CH-DVR-1500 questions

[homsar]

Hello, all.
I received a DVR-1500 for Christmas, and I must say I am very satisfied with it so far. There are a few bugs (for example, if I use the coax video as a source, the sound is low and muffled...but the RCA video/audio ports look and sound fine), but my overall opinion is positive.

My question has to do with chapter breaks. As you know if you use this machine, chapters do not show up as separate entities on the main menu...only separate titles do. The menus look the same no matter which playback machine I use, and the good news is the discs have been compatible with every playback device I've tried them in, including our Sony Playstation 2.

The bad news seems to be chapter breaks. I love the fact that you can insert chapter breaks wherever you want after the disc has been recorded and before finalization, but so far the DVR-1500 is the only machine that recognizes the chapters! When I hit the chapter forward button on my APEX player (2100), it does nothing. On my Samsung DVD-VCR combo machine, chapter back takes you back to the beginning of the title, no matter where you are when you hit it. Chapter forward takes you to the main disc menu. Is this a compatibility issue, or am I doing something wrong? By the way, fast forward and rewind both work fine on the APEX machine, just not chapter advance. The Samsung doesn't have FF or Rewind, so I'm stuck watching from the beginning to the end.

Also, the Edit Title option on the disc edit menu only shows up with DVD+RW discs, not DVD+R. The manual doesn't address this...is there any way to rename titles on DVD+R's before you finalize them?

Thanks for any help you can lend.

-Homsar

[Gil T Pleasure]

Manual chapter stops on DVD+R are only visible on the recorder itself. However, chapters stops that are made during recording (not sure if your recorder has this feature on DVD+R) can be 'seen' by a DVD players.

Read the DVD+R/+RW Recorder FAQ for more info: http://www.dvdplusrw.org/Article.asp?mid=0&sid=1&aid=2

Also you might wanna read mp3superfreak's review (specifically the Editing Features part): https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=181648

[lordsmurf]

These are the reasons the CH-DVR1500 is sitting on my floor by the couch. It's crap and going back to the store.

On the other hand, my APEX DRX-9000 is performing flawlessly so far (outside of the pain of rewiring my entore entertainment center upon discovering coax out does nothing).

Good luck.

How do you survive the ungodly amount of time it takes to finalize a disc or give you back the machine after hitting STOP after recording?

[homsar]

Gil T,

Thanks for your reply. You nailed it. If I add the chapters during recording, they show up fine on my other machines. It took a few minutes to figure out how to do it, though, as the manual doesn't say and there is no "chapter insert" button on the remote.

For others who have this machine, to add a chapter during recording, simply hit the "edit" button on the remote where you want the chapter break. It won't prompt you that it did anything, but trust me...the break will be there when you finish recording.

Still no luck changing titles on the +R discs, though. Maybe this is a firmware issue CH can fix later.

Oh...and LordSmurf, if I find I can't wait 5 seconds or so after burning a 90-minute MST3K episode from VHS to DVD to get back to the menu page, I think I'll start cutting back on the caffeine. In all, I'm still quite happy with my DVR-1500.

Thanks for your help.

-Homsar

[lordsmurf]

The 1500 unit I had took MINUTES to start, and half and hour to close a disc.

[donpedro]

The 1500 unit I had took MINUTES to start, and half and hour to close a disc.

What was the media (R or RW) and how much of disc did you used (in GB) on that one that took 30min to finalize ?

[Mediaman2000]

Sounds excessive to me. I've not finalized a DVD+R yet but I have made conmpatible many DVD+RW's and if you have no additional edits it doesn't take that long!

[lordsmurf]

I recorded 2 minutes on a RICOHJPN DVD+RW.

It was a new unit.
It actually never finalized the first time, I had to unplug the unit. The disc was not spinning.

The second time took about 26 minutes to finalize, had 2-3 minutes of footage. SP mode, no edits, just a test.

Test told me that the unit sucked.

My APEX take about 2 seconds to start recording, about 10 secs when you press STOP.

[donpedro]

I guess they are making it "more compatible" since I heared that there is some "minimum" space that needs to be recorded. So I believe that was reason why it took so long to finilize. It was filling that space. That is my theory and I am not saying that it does not suck (never had one so I can't)