WHICH ONE? Sony RDR HXD-710 OR Panasonic DMREH60 ?

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WHICH ONE?
Sony RDR HXD-710 OR Panasonic DMREH60 ?

So my BIG question is which one?
Can anyone help me PLEASE?
Especially anyone who has experience of one or even both!

Which is best for EDITING / making own dvd's from old hi 8 tapes or making own dvd's from vhs tapes with old tv stuff on?

If i want to get 3 or 4 HOURS IN a DVD (in good quality) - Which is best to have the Panasonic's super quality down to the 3rd level of quality (that i read about in a magazine)
or the dual layer of the Sony?

which is EASIEST to use?

and where is the BEST PRICE with reliable after care in case you need it (and/or a 2 year free warranty if poss!?)

MANY THANKS

Does DMREH60D can record subtitles onto its HDD and DVD discs? Is it permantely subtitles recorded or can I switch it on and off during recorded playback?

Is subtitles always being display when you switch it on without use subtitles button? I hate to press subtitles every time when I switch any device on to display subtitles!

It can record them, but they're permanently there (or not) according to how it was set for the recording. I think this is the case for any Freeview recorder as subtitles are produced differently than with analogue broadcasts.

It will remember the state it was last used, I think, so subtitles should stay on if you're always using them.

Just as an off-topic comment, I am astonished that switchable subtitles and some form of programme delivery control were not designed into digital broadcasting from day 1.

So much for progress.

Regards
Gavin

I only interested in Freeview subtitles as I don't use analogue tuner anymore. Are you said that subtitles are being recorded in closed-caption format instead opened-caption? Closed-caption is that you can toggle subtitles on and off during playback and open-closed is that subtitles are permantely recorded and cannot be removed.

I don't use analogue tuner anymore, but one thing that I like from analogue is PDC and it is sorely missed from DVB. DVB should have PDC-type to recored the whole programmes without missing starting or ending. Any plan DVB will get PDC-type in the future?

You're asking an almost impossible question. Very few of us if any will have experience of both machines.... So a comparison cannot be made. I have no knowledge at all of the Sony machine or it's facilities so I cannot comment on it.

All I can say is that the Panasonic is smooth and easy to use. What you describe would be easy to achieve.

One comment however, if you are determined to squeeze 3 to 4 hours onto a disk, then uncompressed data [ i.e. no additional compression ] which is what I imagine a dual layer machine would be able to achieve, is more than likely to beat the compressed data which would have to be done on the Panasonic irrespective of other picture quality issues.

Best price? Google it.

Regards
Gavin

The subtitle recording is permanently burned onto the picture you cannot switch them on and off as with a commercial DVD. Once they are on a recording they are there for good.

Another general point I would like to make, is that it is not a good idea to regard using additionally compressed recording levels , such as the third level, for anything other than purposes such as time-shifting.
Any archive work, such as you describe, is best undertaken at a standard quality level.

Quality appears to matter to you so be prepared to stop trying to 'get blood out of a stone'. The whole nature of digital video is that it is already very highly compressed. Don't compromise it further by adding more.

I very much doubt whether it is worth going to the high quality setting however, because it is likely that the analogue to digital conversion will be the big limitation to quality, subjectively at least.
However it may be that experimentation is justified.

Personally , although I like the robustness of digital video, I find the digital artifacts that are introduced by analogue to digital conversion , offensive.

I would be interested to hear the views of others on this point.

Regards
Gavin

OK thanks, but do you know whether we can specify the subtitles option when using the timer or using the EPG to record a programme ?

Yes - It is an option on the timer information screen.... for each individual timer programme.

Regards
Gavin

I have resisted a total switch to digital as I agree with your views that the digital artifacts are very offensive.

The main reason for visable artifacts is too low a bit rate. This is due to commercial reasons rather than any other.
They are trying to cram too many channels in, going for quanity of channels rather than qualitiy.

