Wide World of Women

I haven't tried them in the computer. I'll try that out. I'll have to put them on tape first then. Are there players with two dvd slots? That would be cool. Record from one dvd to another.

Yeah, I'm having trouble now with the rest of my Sony DVD+R. I'm having trouble finalizing them. I say "finalize" and it does it for about 10 seconds and then it just stops. If I put them onto tape then the quality is shot. Maybe people won't mind the VHS quality then.

Well, I got some new discs and they worked fine. I was recording left and right. Lots of fun. Used the timer. All was well. Then the player just quite on me. Won't read any discs. Even copyrighted ones. Opened it up and there was a box covering the dvd area. Considering I was taking a risk with eletrical shock already I wasn't going to open that up. Anyway, this was the player that I had:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Samsung+-+M ... 401&st=dvd vcr recorder&cp=1&lp=5

Apparently, people had the same problems that I had. Problems with overheating, not accepting discs, and being choppy during recording. Well, I guess I'll get a new one. So on Sunday I'm going over to Best Buy or hhregg I need a combo so I can dub vhs onto DVD. Which one should I get?

Look at the Panasonics if they are available. I have a Panasonic VCR/DVD which has worked for me for the last 5 years. Yeah I get the unit not recognizing a blank disc from time to time but I always try one or two more times with the same disc before trying a new one. If I try a new one, the original I used just goes back into the pile to be tried again some other day.

Panasonic. Let's see now. hhgregg seems big on JVC and Toshiba. Best Buy has this one:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Panasonic+- ... Id=8696299

Something I noticed that I saw listed with the ones at hhgregg was that they list slow/mo speeds. I presume all of them would have that, no? Maybe not the really cheap ones which this one is most definitely isn't.

So I went out and bought myself a Panasonic DVD Recorder.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Panasonic+- ... Id=8696299

Saw it at hhgregg for 25 dollars cheaper. Well, it plays well. Getting used to the remote. I wish it had more time on the recording. I mean the other one could record to an hour, 2:30, 3:30, 4:00, 6:00 and 8:00. This one is more "normal". 1:00, 2:00, 4:00, 6:00 and 8:00. Doing a timer recording now. I hope it works well. Apparently, you could use an USB with it. I guess that would be for photos from a camera. Or Video I suppose. 90 pages of manual to read later on. O, joy. Well, I hope you can record easily with it. The timer was easy once I figured out the clock. Hopefully, I'll be able to record one thing and watch another at the same time. Can't figure out how to do that with the satellite. So here's hoping all is well and I can go on posting!(Hopefully, better quality stuff. What I lack in quality, I think I make up in enthusiasm...)

Now I've done some recording. This was done at 480P. I moved it up to 720 since then. I guess the quality will only get better. So I did this little video of Melissa Lee in her Coke program that was on earlier:

http://www.mediafire.com/?1org1199h1ap035

First some caps:



I didn't have any special settings on the VLC for the caps. No "image adjust"

The caps look good.

Just a couple of notes with recording DVD's.

You will only be able to capture up to 720x48 with DVD no matter what the input.

The file you had should have .mpg extension since it's mpeg-2 program stream.

There's no need to have progressive output with interlaced channels. It doesn't change the interlacing, and sometimes make it look worse.

Just record at native output with as high a bitrate as you can afford. You can record at 8Mbps then compress it down to 2-3Mbps Xvid with little quality loss or compress smaller with some quality loss. Or just record at 4Mbs and leave it as mpeg-2.

Yeah, not really following. Give me some time on that. So I have the tv aspect at 16:9 which is odd because right below it, it notes 4:3. I guess that's what they recommend it for. Also allows you to change the dvd ram aspect from 4:3 to 16:9 or Pan and Scan. Also Letterbox as well. DVD-video is pan and scan and DVD-ram is 4:3. Maybe that will screw things up. I don't know. Anyway, I have it at 720P. Interestingly it also says 480I and 480P. Don't know the difference. Yeah, it has progressive scan on it. I still have to read the manual more thoroughly first. Nearly 100 pages.

