The dilemma I'm in...

[_JW_]

Hey everybody, the main reason I am buying a DVD recorder (or possibly burner) is to convert 3 hour long Wrestling Pay-Per View events from my VHS Library to DVD, along with series of shows (ie star trek, etc)...

I'm wondering if I should wait for those new DUAL-LAYER burners to come out so I can burn these 3 hour events to 1 disc in great quality.. or should I just put them on today's discs with decent quality.. I'm kind of a quality freak, well what I really mean is I think that the EP/SLP mode for VHS tapes is great, but what I'm wondering is, if I put a 3 hour event on a DVD (in a pioneer manual recording mode), what will the quality be like? I want to be able to burn these without the quality getting ANY worse.

I would prefer to get a Pioneer standalone recorder (so I don't have to buy a whole new PC for dvd burning), but the only thing that is turning me off from the DUAL LAYER burners are the price of the discs (which I heard, are going tobe $5 a pop), I'm not made of money and I don't have a steady income since I'm at college and all....

My question is basically, should I buy a standalone DVD recorder now (the pioneer 510), or should I wait until Dual-Layer burners come out (will the disc price remain $5 for long?)? Should I break down my 3 hour events and put them on 2 discs? That would be a LOT of discs.. and even more when I'm putting 7 season tv shows with 2 to a disc.. ouch.. What should I do?

Also, does anyone have a screenshot or can take one of how the quality of a disc looks in 3 hour mode (manual recording mode on pioneer, I dont have the exact #).. thanks!

[indolikaa]

You're transferring VHS EP/SLP recordings to DVD. If you're happy with the quality of your tapes, moving them to a single-layer DVD shouldn't be a problem.

I would target this type of transfer for Half-D1 (352x480) @ 3000 kbps video. That would put about 3 hours of video on a single-sided DVD. I record with that setting off DirecTV and don't have any serious issues, so I can't imagine an EP/SLP VHS tape would, either.

That's on the computer end. If you can translate that into a DVD Recorder mode that comes close, I think you'd be fine.