Planning to buy a Panasonic, just a few questions

[Zorin]

Hi there,

The last few weeks I have been following posts about DVD-recorders very carefully, since I have become one of those totally frustrated pc-capture/edit guys.

I must have been trying to capture vhs to cd-r for about 2 years and now I have given up because it is NEVER perfect.
The capture may be good but then there'll be a sync problem, the sync may fine but then the capture sucks and if all is fine the converting will screw things up. And we're not even mentioning frame-dropping. This all could be endured if you only have 5 videotapes to capture but not if you have hundreds of tapes waiting.
Countless weekends of pc-time (and my time) wasted.

So I have been interested in the Panasonic dvd-recorders and have a few questions:

1. The quality (VHS, PAL to DVD), is it acceptable for a very picky person, with this I mean blurry, ghost, artifacts (I HATE artifacts)

2. I like the DVD-Ram idea, so I can edit it on my pc without converting. Do I have to get a dvd-burner for my pc or is there a way to maybe hook up the dvd-recorder to my pc, so I can burn it straight on the Panasonic?

3. I live in the Netherlands and they have the HS2 for a ridiculous €1300.
I am not very willing to pay this amount for a product that costs half abroad. Does anybody know what the price of the E-80/100 will be in Europe?
Will the price of the HS2 come down?

(This is also the reason why it so important to know the quality of vhs-captures. When you buy it and don't like it, you can't return it and get your money back, like some of you do)

Thanks for any replies.

[mkelley]

1. Quality is excellent -- to my eyes it looks better than the source material. Part of this is due to the excellent TBC in the Panny. You won't be disappointed.

2. You could record from your computer back onto the Panny, but you will be losing a generation. Frankly, you might be more than satisfied with the quality, but you'll need video out from your computer so you're looking at spending money on that (unless you already have SVideo out). If it were me, I'd just spend the $150 and buy a DVD burner (they are dirt cheap) -- I have both the Panny as well as a couple of burners.

3. Can't help you there -- I'm in the U.S.

[Zorin]

Thanks very much for your reply.

That already answers 2 of my questions.

Edit: Just got mail from Panasonic Holland. They say they don't know anything about the model E-80. Great.....

[thoots]

Zorin,

"I feel your pain." I wasted two years of my life, and several thousand dollars, trying just about everything just trying to get something halfway decent via "computer recording." Trust what we are saying -- the quality of Panasonic XP (1-hour per DVD) video is OUTSTANDING. Excellent. Couldn't possibly be better. Ten MILLION times better than anything I ever managed to get via my computer efforts. (OK, very slight exaggeration there. )

No worries at all about the video quality -- if you've wasted time on a computer, you will be THRILLED at the results. No blur, no artifacts -- indeed, it does seem to even improve upon the original VHS picture. I'm not sure how that will translate in PAL-land, but it's wonderful here in the US. "SP" speed (two hours per DVD) is actually quite good, but I could see some pixellation and such when there was a lot of motion in the picture. With XP speed, that cleaned right up. So, with SP for non-critical video quality, and XP for critical video quality, you should be fine.

And, what exactly is is that you want to "edit on the computer?" Let me tell you, all of this "Oh, my GOD -- I will DIE if I can't have my fancy picture menus" just baffles me -- it'll take you as long to generate menus and chapter marks for a DVD as it would take you to record the thing in the DVD recorder in the first place. As someone else mentioned, "fine if you've got a handful of tapes" to work with. I have 1,500 tapes I'm working through!!! How many lifetimes do you have to screw around with those "picture menus?"

Hehehe -- end of mini-soapbox. Again, I can't help with the pricing and such with the status of the E-80, except to point out that if you don't really need that hard drive, you can of course get one of the cheaper, non-hard-drive models....

Good luck!

thoots

[mkelley]

And, what exactly is is that you want to "edit on the computer?"

My guess is that he wants to cut commercials out of stuff -- that's why I ended up getting a burner (that and wanting to backup my DVDs).

