I'm still kind of new to DVD recording so I have a question for those of you who have been doing this longer. Whenever I try to pause during recording to edit out commercials, my machine usually shuts off and stops recording at some point. Does anyone know why this happens and if there is a way to prevent this or should I just set the timer and record entire episodes with the commercials?

hard to say, it depends on the machine I guess - that's why I bought one with a hard drive, so i could edit out the commercials.

nothing is infallible though, i keep getting recorded eps ruined by those "test of the emergency broadcast system"'s pissed:

Usually Pause mode can only be used for a short period of time. It sounds like the commercial break is longer than the length of time your recorder will stay in Pause mode. Your manual may tell you how long you can use Pause before the recorder automatically stops.

John

I haven't figured it out either so I just burn it to a RW and edit it out on my computer. May take longer, but I don't have to deal with it on the editor that way.

It just depends on the individual machine and I think your pause is like that on a vcr where you can only pause for a few minutes before the tape stops. My dvd recorder is a cheap Wal-Mart brand (Cyberhome) but its worked great for me, I can put a dvd on pause for hours at a time so I think its probably just your individual brand. Meaning all dvd recorders aren't that way.

Ah okay then. Sounds like I'm gonna either have to set the timer to record or just maybe push stop instead of pause during commercials. What's the longest you can puse it? I usually only pause for 10 to 20 seconds though. The last time I was really pissed off because it all but the last 3 minutes of the show I was recording just disappeared. Ah well, it's a Go Video unit. Any DVD Recorder/VCR units that work better, maybe I'll get one of those?

I've been recording shows for a long time now and I learned a while back it's best to just set the timer and let the recorder record the whole show. This way you avoid 2 major problems, forgetting that the show started that you wanted and also missing the first few seconds or minute of the show you're recording and pausing while the commercial's on. While you're on pause for the commercial I found I would turn the channel and when I got back to the show I wanted I had already missed a bit of it because they came back before I was ready. So a long time ago I just decided to let my timer do the work and ever since then I've never (well, except when the recorder goes on the fritz) missed a show or the first couple minutes of a show or the first minute after the commercial break. Besides, it's a lot less pressure not having to try to go around remembering to start your recording for a show.

I don't know why your recorder does that. I always let my recorder finish the show, and then edit out commercials. I have a Phillips Hard Drive / DVD Burner Combo. I can edit out commercials directly on the machine, and then burn to DVD+R or DVD-R. It's somewhat expensive (Mine cost about $250), but it's worth it.

You can always edit on a computer. Record on the DVD recorder, transfer DVD data to computer, then edit. This way, you can also create nice menus, not the simply ugly things made by a DVD recorder.