Hi all, I have recently been given some new equipment to go with my TV (LG) and have managed to set it up, but I have a niggling problem.

I have a DTR box LPVR250
I also have a Sony DVD Recorder

I can record straight onto the DTR box - great!
I can also record onto discs on the DVD recorder - again great!

However when I try to copy films from the DTR Box to a DVD in the recorder, the picture quality is grainy.

I have the Scart lead between the Aux port on the DTR Box and Line 3 port on the DVD recorder
Is it because I am using the Scart? Could I use some other sort of lead?

Its a shame to have been given all this lovely techie equipment then get a grainy picture
Thanks

Silly question but what record quality have you got set on your DVD recorder

High 1hr
Standard 2hr
Extended 4hr
Low 6hr

remember the more you get on a DVD the lower the quality!

Repeated post submission
Last edited by mlayzell : 24-04-2011 at 18:36

Hi not silly at all - thanks for replying so promptly.

I had Googled the manuals for the DTR box and DVD player as they were given to me - so I had to work it out for myself

I noted that you can choose different qualities. I chose LP as a sort of middle ground. The discs I am using are DVD+R 4.7 Gb Single Use 16x Speed from Asda

I really don't know much about home entertainment stuff more of a computer person.

Do you think it is the disc quality speed thingamy that I need to change?

Thank you

Scart AV 1 on LPVR250 should go to Sony ....................... this has to be set to RGB

this will give you the best picture . Scart AV 2 does not give RGB output

Now the choice of Scart cable can help ............. a fully pinned RGB scart cable with screening is a must

£ 10 at the most and may say ' oxygen free ' for marketing purposes , but ' shielded ' is the key

I suggest if it is something you want to keep or pass on to a friend that you use the highest quality setting available. You will definitely see a degradation in pq if you use the LP setting.

if you say grainy picture my guess is its SCART quality. RGB to RGB Scart is best + a cheap lead will give poor results (unlike digital cables)

Thank you for all your responses. I am a little confused here.

Could you please kindly explain what is the difference between RGB and Scart and which end goes into the DVD and the DTR?

Sorry to be so daft!

If you need any advice re PHP, MySQL etc I can help in repayment.
Thank you

SCART handles both RGB and normal video signals

so a fully pinned ' screened ' scart is all you need

scart AV 1 has to go to Sony. If you give us model number of Sony and your TV we can help further

The thing is dvd recorders were pretty botched tech to begin with. You see the thing is pre recorded dvds look great because they are variable bitrate, since films are not recorded on the fly, they have the luxury of going over the encoding process to distribute the bits where they matter th emost, variable bitrate, maximum quality, while fitting on a dvd which is probably dual layer. Dvd recorders on the other hand...they record real time, and tend to use fixed bitrate since they don't know whats coming in and just have to get it down on the disc, wasteful, and so you get very low capacity on a disc, and it is why LP is even more horrible because to get that length of recording time it has to seriously lower the bitrate to unacceptable levels. This is why pvr's and such are better now, no having to deal with the ridiculous capacity of dvd. With harddrives as cheap as they are, we have 1-3TB drives now, even a 500GB drive based pvr has 125 dvds worth of capacity.

Plus you are recording analog..

SCART can carry RGB (separate red-green-blue signals over three separate pins), and/or composite (all signals down one pin). The latter looks fuzzy in comparison to the former - especially at the edges of strong colours.

To use RGB, you need to use the socket(s) on both devices that support it (some won't), switch it on in both devices (some things disable RGB by default), and use a fully wired (preferably fully screened) SCART cable.

And SP mode!

Cheers,
David.

Yes, LP mode will be noticeably poorer than SP - we had a customer brought her DVD recorder in complaining of poor recordings (amongst other things), and she had it set to some sort of extra extended LP (and it was absolutely CRAP! )

Like this one, for example.

Drop LP recording and always record SP then the picture will improve and if use TV Scart, not Aux scart, from LPVR250 to Sony the picture will improve even more as you will be able to record in RGB quality.

Two things to remember;

1) Record in SP not LP
2) Use DTR's TV scart to record in RGB.

Note: You'll still need to check to make sure both DTR & DVDR scarts are set to RGB.

Don't forget the gold plating - it doesn't nothing for the quality of signal but it can empty your wallet faster

http://www.admac.myzen.co.uk/scart2/

It's not much point in having screened leads if the screen stops a couple of inches short of the connector.

As for hand assembled - 99% of the SCART leads on sale in the UK will have been hand assembled and hand soldered in some far east sweat shop.

Thank you for all your responses. I will play around with it now that I have some knowledge.

Hi again well I have played around with the settings and what a difference! I have it on RGB video which seems to be better than RGB SVideo (which seems to cause a slight flicker).

THANK YOU

Now just one more question, given that I will be setting the record quality to HQ from now on - as you have all suggested.

I am a bit confused about the various discs on offer. What is the difference between 1x 2x 4x etc and the length seems to be only 120 mins where many films are longer than 2 hours.
Which discs should I be buying?

That is a facetious answer! The gold is not there to look pretty, it's doing what gold does best - nothing. In other words it does not corrode, oxidise, tarnish or deteriorate in any way, thus maintaining the integrity of the connection all the while it is inserted.

If you record using SP (Standard Play) the disc will take about 2 hours of SD video. If you need longer, you have to set at SLP or LP. Using HQ gives good quality, but only 1 hour per disc.
I assume your Sony doesn't have a HDD, which is a pity as it would be much easier to use.
On the subject of discs to use, go for the highest speed you can as they tend to be more reliable in my experience.
They are normally 4.7 GB which is 120mins. at SP recording mode.
Mike.

Thanks Mike that makes it more clear. I'm left wondering - is it not possible to buy longer discs?

They can't make it longer, thats the difference between tape and a disc after all..if you made the disc longer, it would be bigger, the discs are either 1 layer, or two, and even at 2 layer it would only be 4 hours of SP recording, dvd was never meant to be next generation recording with next generation convenience. Recording to dvd is like vhs in terms of conveniece, nothing more. 2 layer discs were expensive, still are, and by the time they came out people had dvr's anyways.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-VHS
That was an interesting failed format...extremely long sd recording time, and even hd.

Dvd recording decks have very limited usefulness. Dvr for day to day is just superior.... vhs...dvd recorders, make work for you.

just buy a small pack of DVD 's to start off with

some discs dont work in some machines

they do make great coasters for cups of tea

Go and look at the connectors on all the high end electronic equipment that you own. Go and look at the connectors on all the electrical equipment that you own. I doubt that you will find much gold plating there. Go to the TV studios or any other environment where electronic equipment is used professionally and I guarantee the amount of gold plating on connectors will be minuscule.

Gold plating seems to be used most when a company is attempting to extract from the uneducated customer a large amount of money for interconnecting leads for his domestic TV and Hi-Fi equipment. In 99.9% of cases the retail industry is just selling the equivalent of expensive snake oil.