Sorry if this has been asked before but I had quick look through the posts and couldn't find the answer. I've only just changed the setting on my ex75 to high speed dubbing. What I what to know is if I tape a programme to the HDD in say S.P. when I high speed dubb it over to DVD what speed does the machine copy if over to. Would it be copied at S.P? Would it be copied over at the same speed as the original was recorded at? i.e. SP XP EP etc.

High speed copying is digital cloning. In other words an exact copy of the original is made. [ ... just like copy and paste on a PC]
It is the only lossless form of copying.

Thus it does not have a 'speed' as such. More accurately XP , SP are not speed settings but quality settings. They determine the amount of compression applied to the material.

When you copy to DVD the actual speed of the copy will be determined by the type of disks used.

There is one other impact of the RFHS setting: When transferring titles to DVD the Widesceen flag is normally lost in any case, but when the RFHS setting is set to 'ON' , the Widescreen flag is not even present on the recording on the hard disk itself.

Note that if using RAM disks, there is no need to use the RFHS setting because you can always transfer to them at High speed irrespective of the setting - thus it is best left off so that the WSS flag will be present.

Thanks for replying. Yes, I have used RAM discs for high speed dubbing but haven't used it for -R discs yet. I didn't word my question very well did I. I understand just what you mean by SP XP etc being quality settings rather than speed settings. Sorry if my question wasn't very clear but you answered it in saying that an exact copy is made, thus if the original was recored in SP the copy will be as well. Thanks very much.

I concur with everything Gavtech says.
However, I have a slightly different question - on a slightly different machine. Clearly "digital cloning" is much to be preferred from a quality and speed point of view. I have a DMR EH80 (VHS/DVD/HDD combo). I have a number of old DVD-RAM recordings that I want to put onto DVD-R. To do this I high speed dub from DVD-RAM to HDD, but the machine doesn't allow high-speed dubbing of those recordings to DVD-R.
Yes, I have set the machine for HS dubbing, and don't have this problem with other programs on the HDD. Any ideas why I can't HS dub from A to B to C?
Given that HS dubbing is always best, it is odd that Panasonic don't make this the default.
Does anyone know if the EH80's replacement - the EX95 - has this same quirk?

Yes - things are the same across the Panasonic range.

There are a few important things to say here.

Firstly, the RFHS setting has no bearing on RAM disks... Having a RAM disk in the machine is just like having another small hard drive... and files can pass either way ALWAYS at high speed... irrespective of the settings or whether the titles were recorded for high speed.

RFHS set to 'ON' is probably not the default because when you record with this setting on, the widesceen flag is not recorded even onto the hard disk.

If the titles you have transferred to the hard disk from RAM's were not originally recorded with the RFHS set to on then they will not be available for high speed copying.... as the titles you now have on the hard disk are clones of the RAM recordings. [ RAM to HDD and back again are always clones. ]

Unfortunately you will have to real-time copy them to DVD-R
FR mode is probably the best to use.

Thanks, Gavtech for the explanation. Unfortunately my collection of DVD-RAMs were recorded (and I'm still recording some) on an old DMR-EH50 before the days of HDD recorders and I guess this machine doesn't understand RFHS.
I understand your point about the widescreen flag, but I would rather lose that than lose HS capability with the consequent potential loss of quality. What is it that RFHS actually does, and why can't I clone a clone??

You would be able to 'clone a clone' at high speed IF the original file that you cloned had been recorded with the RFHS setting ON. [ by which I mean high speed copy to a DVD-R ]

The machine itself will not know what are clones and what are originals ... It will only know what has been recorded with RFHS off or on.

This issue of RFHS is all about compliance with certain DVD standards.
The RFHS setting prepares the recording to meet with that standard... and so the title can be transferred direct to disk in the form it is already in.... as a simple file transfer [ i.e. high speed ]

A recording which had that setting off has to go through an additional encoding process to prepare it into a satifactory state for laying onto a disk, hence real time copying.

Some manufacturers get around the restrictions, simply by not conforming to the standards.
Last edited by Gavtech : 04-02-2007 at 15:56

Thanks again, Gavtech.
Well, I suppose we complain if there aren't standards, but the standards we have are not always in the consumers' best interests and/or the standards bodies didn't appreciate how we want to use these products.
I suppose it's too much to hope that things will be any better with BluRay - although high-speed will be much more important with much larger high-definition files.
Last edited by AMalsher : 05-02-2007 at 11:22