Any preferred DVD-RW or DVD-RAM for these machines or are they happy to take the local PC shop's DVD-RWs?

For what it's worth Ethel, I've used Panasonic and JVC RAM discs, Imation -Rs (my local Currys were doing a BOGOF on spindle packs of those) and PC Line -RWs. All work fine. I think it's probably best to avoid cheap media if you're going to be archiving, as traditionally they tend to deteriorate over time.

Seems to work fine on most cheap discs I've tried, only problem I had was with some cheap DataWrite Yellow General Purpose +R discs which it seemed to struggle with, which resulted in 2 coasters. I used these on my old Philips-DVDR75 without problems but of course that only supported +R's anyway. These failed about 75% through a high-speed dubbing session. To check compatibilty I tried several different brands which I had, Verbatim, DataWrite Red Classics, Pheonix, Bulkpac, Datasafe, Tesco's etc. of both types -R and +R and RW and all seemed okay.
I have quite a few DataWrite brands because I found I had good success with them in the past both on the 2 Pioneer burners in my computer and also on the old Philips DVDR, so I was a little surprised that these gave trouble on my new EH60DEBS. May have just been that one tub, as I have tried a couple more DataWrite Yellow +R from another more recently purchased tub and they were fine. Plus I do remember now! getting a coaster on the Philips a few weeks ago, the first coaster it ever made, and that was probably from the same tub. (ie. discs may have been IFFY)

I suspect that the machine may be more tolerant of -R media than possibly +R. This suspicion is purely based on the fact that it does not support +RW of course.
Not had much experience with Ram Discs to date, other than Pansonics on Ram Discs which I recently purchased and as one would expect they work 100%.

JMO but first impressions indicate that its not too fussy with regard to disc brands. (But early days yet!) )

Mike

Thanks for starting this thread because I have just purchased one of these machines and am not sure what discs to buy, I understand from the manual that it takes +R, -RAM, -R and -RW but what speed should the blank discs be?

I got some +R/-R 16x speed discs and read on the back that they are only supported by 16x writers but this unit does not write at this speed does it????

Sorry if I’m being thick but the manual isn’t really that clear about speeds etc. From what I’ve read on the internet etc. the unit takes DVD-R 4X and DVD-RW 2X but what about DVD+R is this correct?

Also off topic, I’ve noticed while watching back a program recorded onto the HDD that the pictures jumps a fraction of a second when recorded in XP mode a couple of times, is this normal? I have to admit I haven’t tried recording in any of the other modes to see if it happens.

Thanks for any advice.

The burning speed capability of discs is not a major issue, as all the discs are backward compatible speed-wise. ie. a 16x disc should burn quite happily at 2x. Most RW discs are only 2x,or 2.4x anyway though faster speeds are now becoming available.

I've used 8x and 16x discs and have not noticed any difference in burning times when copying using high speed dubbing. There may be a difference perhaps with 2x and 4x discs. I would guess the burner used is probably a 8x unit.
In any event the burner will normally only use a speed that the disc is capable of supporting. There is an area on the disc where it does a small burning test so it can assertain the disc's capabilities. In fact, its this small disc area for these test burns that limits the number of sessions when using multi-sessions on a computer burner.

On a computer of course, if you have a high speed capable burner such as 16x etc. then buying high speed discs will enable you to burn faster. Personally I tend to burn at 8x on my computer even if the disc is 16x capable, thinking that the integrity of the finished copy will be better... depends if I'm in a hurry or not! ))

What is more important however is the brand of discs used, just because you can read them does'nt mean everyone else can. I dont buy expensive discs, but I always advise buying just a few different brands and seeing what works best. Then stick with the brand/type which gives best compatability.
To be honest, these days most discs seem to work quite well unlke the very early days... where it was a hit or miss whether other players would read them or not. Discs and the hardware are improving all the time.

I tend to do most of my recordings in either SP or FR mode. I will try a couple in XP to see if I notice anything on playback.

Mike
Last edited by medic45 : 04-11-2005 at 13:52

If you were recording from a Freeview broadcast, it could be from that - if the signal is interrupted (which can happen with Freeview as we all know) the EH60D's way of responding is a momentary freezeframe - it seems to show the last good picture it has to fill the disruption (other Freeview receivers may splurt pixellation across the screen in the same situation). So the simplest explanation is that it recorded a disruption to the picture caused by interference.