I see a legitimate place for both -- while I don't use my Panny as much as I did before I had a burner, I still use it. If folks don't need to do any editing or DVD backup a standalone is just fine.

[musher70]

Zorin, as for your query....

for roughly half as much as you can buy a
zipping system today, like a p4/2400 at
an "appliance store" aka "bestbuy" , all
your problems will be solved....

Who cares about minimal pixalation anyway?
You cant achieve that result anyway via
current setup right?Im like others spent
thousands on buying betting parts, just
tring to convert a few cherished movies....

As for quality, you will be impressed,cause
the panasonic dvr50(dont know bout others)
seems to clear video up alittle, not to mntion
the sound delemmas i often had....

[thoots]

My guess is that he wants to cut commercials out of stuff -- that's why I ended up getting a burner....

Hehehehe. That's what I thought that "Pause" button on the Panny remote control was for. Man, don't know about you, but splitting and joining stuff was some of the most tedious, difficult-to-do stuff on the computer. I sure never found any software that made that nice and easy, without introducing audio/video synch problems, etc.

To get specific, that was one of the huge blocks I ran into with my computer DVD work. I'm not going to waste time on commercials, or, for that matter, anything not worth saving. So, I mercilessly cut stuff down to the stuff I wanted to keep -- short clips. Of course, unlike the standalone unit, there's no such thing as a "pause button" when capturing on the computer -- it's just "stop." So, short clips equals a bunch of small files. OK, no big problem, eh? Huh! BIG problem!! Every menu system I tried considered separate files as "separate movies" -- you're back to the main menu after each one. I did finally find one that gave you the option to tell it to "go to the next clip" at the end of the previous clip -- success!!! Well, no -- you couldn't use the "back" button while playing the DVD to go to the previous "chapter," er.. "clip." BUST!!

So, the solution was to turn your 100 clips into one long clip. At this point, it's safe to assume that the resulting audio/video synch will be a nightmare. And, dang if when I pulled those 100 clips into my editing program (Ulead VideoStudio), it didn't put them all in REVERSE ALPHABETICAL ORDER, so it was terrible pain from there-on trying to put things into order for your big long combined clip. Or, feel free to add those 100 clips in, one by one. Then, once you have the whole thing lined up, start the process, and walk away from the computer for a couple of days. (Aw heck, only 8 hours, dude!!!)

OK, then go back to your menu program with your big clip, and spend two or three hours finding where you want your chapter points, and set those. Pray to the software gods that this half-baked software won't crash in the middle (it usually did during this process, in my experience), and then you're FINALLY ready to make a DVD!!

In the end, after about 24 hours of work, you'll have an out-of-synch 1 or 2-hour DVD with lousy video quality. Yeah, and you used all the "best quality" MPEG encoding settings you could possibly find. At least, that was my experience. At the very least, I hope "capturing" the video on the standalone unit gives you much better quality than I managed to get on my computer!

Oh, and don't forget that on the stand-alone DVD recorder, you just hit the "Pause" button while you fish for the next bit you want to record, then hit the button again. A 2-hour DVD takes you, well, about two hours to record. I actually stick with the 1-hour mode, and when it's done, it takes a whole 4 minutes to "finalize." Video quality is EXCELLENT. "Audio/video synch problem" isn't even in the vocabulary. And, those awful "chapter points every five minutes" are a GODSEND!

Hehehehe. At any rate, that's my bias!

thoots

[next]

thoots - that pretty much sums up two years for too many.

HELLO AUNT MABLE?

I agree.

Time marches on.

[thoots]

Who cares about minimal pixalation anyway? You cant achieve that result anyway via current setup right?Im like others spent thousands on buying betting parts, just tring to convert a few cherished movies....

As for quality, you will be impressed,cause the panasonic dvr50(dont know bout others) seems to clear video up alittle, not to mntion the sound delemmas i often had....

