Hi,

I have read a lot of info on DVD recorders here. Just out of curiosity, when you trade with folks who have their shows on DVD, what is the most popular format you receive? Does it make a difference what format you accept. I want to buy a DVD recorder, and the prices are lower than ever now, but I still don't know which one. I was told that I should find one that makes DVD-R discs because that seems to be the format. People don't want DVD-RW or DVD+RW, do they? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

DVD-R has the best compatibility with dvd players at about 92%.
DVD+R about 87%, and DVD+RW/DVD-RW about 76% compatibility. You can always get a recorder that can burn any format that way your always covered.

A trader I've worked with has a recorder that does both DVD+Rs and DVD-Rs. Since I can only play DVD-Rs, he made them that way for me, though he admitted that it was the first time he did as most of the other traders he'd dealt with wanted DVD+Rs.

I got them in the DVD-R format, and they play cruddy on my DVD player, like the shows are 4th generation or worse. When I mentioned this to the trader, he was surprised because he'd always gotten high praise for his DVDs.

I don't know what the deal was with his recorder, but after that experience, I'm not too interested in having a DVD+R recorder. Do I make sense?

I just got my Panasonic DVD Recorder. Made my first couple of DVDs this weekend. Everything went ok. Mine has a hard drive built in so what I did was transfer my tapes onto the hard drive and then edited out commercaisls.

I too work with DVD-r
RW discs won't work with my machine - I don't think DVD recorders accept RW format at all. (not sure about this).

The only thing I wish it had was more options to create picture menus.

I have both Plus R and Minus R and have actually found Plus R are the best quality and play on the oldest dvd players, I have not had any incompatibility issues, I like both machines and have done well with either. The only discs that are not compatible as much are the read/write from either PlusRW or MinusRw. Those are the only ones that caused me any issues.
Tom

Originally posted by y2k3Joker
I just got my Panasonic DVD Recorder. Made my first couple of DVDs this weekend. Everything went ok. Mine has a hard drive built in so what I did was transfer my tapes onto the hard drive and then edited out commercaisls.

I too work with DVD-r
RW discs won't work with my machine - I don't think DVD recorders accept RW format at all. (not sure about this).

The only thing I wish it had was more options to create picture menus.

Pan E80? I have the same one. It's a good machine, use it everyday. I agree about the menu, only nine different color backgrounds for text menus, but other than that, with the hard drive I've been able to do all I hoped. The machine works with dvd-ram, which comes in handy for me since I already had a portable Panasonic player that I use at work. I record something to the ram disc, watch it the next day, erase that program, record something else.

Pan E80? I have the same one. It's a good machine, use it everyday. I agree about the menu, only nine different color backgrounds for text menus, but other than that, with the hard drive I've been able to do all I hoped. The machine works with dvd-ram, which comes in handy for me since I already had a portable Panasonic player that I use at work. I record something to the ram disc, watch it the next day, erase that program, record something else.


Yup! the E80 great machine.

One question maybe you can answer for me ....?

When you edit something you recorded on the hard drive (a playlist), Can you dub it to DVD-R in high-speed? I haven't been able to do this?

I have the "DVD-R compatible REC" set to "ON" and it won't dub playlists in hi-speed. Am I doing something wrong? or is this how it is.

Stuff I don't touch (no edit) I'm able to dub to DVD in hi-speed.

DVD-R and DVD-RWs all the way! :wave:

Originally posted by y2k3Joker
Yup! the E80 great machine.

One question maybe you can answer for me ....?

When you edit something you recorded on the hard drive (a playlist), Can you dub it to DVD-R in high-speed? I haven't been able to do this?

I have the "DVD-R compatible REC" set to "ON" and it won't dub playlists in hi-speed. Am I doing something wrong? or is this how it is.

Stuff I don't touch (no edit) I'm able to dub to DVD in hi-speed.

Off the top of my head, I don't remember not being able to dub in high-speed something that I edited first. Now that I think about it, I have made a number of discs of music video collections where I edited out stuff, set chapters marks and dubbed at high speed with no problem. I'll have to check out my machine once I'm home, I forget what setting I have it on, but it is possible to do that.

