minimum recording time on DVD recorder?

[turnip]

Hi
Firstly sorry if this is lame but any answers will help. Can anyone with a dvd recorder impart a little of their knowledge and let me know what the minimum amount of time I can record (if there is one)? Does it vary with the recorder? I have odd segments of VHS footage that lasts no more than two or so minutes and ideally would just want to transfer only this. Thanks

[ZippyP.]

I have done some small recordings using a Panasonic DVD recorder. You can start and stop the recordings which enables you to put as many segments as you want onto one DVD. Otherwise, if you only want to put a few minutes on a DVD then you can do that too. If you only put one short segment onto a DVD then it can take up to 15 minutes for the recorder to complete the finalizing process. Normally finalizing only takes a few minutes, but if you only have a small amount on the disk then it needs to write a minimum amount.

[flaninacupboard]

I believe that's the recorder opting for "compatibility mode" by writing at least 1GB to the disc. i would guess you can turn this off in the setup menu? don't really know, never used a set top recorder, they could be horribly restrictive.

[andyp1]

Minimum record times for my Philips DVDR75 are as follows

M1 - 1hour mode - 5 minutes
M2 - 2hour mode - 10 minutes
M2x - 2.5hour mode - 13 minutes
M3 - 3hour mode - 15 minutes
M4 - 4hour mode - 20 minutes
M6 - 6hour mode - 30 minutes

[flaninacupboard]

that must be fecking annoying if you accidentally hit record on six hour mode!!!

[andyp1]

Thats as quoted in the back of the manual.

In reality I think it is the amount of material they recommend you need to have recorded on the disc for it to be recognised in another player ie PC.

When you record you have to leave it recording for a number of seconds maybe about 15 or 20 otherwise nothing happen when you stop it. Whereas normally when you stop it goes back to the menu screen and creates a image of the first frame of the recording.

Its like it has a buffer it records to and writes from that to the disc which doesn't start to happen till about 15 seconds.

I see no problem if you have clips which are a few minutes long and over.

I think its a case of RTFM and get totally misled about what the actual machine does.

[flaninacupboard]

My PVR is like that, if you make a recording less than about a minute, it "forgets" you made it, it just disappears!

[turnip]

thanks guys. Thats v. good news.
ZippyP (or anyone else with an answer As i'll be filling up probably one hours worth of DVD (best quality) with lots of bits when you state "...If you only put one short segment onto a DVD then it can take up to 15 minutes for the recorder to complete the finalizing process..." can i just record all my bits of tapes until i've got the hours worth and then complete the Finalizing process (erm. whats that?). Andyp1; i'm not up on a lot of the technical jargon; what is RTFM?
From reading these forums the vast majority of you use PC's to do the transfers, editing etc and if i had a comp with a decent spec i'd no doubt go down that path too. I'm still trying to decide which is the better option for my immediate concern of transferring VHS tapes and preserving their (poor) quality!

[sacajaweeda]

I'm still trying to decide which is the better option for my immediate concern of transferring VHS tapes and preserving their (poor) quality!

Well, using a set top recorder clearly wins out in the "ease of use" dept.

Preserving quality however is another story.

[andyp1]

Finalising a disc is just a way of making the disc readable on other standalone players. You don't have to finalise after every track or if you are going to put the disc in your PC. So its of no major concern.

RTFM means 'Read The F***ing Manual' - not a particularly technical term. At the end of the day a DVD Recorder is a video replacement and its the way things are going. If you do anything with video on a PC it makes life so much easier. And you do all the normal thing you did with your video.

[ZippyP.]

..can i just record all my bits of tapes until i've got the hours worth and then complete the Finalizing process..

You can stop and resume the recordings until you have put as much as you want onto a disk. As previously stated, finalizing makes the disk readable by other DVD players...it also closes the disk so that you cannot write to it any more.

I think you will be quite happy with the quality of the conversion from VHS to DVD. You can also copy the footage from your DVD to a PC and then edit the footage using a program like Womble mpeg video wizard. It can do titles and transitions and you can add your own soundtrack. If you have a DVD writer then you can output it back to DVD creating custom menus in whatever authoring program you choose.

Good luck.

[ZippyP.]

Preserving quality however is another story.

I think a decent DVD recorder will preserve quality....but I also realize that by using good capture with a PC and filtering, it may actually be possible to improve the quality. IMHO, the latter method is probably over the head of the average user, or at least requires more effort than they are willing to spend. Although for the enthusiast it's probably the way to go.

[thxkid]

capture vs. DVD recorder, DVD recorder always better cause they have a built in TBC, unless you go out and spend $200 to $400 on a TBC for your PC for capturing the DVD recorder will always be a better and more stable quality result over the ZPC capture I have spent many hours on both ways and VHS is hell on capturing because of its crappy quality and control tracks, with a TBC it will correct any problems you will run into with copying a VHS tape, I have 2 Panasonics recorders and one magnavox DVD recorder and they are great for copying VHS onto DVD, if its archive purposes, I would stay with the 1 hour mode, its your best quality at around 8500 to 9200 bitrate(depends on recorder).
2nd I have recorded any amount of time I want on a DVD, but since most recorders cache a small amount before they burn it on the DVD, I would always record at least 1 minute before hitting the stop of pause mode.

[turnip]

Once again thanks for all the replies. Like countless others around the world my only reason for getting into this new media is to preserve/transfer old tapes. Reading many of the posts here there are quite a few who seemingly have a natural affinity with things technical – judging not just your knowledge of video hard and software but also your computer know how as well, many of you have got beyond the preserving tapes stage. I guess a large quotient are big games fans too – never got into them myself but then I am a bit of an old duffer (not that that’s a valid excuse)! To not cut a long story short this is my reason for finding the simplest method that will do the job more than adequately without my having to do hours and hours of research and playing around with all kinds of hardware and software and knowing I’ll get very frustrated for much of the time with my blood pressure rising dangerously. Some see such things a challenge or hobby. Others, a nightmare. No guesses on which of the three I’d choose! Anyway, your answers have been very helpful and I feel I’m making good progress as to the direction I will take to transfer my tapes…BUT…I’m not home just yet. If you can persevere with my questioning a little further as a few more loose ends need tying. Assuming I’ve got my hour or so of clips onto DVD via a recorder. If I wanted to arrange the clips would I be able to do this without using the PC (notice my fear of PC’s?). ZippyP, you mention that once I’ve got my DVD footage I could play this on the PC and do ‘proper’ editing etc. Would this degrade the footage any more? BTW, I did mention I had a poorly specced PC; it doesn’t have a DVD writer but this could always be added. Please try not to infer from any of my postings that I am lazy or a technophobe coz if you do you’d be 100% correct.

[flaninacupboard]

all the set top recorders i've seen can do a little bit of editing, but the accuracy is only to ~1 second, and you can't do stuff like fades, titles, add music, slideshows. (someone with a fancy deck, feel free to prove me wrong!)

Editing on a PC is easy once you know how - there is a lot to learn though. going from dvd editing and then back to dvd will get a slight quality hit, but as long as you do it right, you won't notice a difference.

DVD burners are so cheap now you may as well grab one, they're very handy. as for having a low spec computer, it doesn't matter too much for what you want to do. things will take longer to happen, but they will happen just the same.