Just to clarify, I saw just a VERY MINOR amount of "pixellation" in "lots of motion" scenes on my DMR-E50 at the "SP" 2-hour quality setting. I think this would be more than acceptable for anything where "ultimate video quality" wouldn't be the highest priority. At the "XP" 1-hour quality setting, I have seen NOTHING to complain about in the video quality. I AM recording stuff where "ultimate video quality" is the highest priority, and I'm the one sitting here whining that I couldn't get close enough with 2 years of trying on a computer. If I'm satisfied with the XP video quality, I can't begin to fathom how anyone else wouldn't be.

Now, as for any of the "lesser quality" recording settings on the E50, I really can't say, as I haven't tried them. I doubt I ever will. It's "why I'm recording at the highest quality" -- why bother going to all of this work, if you're not going to get the best video quality?

At any rate, I hope that perspective helps someone!

thoots

[mkelley]

I don't mean to denigrate you or you experiences, but it truly sounds to me as if you just didn't know enough to know what you were doing.

Now, my disclaimer -- I've been working with video for over 30 years, so perhaps it's a lot easier for me than some. Then again, my daughter (in her 20's) can edit with the best of them, so I don't think it's particularly difficult.

You capture your DV-AVI complete with commercials (you capture unattended) -- then you edit DV-AVI (and you'll never lose sync editing DV-AVI), and the time it takes to edit even a two hour show is only a few minutes with a quality editor like Premiere. Then you batch encode overnight (unattended) -- I routinely encode five or six two hour shows overnight and burn them the next day. Quite frankly, I couldn't do any better with my Panny (and a lot worse, because I'd have to spend all my time waiting with the pause button -- the way I suggest you spend only an hour or so actually sitting around, and the rest of the time the computer does the work for you).

In a week I usually transfer around 20 to 22 shows from VHS onto DVD, cutting out the commercials perfectly (no missed opportunities at either end). The total time I spend doing this is around two hours -- the rest of the time I can do other things and actually live a life, unlike having to wait around for the Panny. Using the Panny prior to my burner I was lucky to get one or two shows a week transferred (I really do have a life, unlike some of these kids on this forum :>)

The biggest drawback is not the time it takes to learn these tools, or even to use them -- the drawback is you need the knowledge to know what tools you need, and then you need to spend the money to buy them. If you are willing to seek the former, and do the latter you will find it is a whole lot easier than sitting with a pause button in your hand <g>.

[musher70]

then you edit DV-AVI (and you'll never lose sync editing DV-AVI), and the time it takes to edit even a two hour show is only a few minutes with a quality editor like Premiere. Then you batch encode overnight (unattended) -- I routinely encode five or six two hour shows overnight and burn them the next day.

sounds like you're just a bomber to me

trying to tell us it just so simple....
telling us ur kid can do it all also
what f!@#$% horses#@$, pardon my french
been there done that why you think this thread
was started in the first place, why dont you keep
ur thoughts to urself, why just keep wearing
ur system down, over and over again, hours
and countless hours, reading each me guide
on how to convert, edit ,cut join, not to even
mention the audio squabbles....

[thoots]

I don't mean to denigrate you or you experiences, but it truly sounds to me as if you just didn't know enough to know what you were doing.

Now, my disclaimer -- I've been working with video for over 30 years, so perhaps it's a lot easier for me than some. Then again, my daughter (in her 20's) can edit with the best of them, so I don't think it's particularly difficult.

You capture your DV-AVI complete with commercials (you capture unattended) -- then you edit DV-AVI (and you'll never lose sync editing DV-AVI), and the time it takes to edit even a two hour show is only a few minutes with a quality editor like Premiere. Then you batch encode overnight (unattended) -- I routinely encode five or six two hour shows overnight and burn them the next day. Quite frankly, I couldn't do any better with my Panny (and a lot worse, because I'd have to spend all my time waiting with the pause button -- the way I suggest you spend only an hour or so actually sitting around, and the rest of the time the computer does the work for you).