That's the exact same model I'm using. I've had it for two years and I've had no problems with it. Surprisingly, I've never really used it very much at all for dubbing VHS to DVD, but it seemed okay in the few times I tried it. The drawback is that you have to keep your satellite/cable box to whatever channel you're watching in order to record. Nonetheless, it's been pretty dependable for me so far, and I have no complaints.

I may still be stuck in SD world, but I get good results from it. When I record Robin, I do it in SP (two hour) mode, and it results in a pretty good recording. Don't record in LP (four hour) mode if it's something you want to keep prisitne, as the artifacts are more prevalent... but that also depends how much movement there is. Newscasts and home shopping will come out fairly decent, sports will not. Don't even bother with EP mode, the resolution goes down so more footage can fit on the disc, it's not worth it.
I also use it for live capping via a USB capture device through the S-video output. The only drawback is the interlacing, but when it comes to live capping, I guess that adds to the thrill of the hunt.

Yeah, it is working just fine so far. I don't think the videos are as good as my previous model but I've had no problems with it so far. I do wonder if I have too much color on my tv. I lower the color level to where it is practically black and white. So I don't know about that. O, I see. So I can't record on one and watch another. Well, I've never been able to do that with the dish in the first place. O, well. Yeah, I would have gotten just a dvd recorder or a Hauppauge but I need to dub all of these videos that I have. The next time I'll get one of those. Two hour? Really. I did that and I noticed a decent sized drop in quality. Yeah, for 4 or 6 hours I'll only use for dubbing. Posterity reasons. O, sports isn't good. Good to know. O, okay. I'll just have to buy more discs then. Ha ha. Cool. Does your make a noise after 11 seconds of recording too? Mine does. It's weird.

Mine doesn't seem to do that after a few seconds, but occasionally the drive will buzz randomly when nothing is playing or recording, but it doesn't affect anything.

You can experiment with the speeds to see what comes out to your satisfaction, but personally I find that XP and SP speeds work out the best. LP depends on what you're recording. Just try some things out here and there and see what you're happy with.

Sports aren't unwatchable, but if you fit one game on a disc at LP speed, there will be a decent amount of compression artifacts given the motion of the cameras. That's why I still record important games on VHS. True, the picture is still worse on EP speed on tape, but at least there's no compression. I guess that's the benefit of a dual recorder, the "best" of both worlds.

Yeah, it sounds like "check". It's funny. The old player used to make a lot of noise when not recording. But this one is quite quiet. Not warm at all either. Yeah, I'll see what happens. Maybe quality will change from disc to disc too. Well, most of which as far as sports go would be soccer so SP should handle it. Yeah, I'll have to try that. With the old player, once or twice, it wouldn't allow Gsplitter to work it so I tried to put it on VHS and then better it on a better disc but that didn't improve the situation at all. Too much copying I guess. I do need to work on the color. Don't know how close to black and white I need to get it. I love how it says "15 minutes" to finalize and then it does it like 2. First time I saw that I was a tad peeved.

I know what you're saying. The first time I saw that, I thought that this was the price I was paying for today's technology. Then I actually finalized it. Talk about relief! Granted, a Memorex DVD-R takes a few minutes longer than a Memorex DVD+R, but either way is a lot better than 15 minutes!

Either way, have fun with it. It'll take a while before you find what suits you best, but I've never had major issues with mine in two years.

Well, it's been a few weeks. Not really any big problems yet. I've been using two kinds of discs; Memorex and Verbatim. Both work well. I haven't seen any difference. The quality of videos seem to have gone down. Still don't know how to fix my issues with color when recording. I think I'll try something completely in black and white and see if that changes anything. Strangely enough, the amount of mbs for a video seems to have gone up considerably despite an increase in quality. Can't explain that. Anyway, I think I'll just to use a file joiner with my videos. Maybe somehow attach parts of videos together so I don't have to post a minute and half video with just 20 seconds of good stuff in it. Make it easier for those who download my files.