My Pioneer recorder did something surprising

[tee jay]

I have a pioneer 210 and have accidentally set the manual recording to 2 hours when my movie is actually 2 hours and 5 minutes long. I was surprised that it actually managed to write everything in it including the extra 5 minutes. I thought when you set the recording length, it would not go beyond that. Can somebody tell me what happened? Thanks.

[zagortenej]

Since Pioneer DVr-210 uses VBR recording mode the total recording capacity very much depends on the nature of a/v source being taped (videos with not so vibrant colors and a lot of 'static', slow-moving scenes will give you more extra recording time). I have found that you can safely assume to have 5-6 min. of extra recording time no matter which recording mode is being used, but the extra recording time can go up to 15 min. I have just transfered a VHS source 1h50min. in length using Pioneer's manual recording mode of 1h35min. The film fit perfectly onto a disc with about 4 min. recording time left. So what you got from your machine is nothing surprising but a normal (and welcome) 'feature'.

[tee jay]

Thanks for the info. Can you tell me what is VBR recording mode and what other recording mode are available.

[zagortenej]

VBR stands for varialbe bitrate, which simply means that video encoder will use different number of bits on different parts of video source, depending how complex the latter is: less complexity, less bits; more complexity, more bits. In addition to VBR there is also CBR, which stands for constant bitrate - meaning, the same number of bits is applied equally across the board regardles of the complexity of source material. Pioneer dvd recorders use VBR encoding in all modes.