I have a Panasonic DMR-E95, all the quality levels are usable with a decent analogue signal.

If I wish to keep the recording I will use SP or XP modes. Recording from a decent analogue signal whenever possible.

One of the main flaws with DVD recorders with a freeview decoder is that they are re-encoding the freeview signals to make the signal DVD complaint, unlike PVR's which record the broadcast signal directly.

My dad has a DMR-EH60D and once mistakenly used the LP setting to record an F1 race from the freeview signal, it wasn't even watchable due to so many digital artifacts.

Roll on High Definition TV as this will offer the best quality available. Yes the recordings will take up more space but I for one am after quality not quantity.

In my opinion freeview has removed many of the analogue noise problems but introduced digital ones instead.

One very interesting thing is if you count the number of channels broadcasting at any one time on each multiplex. The BBC has the least on it's multiplex's so the highest quality and I think it was the multiplex used by TopUp TV which has the most, which also has Five on the multiplex.

Regards

Phil

Channel 5, as it was known then, used to have a very good picture quality until they started cramming in the other channels.

Personally I find that even a fair level of noise (ghosting excepted) on analogue is less annoying then a small amount of digital artifacting, probably because the analogue noise is evenly distributed rather than the digital "noise" which tends to be localised to specific areas of the picture and to me that makes it much more obvious. Others on these forums would disagree.

Thank you Gavin.
I was about to go for the sony HXD710, small details like that + easy change of EPG based timer start to win me over.

Any chance of you can capture the screenshots of DMREH60D main menu GUI and its sub-menus in hi-res images? Prefered to see it in video motion if you can do it. No obligation

Why in motion ? What difference would that make?

'Cos some menu are "animated", like my previous Sony DVD recorder RDR-GXD500.

hi - I've just got a Panasonic DMREH60D but i missed the daily / weekly option bit - where is this - either in the manual ? or where is it on the instructions when programming? thanks...

Mostly the menus themselves aren't animated actually - they used to be on the last-but-one range of Panasonics (I think, from looking at the diagrams in their instruction manuals) but the menu GUI itself on current ones is pretty straightforward with just the occasional dropdown list and horizontal progress bar. Obviously the thumbnails of recordings are animated in the fullest sense (in that they play, with sound) but that's about it. (I do have an EH60D so I have checked).

Hi

They missed it out in the manual, my dad has a 60D and the weekly/daily timer function doesn't get mentioned at all.

I suggest you download the DMR-E95H manual from the panasonic website as the operation of this feature is identical.

Phil

It's there - just well hidden! If you create a program from the guide, then highlight the date - you can then amend it simply by rolling it backwards or forwards. If you roll it back beyond todays date it gives the daily and weekly options. Even better, as far as I can tell, it will then advise you when the weekly options finish due to disc space running out! One quirk, which I have not taken any further - it doesn't seem to amend the date when changing the speed (e.g. LP to EP)

Rang Richer sounds just now to get myself a Panasonic DMREH60D and was told that Panasonic have withdrawn the stock due to problems with the pricing structure!!
It's also gone off the Richer Sounds website.
Anyone head anything?

Thanks to discovering this thread, I have now transformed the way I set my timer recordings. If you use the weekly options, eg MON, TUE etc instead of the date, it works like a series link in Sky +. You also get the option RENEW on the far right when inputting the timer record - this increases the number of weeks before it runs out.

It was a real bind having to key in the shows I watch every week manually, and trying to make sure I didn't forget any. I don't know why they don't promote this excellent method more, but then the manual is poor - giving as much weight to things you wouldn't do in a month of Sundays to things you do every day.

Just done my first ever high-speed dub to a DVD-RW - must go and see how it's gone.

The snag with using the renew function - as previously mentioned on the forum - is that it overwrites the previous week's recording....

Oh really? Would the same be true of a daily recording then? I have Scrubs on a daily record now, and haven't watched yesterday's yet!