In a week I usually transfer around 20 to 22 shows from VHS onto DVD, cutting out the commercials perfectly (no missed opportunities at either end). The total time I spend doing this is around two hours -- the rest of the time I can do other things and actually live a life, unlike having to wait around for the Panny. Using the Panny prior to my burner I was lucky to get one or two shows a week transferred (I really do have a life, unlike some of these kids on this forum :>)

The biggest drawback is not the time it takes to learn these tools, or even to use them -- the drawback is you need the knowledge to know what tools you need, and then you need to spend the money to buy them. If you are willing to seek the former, and do the latter you will find it is a whole lot easier than sitting with a pause button in your hand <g>.

No, I think I knew what I was doing. Trust me, I invested hundreds of hours trying to find some "software suite" that could do anything remotely close to what I wanted done. Your most accurate statement is the bit about "needing the knowledge to know what tools you need" -- by God Almighty, those 30 years of experience probably helped you just a little bit. Nothing about this is "difficult" -- "time consuming," absolutely, but not "difficult." Again, what is hard is spending thousands of dollars on software that doesn't work, doesn't encode video with any degree of quality whatsoever, doesn't do what you want to do (again, name for me a program that'll take my separate files and turn them into "chapters" instead of "movies"), and so on. I tried most of the major consumer programs: Ulead, VideoWave, Sonic, Dazzle, etc. I did indeed edit DV, but these things turned anything with any "length" to it to an A/V synch mess after encoding. I tried to figure out TMPEG, but I'm sorry, I didn't have another four years to become a total expert with every single aspect about MPEG encoding, which was required to use it. Nor, frankly, very much patience to spend the three times longer it took to encode anything. I even tried stuff like Main Concept, Cinema Craft Encoder, and Procoder.

I never tried Premiere -- I never saw any ability that it had to encode to DVD-compatible MPEG2 video. Maybe some plugin somewhere. At any rate, I tried easily over a dozen different MPEG2 encoders, I spent two years, I tried all kinds of quality settings -- VBR, CBR, high bitrates, whatever -- and NOTHING came anywhere close to even "VHS" quality. Gosh, if this is so easy, WHAT THE HOLY HECK ON EARTH DOES IT TAKE to get a decent-quality encoding!?!?!?!?!?!?!????????? I came closest with TMPEG, but I would still call it "worse than VHS quality," at the best I ever got with it. Of course, I was trying all the different "guides" you find on the 'net in order to set it up, because -- gosh, you're right -- I didn't really know how many "I" pictures I should have in GOP, or what quantize matrix I should use, or if I should output YUV data as Basic YCbCR and not CCIR601 or not. And so on. Maybe you learn all about that stuff in 30 years -- I didn't quite manage it during my spare time over 2 years.

We've got people here who think they can just get a computer with a DVD-R drive in it, load up the software that came with it, and just start recording their VHS tapes over to DVD with excellent results. Do you REALLY think that's going to happen?? I KNOW it won't!

All I can say is "gosh" again -- "Gosh, how the guys who seem to advocate doing this via the computer also seem to have some kind of 'professional' experience doing this kind of work!" Yep, I'm sure you guys really can crank out some fine results! Please, however, don't dismiss those of us who have tried it with miserable results like you have done to me here -- we are not dumb kids who haven't a clue about this -- we're experienced, "power-user" types who truly haven't found hardware and software solutions that can get the job done worth a damn. In the end, as I have said before, the standalone DVD recorder is an EXCELLENT and truly effective tool for the thousands -- perhaps millions -- of people who want to convert their videotape libraries to recordable DVD's. Five hundred bucks or less for a competent machine plus an intuitive recording process equals a combination that puts the power of producing excellent results in anyone's hands -- and it's quite a revelation for those of us who I guess just couldn't put enough years or enough thousands of dollars into the computer approach to make anything worth saving.

