why is there lag when changing channels with dvd recorder?

[cyberdvd]

Whenever I change channels with my Sony GX7 recorder the TV screen will appear black for almost one second before the new channel appears. Why is this? Is the recorder buffering something?

[yoda313]

Hello,

The buffer would be my guess. It has to hold the info while you get a new channel. It's not instantaneous.

Kevin

[lordsmurf]

Impatient?

[handyguy]

Some recorders are better than others, same with some tvs.

[cyberdvd]

Impatient?

No I'm not impatient...well maybe a little

It is kind of annoying though. I don't see the same behavior with my VCR. I can flip through channels very quickly with it. There is no lag in the display.

I'm trying to find out what it is so I can see if there is some kind of setting I can change to speed up the channel change.

[Frobozz]

I don't know about your Sony DVR. RCA had a crummy DVR awhile ago that always played from the hard drive. Therefore, the unit had to record about a second of video to the hard drive before it could display it. The advantage is, like TIVO, you always can instantly pause live TV. My Pioneer DVR doesn't have the channel change delay but it only records to the hard drive when I tell it to so I can't pause live TV unless I first press record.

[RottenFoxBreath]

a friend in sonys tech service has just mentioned to me that they implimented this instead of getting the "bzzzt,fizzz,pop!" screen.
its so theres no break-up or screen distorted when changing.

[Offroad]

My JVC DR-M10 Recorder is a great machine but also seems slow to change channels.

In order of speed of changing channels in my HT setup.

1. Sony 57" RP HDTV - Lightning fast.
2. Dish Network 811 HD STB - Slower
3. JVC DVD Recorder - Slowest

The JVC isn't horrible here but much slower than the Sony, it took me awhile to get used to it. I figured it was just this model but apparently not.

[donpedro]

I would say that probably recorder runs signal trough some encoder chip that encodes signal and it takes some time to fill memory. This is not present in VCR. Maybe there is an option to set it to bypass that circuit while watching only, but than it will take some time if you want to start recording right away. That is my guess