Panasonic DMR E-80 pixels? question

[Jonny]

Hello,
I'm using my Panasonic E-80 to copy black and white film rarites from VHS to the hard drive, then burned to DVD-R. I notice in the darker portions of the films on my hard drive and disc copies that seem to be pretty "blocky" video-wise. Is this as clear as it's going to get with this unit, or is there an initial (perhaps, darker/lighter) setting I should have my E-80 set with for these VHS dubs. Because I mean, in this regard, my VHS originals look better, which defeats my purpose in buying a DVD recorder in the first place. Help.......

[wingnut]

Morning

Depending on the age and condition of the tapes there may well be a lot of video noise in the picture. The noise filter in the Panny unit will try to clean this up as much as possible but noise will equate to macroblocking as the encoder strugles to deal with the amount of "movement" e.g. noise, it is seeing in each video frame. Much will also depend on the recording mode you have set. XP will give you the best possible picture with EP being the absolute worst.

Can you come back with some of the following info:

Standard: E.g. NTSC/PAL
Recording mode of VHS: SP,LP,EP (i.e. what was the original VHS recorded in)
Recording media of original tape: VHS/SVHS/Other
Age&Condition of VCR:New/Old/4 head/6 head
Recording mode to hard disk: XP,SP,LP,EP,FR
Dubbing method to DVD-R:Real time dubbing, high speed dubbing

If your source is NTSC you may try one other thing, check that in the picture setup for recording you have the comb filter engaged. I believe the option is called something like fine or normal.

One thing that does come to mind is this. If when you record to your hard disk the picture does not show any blocking but on the dvd-r it does then how have you transferred. If you transfer from HDD->disc using a mode other than high speed it will re-encode the video leading to a drop in quality and causing more macroblocks.

If you have everything set up at optimum levels and you're still seeing blocking then the only thing you can really try is capturing on the PC instead and running through filters before non-realtime encoding.

I transfer VHS, (SP PAL from 14 year+ old tapes) to DVD using an E55 with no hard disk by recording onto DVD RAM and editing, (not re-encoding), on the PC with results that - most of the time - look better than the original tape thanks to the inherant noise filters so what you're trying to do is possible, let me know if I can help further.

Cheers

Edz

[basketweb]

WINGNUT said "I transfer VHS, (SP PAL from 14 year+ old tapes) to DVD using an E55 with no hard disk by recording onto DVD RAM and editing, (not re-encoding), on the PC with results that - most of the time - look better than the original tape thanks to the inherant noise filters so what you're trying to do is possible, let me know if I can help further"

Please, tell me one thing: when you record from VHS to DVD with E55 and get the same or better results than the original tape, what record mode do you use (1 hour per dvd or other). I ask you that cause i'm serious thinking on buy a E55.
Thanks
Pedro

[Jonny]

I have NTSC VHS tapes mostly recorded from cable TV within the past few years all in SP mode. I record to the hard disk in SP mode since most are 80-100 min. movies. I then dub from hard disk to DVD-r in the high speed mode. I am using no PC related items whatsoever. Just a 4-head VCR that is a couple of years old patched with RCA cables to the Panny E-80. I figured that recording to this unit from VHS would at least give me a same-quality clone from tape. I mean it pretty much does, except for the "blocking" during dark scenes or even on someone's black jacket(I'm mostly watching black and white films, by the way). The blocking is what almost makes me want to just go back to watching the VHS. Thanks for any info, again.

[wingnut]

Morning,

@Basketweb
The "better than VHS" is a subjective thing. The filtering in the unit removes most of the chroma noise inherant with VHS and the time base corrector straightens and steadies the image. I always either use SP (2 hour) or FR (Flexible record but never, ever go over 2h 20 minutes).

@Johnny

Hmm. Well if you're recording in NTSC the comb filter should always be enabled I believe. I'll have a fiddle when I get back from work tonight and post back. Is it possible that you could post a screen shot as I'm thinking the encoder may be having problems with black levels but when I transferred some early Dr Who VHS, (Tomb of the Cybermen / Aztecs) from quite noisy VHS they seemed fine even on the dark bits. I'll try to sort out a bit of web space to put up some examples.

Cheers

Edz

[basketweb]

@wingnut:
In general you are happy with E55 aren't you? No problems with that recorder.
Sometimes we read in forum that the image is not good, that the sound is ... and many other things that scare a lot.
Tell me please, in your opinion is a good dvd recorder?
I'm from Portugal and here i can buy that recorder from Euros 480,00.
I want my vhs collection of NBA games transfer in to DVDs and i want record games from cable tv.
I'm no interesting in edit in PC or reenconding. Actually i've a Pinnacle Card dc10 plus in my PC, the results are ok (sometimes i get dropped frames) but 1 hour dvd takes 6 hours rendering (from avi to mpeg2). Thats the reason cause i want buy a dvd recorder.
I thanks you your opinion,
Pedro