At any rate, I do take a bit of offense at your post -- sure, I could have learned more, spent more money, spent more years trying. Keep looking around, though, and you'll find many more folks like me who wasted their time and efforts trying to do this on a computer, than you'll find folks like you who made a career out of the job. You may rest assured that I will continue to evangelize the standalone DVD recorder -- there are still a lot of folks out there who are screaming in frustration trying to do this on a computer, and their salvation is at hand!

thoots

[next]

I don't mean to denigrate you or you experiences, but it truly sounds to me as if you just didn't know enough to know what you were doing.

Now, my disclaimer -- I've been working with video for over 30 years, so perhaps it's a lot easier for me than some. Then again, my daughter (in her 20's) can edit with the best of them, so I don't think it's particularly difficult.

You capture your DV-AVI complete with commercials (you capture unattended) -- then you edit DV-AVI (and you'll never lose sync editing DV-AVI), and the time it takes to edit even a two hour show is only a few minutes with a quality editor like Premiere. Then you batch encode overnight (unattended) -- I routinely encode five or six two hour shows overnight and burn them the next day. Quite frankly, I couldn't do any better with my Panny (and a lot worse, because I'd have to spend all my time waiting with the pause button -- the way I suggest you spend only an hour or so actually sitting around, and the rest of the time the computer does the work for you).

In a week I usually transfer around 20 to 22 shows from VHS onto DVD, cutting out the commercials perfectly (no missed opportunities at either end). The total time I spend doing this is around two hours -- the rest of the time I can do other things and actually live a life, unlike having to wait around for the Panny. Using the Panny prior to my burner I was lucky to get one or two shows a week transferred (I really do have a life, unlike some of these kids on this forum :>)

The biggest drawback is not the time it takes to learn these tools, or even to use them -- the drawback is you need the knowledge to know what tools you need, and then you need to spend the money to buy them. If you are willing to seek the former, and do the latter you will find it is a whole lot easier than sitting with a pause button in your hand <g>.

Easier than sitting with a pause button?

[next]

30 years huh?

In 1991 I purchased a 40 meg (meg not gig) hard drive from Softwarehouse for $350 - Softwarehouse later became CompUsa. Prior to that I ran my PC at work (AT version) without a hard drive (1985-1987). Had to load Lotus each time I wanted to use it off of floppies - the big ones 5 1/4 inch flavor.

As it relates to a lossless codec like AVI that requires gobbs of HD space I'm not really sure how much history plays here. Unless of course we are talking a professional approach. But then again a 20 year old would have been just a kid.

edit - Actually I think I ran an XT at work. Later got upgraded to an AT - was a turbo too, big stuff. In any event AVI was not part of the venacular.

[mkelley]

Thirty years of video editing -- I was working for CBS back in the early 70's. We didn't have computers -- back then editing *was* an incredibly difficult and time consuming thing. But the principles are always the same -- you decide your in and out points and you make your edits.

Thoots, I'm truly sorry you took offense -- none meant. Your point about simplicity is not misguided: there are lots of folks out there, even very intelligent ones, who can't program a VCR. For them taking the time to learn editing software (even a straightforward package like Premiere 6.5, which does have a built-in encoder and can be used on the default output settings for excellent results) would be overkill of the worst kind.

But just as you evangelize the standalone, I also want to point out to those who are looking for a way to perform editing there are ways to accomplish this that are easy, straightforward, and worthy of consideration. While some folks are rude (that's the case with any board) the original poster was asking about editing capabilities and I was merely responding to that question. It's up to him to decide whether that's relevent, not a few snotty nose kids who think they know something (unfortunately, anyone who can work a keyboard nowadays think they have something worth saying -- and that even goes for me :>)

So -- I'm only pointing out there are two sides to look at this problem, and both have valid points. Indeed, that's one of the reason I ended up with both a standalone and a burner. Others have to make up their minds for themselves.

(Thus endth my participation in this thread...)

[next]

I believe the original poster was looking for advice on a DVD Recorder.

The original poster also stated that there had been a significant amount of time invested (at least 2 years I believe) in unsatisfactory results.

