[cal4751]

My Toshiba has been working O.K till now, although in the past just using the VHS. That now plays up for recording , so now using the DVD. I notice that the reception on VHS is much sharper quality, but when I switch to DVD not so sharp. I have tried on my TV control, to alter the sharpness etc, but to no avail. The TV is quite old, so I am planning sooner to get a flat screen. So wondered if that would make it clearer, or is it a fault with the Toshiba?

Any help appreciated. Thanks
.

[emptybox]

Is there a choice of recording quality for the DVD recorder?
When I used one I seem to remember that you could choose a lower quality to fit more on the DVD.

[chrisjr]

Quote:

Originally Posted by cal4751

My Toshiba has been working O.K till now, although in the past just using the VHS. That now plays up for recording , so now using the DVD. I notice that the reception on VHS is much sharper quality, but when I switch to DVD not so sharp. I have tried on my TV control, to alter the sharpness etc, but to no avail. The TV is quite old, so I am planning sooner to get a flat screen. So wondered if that would make it clearer, or is it a fault with the Toshiba?

Any help appreciated. Thanks
.

Is this watching TV via the recorder or playing back recordings?

If you are talking about just watching TV via the recorder then there should be absolutely no difference whatsoever between DVD and VHS. This is because the image you see on TV will not (or shouldn't) be going anywhere near the recording stages.

If you are talking recordings then the DVD should be better than VHS. The only way it should be inferior is if you have set a long play mode to record several hours on a disk. At 1 or 2 hours per disk it should be very much better than VHS. It's a while since I had a DVD recorder but as I recall even 4hr mode was better than my old VHS machine.

[cal4751]

Thanks to both your comments. Just by changing the button Rec Mode from LP to SP and back and forward, it's seems to set itself right, very strange.

I was getting the less sharp picture on DVD just by changing from VHS to DVD without even recording, but it's O.K now. Thanks again.

[captainkremmen]

Quote:

Originally Posted by cal4751

Thanks to both your comments. Just by changing the button Rec Mode from LP to SP and back and forward, it's seems to set itself right, very strange.

I was getting the less sharp picture on DVD just by changing from VHS to DVD without even recording, but it's O.K now. Thanks again.

When you switch to DVD mode the recorder passes the incoming tuner signal through it's MPEG 2 encoder. The encoder will set the quality to whatever recording mode you have set for recording, so using one of the lower quality recording modes will indeed affect the picture quality even just for viewing. Pretty much every DVD recorder I have ever used does this, including Panasonic, Sony, Pioneer, Liteon and Toshiba.

When you switch back to the VCR side the signal isn't passed through the MPEG2 encoder so you are viewing the incoming signal direct from the tuner.

For the best viewing quality set the recorder to it's top recording mode, usually listed as XP, FINE or whatever. But for recording this mode will generally only give you around 1 hour of recording on a blank disc. The next mode down is usually listed as SP, this gives you around 2 hours on a blank disc. On most recorders there wont be much of a noticeable difference between XP and SP, but that isn't always the case. The modes after this, such as LP or EP will start to have quite a noticeable effect on both recording and viewing quality.