Off the top of my head, I don't remember not being able to dub in high-speed something that I edited first. Now that I think about it, I have made a number of discs of music video collections where I edited out stuff, set chapters marks and dubbed at high speed with no problem. I'll have to check out my machine once I'm home, I forget what setting I have it on, but it is possible to do that.


I figured it out .... the editing has to be done with the function "shorten segment"

Everything's cool now, taking me 47 minutes to burn a DVD (LP mode - 4 hours of programming)

Is it possible to make custom menus?

For example, if I made a couple DVDs with The Simpsons Season 4, could I make a menu that actually says "Simpsons: Season 4" and then have all the episodes accesible underneath or something like that?

And are DVD recorders easy to use? Is it easy to switch VHS tapes into DVD and does the quality increase?

Menus can only be text with a one of nine different color backgrounds. Some examples below.
Transfering tapes to DVD is simple. If you can operate a VCR you can operate a DVD recorder.
+ it has built in TBC (time base corrector) so it does improve the quality of tapes a little bit.




http://www.jokertv.net/thailand.JPG http://www.jokertv.net/usa.JPG

http://www.jokerTV.net/allstar.JPG

You can use RW + with the philips plus capture and image from any episode for a title menu.

I ve heard of Time base correction. Never actually used it. Is it a built in video enhancer?

stabilizers can boost quality a little among other things :wink2:

Thanks! Do those menus come with every kind of DVD recorder, and if not what kind do you have?

Also, does it have to say "Episode #__" or can you actually write the title of the episode?

And I noticed there's 8 spots there. Can you fit 8 1 hour episodes on a disc or is that just the amount it gives?

I have the E-80 model with the 80 gig hard drive.
I'm not sure if all the models have the 9 menu screens. I think the older models only have 1 (bit I'm not sure)

You can write whatever you want. There is a screen with an alpha-numeric menu where you can write whatever you want.
I just used Episode #1 because for "Survivor" most people just refer to them as episode 1, episode 2 etc ....
You can write any title you want.

There is more room for extra episodes. Each page contains 8 entries. That's why you see "NEXT" at the bottom of the screen. That's to flip to the next page.
If there were 2 or more pages, in the top right hand you would see a note like .... "1/2" (page 1 of 2 )

Hope this helps.

It does. Thanks.

I hope to get one for my birthday.

BTW: For those of us old stalwarts of the VHS standard....We're a dying breed, and as soon as the price comes down a LITTLE more, I'm jumping ship too. Right now, a standard Panasonic E50 (The Basic Model) is $450. AND, right now, for $50 less at Best Buy, you can get a fairly decent Philips DVDR75 (It's the one my HS has, and it's fairly good)

The DVDRec's w/ HDs are even MORE out of my ballpark for now, but, I'd love to have one.

If it says anything about price, said DVD recorder was $499 when we bought it a few months ago (Yes, despite being a student, I got to buy things with the school's money...JOY!). When a good, quality model hits $200-ish is when I'll probably invest in one (I plan to wait THAT late solely because, when it's my money, I'm cheap)

Now, for a legit question...I've heard great things about converting VHS tapes to DVD, at least in most instances. But, seriously, how big of a difference are we talking about?

I just want to make DVD's from tv shows because Mama's Family will never be released on DVD. If it eventually is, who cares, I can tape other stuff off TV too and the quality willl be much better.

But what channels don't skip episodes of shows. I know that Nick at NIte doesn't skip episodes and airs in order but I've noticed most other great shows in syndication are run totally out of order on other channels and many episodes are skipped. Okay, I'm going off topic now so ill just stop.

Are DVD recorders hard to plug in. Like do you need some random expensive cords just to plug it in or is it just one plug and some of those color plug things like a DVD player?

Also, lets just assume that you were taping a show and wanted to pause for commercials so you paused it. Would it pause right when you press the button or would it take a few seconds like the VCR? Also, if it comes back from commercial, will it start recording instantly when you press the button or will it take a few seconds and make you miss part of a line or a scene? That always pisses me off on my tapes. Half of a line is always missing.

No special plugs, just regular connections like you hook up your VCR.

If you buy a model with a hard drive, you just let your show record and then go back and edit it to the exact frame. You then have a perfect copy ready to be put on a dvd.