That being said a primer on a 30 year AVI history can be considered a worthy effort and we all appreciate it.

But back to the topic please. Which was:

"Planning to buy a Panasonic, just a few questions"

[mkelley]

And if you actually *read* the poster's questions instead of making assumptions, you'll see he also asked about editing video on his computer.

Sigh. You kids have fun -- I'm going back to the adults (and will stop watching this topic, although I'd love to see you explain to him how to edit on his computer using only his standalone <g>).

[next]

And if you actually *read* the poster's questions instead of making assumptions, you'll see he also asked about editing video on his computer.

Sigh. You kids have fun -- I'm going back to the adults (and will stop watching this topic, although I'd love to see you explain to him how to edit on his computer using only his standalone <g>).

Simply edit on the recorder. But that's obviously too simple. So simple I thought that it had been answered, my mistake.

The HS2, e80, e100 have fully capable editing features. You can edit to your hearts content on the contained hard drive. And once finished you can burn your compilation to either DVD-R or DVD-Ram using the burning feature of the DVD Recorder.

And if you really want to go crazy you can then take that burned disc and read it on your PC's DVD-Rom drive.

I still think we are at a only few questions though. In all due respect.

[next]

I should also add that even if you do not have the HS2, e80 or e100 but rather have an older less expensive Panasonic model without a contained hard drive you can still edit on the recorder.

The e20, e30, e50 and e whatever with Dvd-Ram capabilities allow you to edit your captures right on the Dvd-Ram disc on the recorder. You can edit to your hearts content.

Import the vro file off the Dvd-Ram disc to your pc and edit some more if you would like and author if you choose to Dvd-R, or what ever for that matter.

[thoots]

Thoots, I'm truly sorry you took offense -- none meant. Your point about simplicity is not misguided: there are lots of folks out there, even very intelligent ones, who can't program a VCR. For them taking the time to learn editing software (even a straightforward package like Premiere 6.5, which does have a built-in encoder and can be used on the default output settings for excellent results) would be overkill of the worst kind.

But just as you evangelize the standalone, I also want to point out to those who are looking for a way to perform editing there are ways to accomplish this that are easy, straightforward, and worthy of consideration. While some folks are rude (that's the case with any board) the original poster was asking about editing capabilities and I was merely responding to that question. It's up to him to decide whether that's relevent, not a few snotty nose kids who think they know something (unfortunately, anyone who can work a keyboard nowadays think they have something worth saying -- and that even goes for me :>)

Yep, you keep on harping about "editing." Editing is not really a big deal. Just a matter of figuring out how some non-Windows-standard interface works, usually. For me, it was all the "encoding" that never came close to the kind of standard I was seeking. You mention Premiere -- that's a piece of software that costs more than one of these standalone recorders. One could also use Adobe Encore to actually produce a DVD -- another piece of software that costs more than one of these standalone recorders. Perhaps I didn't have one of those capture cards that cost about as much as three of these standalone machines. Though, I did wind up getting a computer that cost about as much as three or four of these standalone machines, which I dedicated to video editing and DVD recording. As always, I'm just trying to add a bit of perspective here.

I don't know -- perhaps it wasn't the "encoding," but the actual DVD recording process that killed my video quality -- all that "transcoding" and such. Another "problem" with doing this on the computer -- every time you turned around, another program wanted to spend another several hours to re-covert the video you had already converted. Again, anything resembling "video quality" sure escaped me in all of my efforts -- the results looked something along the lines of dubbing my "SP" speed VHS tapes to "EP" or "SLP" speed VHS -- definitely not worth all the money and time I spent chasing it!

Oh, well, I guess he won't see this, anyway. And maybe I won't go into all of the "computer" forums and spend my time telling people there to solve their problems with a standalone unit!

thoots

[Zorin]

Ok, I'm back

A lot of useful reply's, thanks.

