Topic: Calling A TV/Video Techie!

[TR]

My man said Scarts all the way through as you will lose signal strength through coax, apart from that everything should be ok with HQ discs  

[Sandra]

I think that if I was rich enough and could find anything worth recording off the TV, then I would definately go for a dvd recorder with either a built in hard drive or ethernet to connect to the pc  

[Clive]

Well I've learned a lot about my DVD recorder by now and I can make it do all the things I want it to.  I've done quite a lot of editing and found that it is completely seamless with none of those annoying gaps and stutters that I used to get with VCR editing.  The finalization process on a 2 hour recording in video mode took just 2 minutes.  Recording from one DVD to another is a cinch and I can't detect any loss in quality.  And the recordings play on my other DVD players too.

[Sandra]

How many gigs does it take to record a one hour programme at best quality Clive ?

[Clive]

The highest quality is "fine" and that gives one hour on a 4.7 gig disk.  I have been using SP which allows 2 hours.

[Sandra]

Thats a big file size  
Is there a lot of difference between fine and SP ?

[Simon]

It's not the same as using a PC, Sandra.  It really doesn't matter about file sizes.  You know you can get 2 hours high quality on a recordable DVD, and 3 hours good quality.  That's really all you need to know with these things.    I tried the 1 hour 'best' quality on mine, and I can't tell the difference between that and the 2 hour 'high' quality.  The 3 hour 'good' setting, is a very slightly softer picture, and you can notice a little digital 'noise' around some fast movement, but it's fine for everyday TV.

[Clive]

To be honest with you I've only used SP and LP so far and the LP is still very good.  One drawback with the system is that unlike VCR's, you can only erase entire blocks of a recording as opposed to say a 10 minute portion.  It's a bit like erasing a computer program - you have to erase it all.  Well I suppose that's not strictly true as you can erase individual files but you know what I'm getting at.  You can of course break a recording up into lots of chunks (e.g. stopping it at the adverts) and they could be erased individually.

[Simon]

I think VR mode gives you more editing capabilities, Clive, but then you can't play it back on another player.  

[daveeb]

I just got the panasonic E100 dvd/hdd recorder at richer sounds. fantastic machine at a good price but it had a fault so i took it back and i've now decided i can't really afford it.

the xp (best) mode fits 1 hour on disc and records at around 10mbps, footage from tv/stb looks identical to the original.  sp gives 2 hours and is virtually indistinguishable from the 1 hour. recordings from old tapes look better than the originals due to the time base corrector.  all in all i'm gutted i've had to take it back.
think i'll go for the E55 panny dvd recorder, should get that one through the budgets committee AKA mrsB.  

[Simon]

Well, I've been more than happy with my Sony GX3.  The only occasional problems I have had were due to the STB crashing, not down to the DVDR.  I hardly use my VCR now.

[Clive]

What is this "VCR" you speak of Simon?

[Sandra]

think i'll go for the E55 panny dvd recorder, should get that one through the budgets committee AKA mrsB.  

Dave, how fasts your pc ?
What have you got that you want to record, eg sat, digi terrestial or cable etc ?

You can save yourself a lot of money and have a better setup, if your PC is fast enough and just use a tv pci card.
They save to the hard drive in various formats, all seem to do at least mpeg2 for DVD quality, which you can burn to a CD or DVD to watch on your tvs dvd player

[daveeb]

Thanks for ideas sandra but to be honest i prefer to have a stand alone box under the tv.  everything happens in real time and i dont have to lock myself away in my so called office for hours on end.  Also i don't have a dvd writer in the pc (which incidentally at 1Ghz is probably near the bottom of minimum spec). I've already tried vcd/svcd on pc versus stand alone box and the box won hands down both in terms of quality and convenience. When i'm up and running i'll probably consider editting pre-recorded footage on the pc tho'