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  1. Hi
    I got a RDR-HX780 Sony HDD recorder. The chapters have to be created every 10 minutes( by default), but in reality the chapters comes randomly, for example the fist every 15 minutes, the second after 1 minute, the third after 6 minutes and so one. Does someone have experience with that? Thanks
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  2. The Sony 780 is essentially a re-branded Pioneer 560 without the DVD-RAM features. It does not function as previous Sony recorders did, it operates identically to a Pioneer. On every Pioneer ever made, the auto-chaptering feature only operates reliably when recording to the DVD drive in real time, in which case you can select no chapters or chapters inserted every ten minutes. Put another way, the auto-chapters on DVD recordings are set by a timer in whatever increment you specify.

    When recording to the HDD, autochaptering is different. It operates based on assumptions the recorder encoder makes about what you are recording. The Sony 780 (and similar Pioneers) tries to guess where commercial breaks are, and inserts chapter markers at those points. Unfortunately this circuit is easily confused, and usually mistakes scene changes for commercial breaks. You end up with random chapter marks scattered around the recording, some only a minute apart. The auto-chapter feature is so arbitrary on the HDD that most owners just disable it and never turn it back on. (You can disable it in the Home>Initial Setup>Recording>Auto Chapter HDD/VR menu- the choices are simply "On" or "Off".)

    While its annoying that the feature doesn't work the same on HDD as it does on DVD, its fairly quick and easy to add 10-minute chapter breaks manually. Open the HDD navigator, select the title you want, press the right arrow key on the remote to pull up the edit menu, and select Chapter Edit. A screen will open with a preview window of the recording and a timeline display underneath. The recording will start playing, to insert a10-minute chapter press the commercial skip button seven times. You'll see the time indicator jump ahead ten minutes. Press the Enter/OK button on the remote to insert the chapter marker. The video will pause, and you can again hit commercial skip seven times to jump ahead another ten minutes. Hit Enter/OK to mark this second chapter, and repeat until you get to the end of the recording. Hit Return or Home to get out of the edit window. This takes much longer to describe than do: I normally spend perhaps two minutes adding chapters to a two hour movie.

    Bear in mind the recorder also creates chapter marks wherever you've deleted something, such as editing out commercials in the Erase Section screen. For most television shows, this is sufficient: commercial breaks usually occur seven times in a one-hour program. Delete the commercials, and you'll end up with seven chapters located precisely at scene changes.
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  3. Thanks orsetto
    Do you know any HDD recorder that can make chapter sharply every 5 or 10 minutes?
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  4. The only one thats still available that I've personally owned is the Magnavox H2160, it does reliable 5- or 10-minute autochapter breaks on its HDD. There are drawbacks, however: the Magnavox software is less capable than the Sony/Pioneer, if you use the auto-chapter feature and then later try to edit out commercials, you need to be extremely careful because if you make a cut very close to one of the auto-chapters the Magnavox can choke on it and lock up. The Sony/Pioneer system takes this in stride somehow- if you do a lot of editing the Sony/Pioneer is better and the overall operating "feel" is much nicer. There are other differences to be aware of as well: the Magnavox is painfully slow at everything, its navigation screen is terrible, you can't select thumbnails for its HDD, and it has some serious quirks that have to be worked around (like you need to change its input to DV/Camera before you can finalize a DVD). Also it uses a semi-weird DVD burning file system that can be problematic on some older DVD players and is more difficult to work with on the PC.

    OTOH, for casual use, especially for timeshifting where you just record to the HDD and then erase, the Magnavox is fantastic. Image quality is excellent at SP and 2.5 hours, even better than the Sony/Pioneer. It is the only DVD/HDD recorder in North America with a built-in ATSC dtv tuner, and the only ATSC-tuner machine that actually works reliably (9 out of 10 ATSC-tuner recorders stop dead randomly in the middle of recording, the Magnavox never does this). It has many playback convenience features you don't find on other recorders (variable zoom-in, etc). It is very easy to service, can use any hard drive. If all your other A/V gear is recent (less than four years old), and you never re-master your DVDs on a PC, its peculiar DVD formatting will not affect you at all. And its dirt cheap: refurbished units turn up monthly for only $159 with free shipping from J&R Electronics in NYC, or you can get one brand new with 30-day return privilege from Wal*Mart for $229 or Target for $279.

    If the auto-chapter feature is really critical for you, I'd recommend stalking the J&R website until you can snag the Magnavox for $159. When you get it, spend a few weeks using it in tandem with your Sony, so you can decide which one you'll keep, and sell the other on eBay (both are highly sought after, I doubt you'd lose more than $20 by selling). If it were me, I'd keep both recorders: at $159, the Magnavox is so cheap it makes owning two machines a very reasonable option. These recorders are dying out, consumers have no interest in buying them, so within two years they may be completely gone from the North American market. If that happens, you'll be really glad you bought two when you had the chance.
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