How important is the look and organization of your new disc collection? What about labels and disc storage?
Will you ever have the TIME to actually watch all of these episodes after you dub them? Will knowing that the quality is better be that crucial to your peace of mind?
These are all questions that influence "ratings relativity" and will factor into your decisions for recording speeds.

I bought a set-top recorder to liberate space (I have over 300 compressed tapes). The main advantage is the quick access, the thumbnail pictures, the titling, the menus and the picture quality compared to picture noise riddled VHS. The set-top recorder is also one for one time transfer compared to digitizing, syncing and burning on computer.

I trust this helps. :^)

PS.. To any of you, feel free to contact me for my collection titles.
lazygrae :)