Some people still believe in capturing on a pc and that is fine.
I myself am tired of trying to make it work on a pc. The time I have spend trying to get things to work I probably could have backed up all my videotapes on a standalone recorder within a month.
Nobody's setup is exactly the same. So what works for somebody else may not work for you.
Not to mention the fact that you watch your captures so many times (testing the quality) , that by the time you get them on cd, you'll never watch them again!

I definitely don't want to offend people who do all their capturing and editting on pc. If you are able to get excellent results, that's brilliant and I respect you.

But since I'm posting in the section DVD Recorders it should be clear that I have passed that stage and am now looking for alternatives. I don't want to be converted into pc capturing (I will lose sync)


Ok, about the question I asked about editing on pc.
I heared some unflattering remarks about the menu's on the Panasonic, but as long as the menu's aren't purple with yellow dots and green letters, I probably wouldn't bother and just do some editting out of commercials on the recorder.

Do the Panasonics have picture-menu's?
When you record to harddisk is possible to edit frame by frame?

[thoots]

But since I'm posting in the section DVD Recorders it should be clear that I have passed that stage and am now looking for alternatives. I don't want to be converted into pc capturing (I will lose sync)

Hehehe. Yeah, we get a little testy with those guys, eh?

Ok, about the question I asked about editing on pc.
I heared some unflattering remarks about the menu's on the Panasonic, but as long as the menu's aren't purple with yellow dots and green letters, I probably wouldn't bother and just do some editting out of commercials on the recorder.

Do the Panasonics have picture-menu's?
When you record to harddisk is possible to edit frame by frame?

OK, now we're getting somewhere!

Herewith is a finalized DVD menu from one of my DVD-R's:



Please hold your snide comments about my naming scheme and pathetic use of the menu system!

Anyway, you can add the "Title" you see there -- my ultra-imaginative "DVDR018." Then, what you see on the first "bar" beneath is is the "name" of the first (and "only," in this instance) chapter. Which I haven't bothered to "rename" to anything worthwhile. By default, it is telling you that this is chapter "1," recorded from "L1," the first "line input," and the date and time I started recording that chapter. Again, please no snide remarks about being up and recording so early in the morning!

Now, here's where it gets really technical and difficult. When you hit the "STOP" button, it'll give you a new "chapter," and a new "bar" on this menu. If that "chapter" is longer than 5 minutes, it will automatically set "chapter points" at every 5 minutes within that chapter. If you just hit the "PAUSE" button, it WON'T give you a new chapter, or set a "chapter point" there. So, that's how you control the chapters and the menu. Once you have finished each chapter (or, you could wait until you are "done" with the whole disc), you can go in and name each "chapter bar" whatever you want. You do this with the remote control and an on-screen "keyboard." They've got a couple of tricks that make this easier than you might think it would be.

So, that's how the menus work. I'm not aware of anything that does "picture menus" yet, but seems I've heard that some such thing might be in the works for "future models."

As for editing on the hard drive, I can't speak to that since I don't have a hard disk machine. I would think that the "recording" aspect would be the same, though -- play the video on the hard drive, then hit the "Record" button, then the "Stop" and the "Pause" buttons, etc. I'm pretty sure you can do some slicing and dicing with the on-disk video, though, but I'll have to defer to other folks who've got those machines weigh in on that.

Hope this helps!

thoots

[K_cin_az]

i two have gave up on using my pc to capture video, after about 2 months fooling around with the aiw8500dv i realized it was a piece of crap. So when my money get right I plan on purchasing one of these. Could some one please let me know if what I am planning on using this machine for work successfully for me.

main use:
to convert my VHS boxing library over to dvd. I would record them from vhs to dvd-ram, then extract them to my computer. Would not be doing much editing if any at all on my computer, but would use the video files so I can create my own dvd menu's and such. ANy editing i wanted to do sounds like I would be able to do on the panny it self. SO i would just be extracing the video file and leaving it as is.

[Zorin]

Thanks for the screenshot and the explanation, thoots.
Now I know what to expect from a "menu"