HI there guys,

I have a few questions...

If i record a film in SP onto the HD, which lasts 1h 35m - when i FAST DUB it to a 4X DVD-R - does it lose quality during the fast dub or not?

Does it fast dump it to the same quality as it was recorded.

Whats the diff between VR mode and the other one?

Also, some of my recordings from SKY to HD - have an exclamation mark on them, in the list...

Can you answer my queries? Many thanks for your time fellas.

You need to use the INITIAL SETUP to activate Manual recording.
This allows you to cycle through FINE,SP,LP etc then when you reach MN settings,you can adjust that to the exact recording length ,so your 1h35 film can be copied to dvd at high speed(you should be using x8 -R discs or x4 -RW) but with better quality than SP(although you may not notice a small improvement unless watching on a big screen).
But this allows you to maximise quality and capacity.
If you are recording fom Sky Movies you should know the end running time of the movie so you should know the correct recording setting for that movie onto the HDD.
But if you don't know the running time,perhaps its off a commercial channel and you need to edit ads and padding,then its best to copy this to the Pioneer in FINE.Then after editing,you copy to dvd using OPTIMISE.The Pioneer will then adjust the quality so that the recording fits exactly on a single disc,but this is done in real time only.
VR allows you to edit on a DVD in the same way you can on the HDD,but a VR DVD won't play on many other players,so always intialise a -RW in VIDEO mode.
The exclamation mark indicates that the recording has different aspect ratios in it.Most likely a change at ad breaks.
You must edit the recording to remove those and the mark will go,otherwise when copied to DVD,each ratio change will create a separate title

thanks mate - when you say fine - do you mean XP - the one higher than SP.

Should i be recording all to the HD in XP - then when i do a fast copy to DVD - does it work it out for me to fit on a disk>

Bit confused...

My understanding of it is that you can only fast copy in the same format as recorded. ie you record a show in SP you will have the option to fast copy only in SP mode, If you want to change recording mode to say LP to fit a whole series on a disc it will record in real time (Basicly reencoding it to the new mode.

If you had 3 hours of SP video and wanted to fill the disc (SP=2hours, LP=4hours) you could use the optimize copy function, This will record to disc in real time on one of the MN settings that will allow the 3 hours of programing to fill the disc at a lower quality than SP but better than LP.

*I only got my player this week so I could be wrong, I havnt played much with the HDD to DVDr copying yet*

Whenever i use 8x DVD-R media - i get an error and it wont finalise....

Its fine with Verbatin 4x media....

What are yuo using guys...?

Thanks!

I have a Pioneer 420,and previously had a 5100 and the best quality was FINE.
Have they changed the name to XP(same as Panasonic)or is this the "better than 10MBS" setting designed for recording off a digital camcorder?
You can only high speed from HDD to DVD if the quality of the DVD is the same as the HDD original,this is why its important to use the MN settings so you can set the length exactly(if you know it) and then high speed copy without wasting disc space by recording in SP if you don't need to,like you did with your 1h35 recording.
Your x8 error is more likely dodgy cheap blanks.
Have you tried Verbatim ,TDK,Sony,JVC or other name brands?

What do you mean by MN settings mate?!

Recording:
Media (VR/Video mode) DVD-R, DVD-RW / DVD-R, DVD-RW, Dual-layer DVD-R

PAL/NTSC Yes/Yes

Max. Recording Time Single layer Disc/Dual-layer DVD-R (Video Mode)
XP (FINE): +/- 1 hr/1.8 hrs
SP: +/- 2 hrs/3.5 hrs
LP: +/- 4 hrs/7.1 hrs
EP: +/- 6 hrs/10.7 hrs
SLP: +/- 8hrs/14.3 hrs
SEP: +/- 10 hrs/17.9 hrs
MN: +/- 1-13 hrs/1.8-24 hrs

If you go to the HOME menu there is an INITIAL SETUP.
There should be an option for manual recording.It allows you record on the HDD at the precise setting you want.
This seems to be stupidly set to off by default,you need to switch it on.
This allows you to change the recording level to within 5 or 10 minutes to enable high speed copying from HDD to DVD without wasting space.
When you recorded your 1h35 movie in SP,you copied it to dvd and there was 25 minutes of wasted space.This could have been filled by the movie using a higher quality setting .
By switching MN on you could have recorded the movie to the Pioneer in 1h35 quality,this would then have filled the disc completely and you would have no wasted space.

ahhhhh! i understand you now mate!!!
THANKS!!

In fact if you set a recording from the Guide Plus EPG you can set the quality setting to 'AUTO' which automatically sets the recording rate to exactly fill the disc!

In answer to your previous questions Mongosito, yes they've renamed 'FINE' to be 'XP' (1 hour per disc, DD2.0 audio), there's also now 'XP+' which records at a bitrate of 15Mbps (no good for writing onto DVDs but looks lovely from the hard drive, although given that the quality of most TV broadcasts is scarcely around 4Mbps, all you're doing is ensuring that you don't lose any quality from the original.)

Also people, don't forget that if you've recorded something in LP or SP mode there's no sense in then transferring it in a better mode when you write it onto a DVD as it won't make the quality one ounce better!

James

thanks matey! top knowledge.

I notice that not all of your questions have been answered. Here's some more details:


Fast dub copies it to the DVD in exactly the same quality as you record it.

If you wish to change the quality when copying to DVD, then you will always have to do a slow dub.


VR mode gives more flexibility in editing. Video mode is more compatible for playback on other people's DVD players. (Don't forget that you need to finalise a DVD before it can be played on a different player.)

Personally, I use Video mode, and have changed one of the set-up options to make the HDD recording more video-mode compatible.


Those are ones where it might not be possible to do a high-speed dub to a DVD. This is usually because of an aspect ratio change (e.g. Sky 1 having widescreen programme but non-widescreen adverts, or movies on ITV2 with the Entertainment New Update half-way through). To get a high-speed dub, you can edit out the adverts. (Make sure that when prompted, you edit in video-compatible mode otherwise a high-speed dub will never be possible.)