I have a Pioneer 310-S DVD recorder and I have recorded everything on it. Now, I just need to finalize. I named the disc, and now I go to "finalize" and it tells me to select a menu. I select the menu, then at the top it says the name of the Disc and then the titles of the options (the episodes I've recorded) have titles indicating the date recorded, the time, the channel and the speed mode recorded in. I want to know how I would go about changing those titles to the titles of the episodes. Do you do that after the finalization process? Thanks.


Also, I would like to know how to delete one of the files recorded onto the disc. I accidentally pressed 'stop' in the middle of a recording, so I started it all over (it was recorded of Tivo) and one file has half the episode, and the other has the entire episode, so I want to delete the one I don't need.

I dont know about the pioneer. Never finalize the disc until you are done editing. Unless you have an RW. Once you finalize. You cant go back and do anything to it.

Maybe some the functions are the same. Try up button on the remote press fwrd button - to move over to where you disc title should be. Then use up & down buttons on the remote to manually edit the title . do this with each title menu /episode

once done editing there. Go to top where your disc option to finalize is - do the samething. I m assuming they all have the same basic functiions as the philips.

To delete a title /episode move over to the title where it might say EXT 2 time ect.. press down button on the remote press where says Delete title.

When you are done editing finalize disc. Really not as complicated as it sounds.

With a Philips dvd recorder - you can make picture menus. really cool and very easy! When you press record, the recorder places the first thing it captures during that recording session as the menu photo and you can change it later by selecting your favorite scene. You can also edit the text next to the picture to list titles. Very easy - VERY cool!! I have a dvdr80 model - and it is awsome! It is also wayyyyyyy faster to transfer videos to dvd using a stand alone recorder as opposed to doing it with a computer. I started out using a computer and it is crazy how long it takes - and - how much hard drive space...it's best to go with a stand alone!!:wave:

you can also change that image for a title menu. You can browse any part of that episode pause & press FSS new title menu - Ok whala. usually the fist thing it captures is often not a cool image.
So you can go back and select what you want for the picture for that particular episode. Its great. I only wish the images were LARGER :lol:

I have the Panasonic DMR E80, and it does everything I've ever wanted in a VCR - finally, I'm able to take out those commercials without having to sacrifice a generation! I'm using it to back up my most precious recordings on Beta and VHS, stuff that's never been repeated and has never come out on tape or DVD. I'm not getting rid of my originals in those cases, but I am making a snapshot so that I don't lose any further quality as the tapes age. This also makes it much easier to make copies for someone else without endangering my original tapes.

New stuff that I don't expect to come out on DVD, I'm recording directly to disc, first through my DVR, then to the hard drive where I edit out commercials, and then to disc. It's more work than I used to put into tapes, since I haven't removed commercials since the early '80s, but if I'm going to have it on disc, I might as well have it properly on disc. :>

I've found that material I've burnt to disc copies to VHS better than VHS to VHS, which is also very nice.

Material I expect to come out on DVD, like Angel and Alias, I'm still recording to VHS, and when those shows come out on disc, I'll recycle the tapes.

I would prefer that the E80 had picture menus, but I'll make due with the text menus. I always enter at least episode number if not title so I know what I'm looking at.

It's amazing how the E80 has changed how I record and store material.

Well, now when I try to record, it records but it plays back, just a black screen so I guess it's not like a VCR which records exactly what it sees on the TV. You have to set it to the channel. The problem is, I have satellite (DISH network).

How do you select the correct input to record from?

I have DISHNetwork, too, as well as cable and two VCRs (VHS and Beta respectively) hooked up to my DVD recorder. Each is on a different input (Line 1, Line 2, Line 3, and RF inputs).

I have DISHNetwork hooked in to my Line 2 inputs of the recorder, so to record from that source, I have to press Input Select on the remote to select Line 2. It really does work exactly like a VCR, where you have to have the unit on the correct channel (or input) to record the programming. This is not to say I didn't have some dodgy moments where I thought I was recording something and got nothing.

Since I've got old analog cable, I've got my cable coming in on the RF input, and that's where I've got the channels tuned.

I have my DVD recorder attached to the television through the auxiliary input on the TV, so in order to see what's coming through the DVD recorder, I have to select the "Aux" input on my TV. Another set in my house would be set to "Video."