My burned Panny DVD's look like crap on my new DELL system.

[gom]

I'm a newby, please be patient. I have a Panasonic DVD burner that has made some fine copies on DVD-R's that look great when replayed on the Panny.

I just bought a $2,000 plus DELL system P4 HT, 2MB mem, 500 MB hard drive,media package and when I watch my burned movies on the DELL, they don't look as good as when playing on the Panny.

When I play a commercial DVD on the DELL, it looks great, so it's not the computer.

What can I do (if anything) to get my burned DVD's up to commercial standards. Many of these burned DVD's are family video copied from HD video tape that again, looked great on the Panny.

Thanks for any help out there.

[edDV]

Are you playing the DVD from the Dell to a TV or watching on the computer monitor?
What kind of monitor?
What kind of playing software?

What is HD video tape? Define.
What record rate are you using on the Panasonic DVD burner? Is this a standalone recorder or a Computer burner?
How were you watching the "panny"? TV? Computer?

[jtoolman2000]

When you say Panny, do you mean a DVD Recorder? What was the source? Did you really say HD tape?

If it is a recorder, everything I watch on my PC looks worse than a commercial dvd. It will look OK on the TV but on the PC monitor. I onw a Panasonic DVD recorder and that is always the case considering I am recording from VHS or off the air source.

[gom]

Thanks for the quick reply. I'm playing it on a DELL LCD flat screen that came with the system, using DELL's Media Center.

I recorded it off a stand alone Panasonic DMR-E30 watching it on just a regular Phillips TV set.\

Some of the family videos are from old VHS tapes and some from "high def" tapes. The small tapes you have to put into a carrier to play on a vcr. (the tapes were given to me) I think their minerature VHS or something like that.

As for your question concerning record rate, i don't remember. Being a newbi, i didn't pay too much attention to that aspect. What should the rate be?

Also, can my computer tell me what rate it's been recorded at? Can the Panny tell me?

Regards.

[gom]

When you say Panny, do you mean a DVD Recorder? What was the source? Did you really say HD tape?

If it is a recorder, everything I watch on my PC looks worse than a commercial dvd. It will look OK on the TV but on the PC monitor. I onw a Panasonic DVD recorder and that is always the case considering I am recording from VHS or off the air source.

Is the crappy look just because it's recorded with a Panasonic?
I guess now that i bought a powerful system, I should just re-record everything using the PC.

I've been told that the Nero burning program at BestBuy is a good place to start but I have been reading about some of the freeware on this site that many swear by.

[gom]

If I can elaborate a little.

I turned on the Panny and in SETUP Mode/VIDEO, I have it set to ON for '3-D Y/C Seperation' ( what this is I don't know).

Beneath that I have it set to FIXED for 'Hybrid VBR resolution ' instead of AUTOMATIC.

Can these 2 things alter the way a DVD looks on a computer or on another standalone player?

[lordsmurf]

Panasonic is not known for high quality MPEG encoder, neither in software nor in the hardware chipsets found in the DVD recorders. I've been warning people about these machines for years.

Better equipment started to surface in 2004, namely the introduction of LSI Logic and other MPEG DVD chipset makers.

Y/C separation is to separate chroma/luma, which is what happens when you use an s-video cable anyway.

Hybrid VBR is a stupid "feature", leave it off. Turned on, it will change resolution and bitrates midstream while recording, and that's not even remotely DVD compliant.

Looking crappy is also related to the recording mode you used on the machine. Please tell use what you were using.

Just as a general hint, anything other than SP mode sucks. XP has bitrate peak issues, and anything longer adds blocks. Not to mention ALL RECORDINGS will suffer from some sort of luma/IRE issue, although that will range in severity from model to model. Please tell us which model this is.

[edDV]

Thanks for the quick reply. I'm playing it on a DELL LCD flat screen that came with the system, using DELL's Media Center.

I recorded it off a stand alone Panasonic DMR-E30 watching it on just a regular Phillips TV set.\

Some of the family videos are from old VHS tapes and some from "high def" tapes. The small tapes you have to put into a carrier to play on a vcr. (the tapes were given to me) I think their minerature VHS or something like that.

As for your question concerning record rate, i don't remember. Being a newbi, i didn't pay too much attention to that aspect. What should the rate be?

Also, can my computer tell me what rate it's been recorded at? Can the Panny tell me?

Regards.

Sorry, I was at dinner. OK I think I get it.

The original tape was probably VHS-C (a VHS camcorder tape). TV tuner and cancorder video is interlaced.

The Panasonic DMR-E30 is a DVD recorder. 3D Y/C separation is a good feature. Usually recording speed is specified as EP (4 hr.), LP (2 hr.), or SP (1 hr.). The resulting DVD will be interlaced video.

You were probably watching the DMR-E30 on a normal interlaced TV.

Now for the Dell.

The LCD monitor is progressive not interlaced. Special DVD playing software is needed to deinterlace the video or it will look something like this in areas where the image is in motion.



If your Dell has a video output, you can connect it to a normal TV for a better picture. You would need to adjust the picture in display overlay settings.

Most commercial DVD movies are played as progressive scan on a computer. That is why the commercial DVD looks ok.

[gom]

Panasonic is not known for high quality MPEG encoder, neither in software nor in the hardware chipsets found in the DVD recorders. I've been warning people about these machines for years.

Better equipment started to surface in 2004, namely the introduction of LSI Logic and other MPEG DVD chipset makers.

Y/C separation is to separate chroma/luma, which is what happens when you use an s-video cable anyway.

Hybrid VBR is a stupid "feature", leave it off. Turned on, it will change resolution and bitrates midstream while recording, and that's not even remotely DVD compliant.

Looking crappy is also related to the recording mode you used on the machine. Please tell use what you were using.

Just as a general hint, anything other than SP mode sucks. XP has bitrate peak issues, and anything longer adds blocks. Not to mention ALL RECORDINGS will suffer from some sort of luma/IRE issue, although that will range in severity from model to model. Please tell us which model this is.

Hi,

It's the model DMR-E30 which is a few years old. It was given to me by my uncle because it made the poor senior citizen's head spin with all the features. I can't even figure it all out as to what's to be set which way.

I always record in the 2 hr mode or use the Flexmode. I guess I'm just asking way too much for this machine to do. It's a shame because my uncle paid $600 for it .

Regards

[gom]

Sorry, I was at dinner. OK I think I get it.

The original tape was probably VHS-C (a VHS camcorder tape).

The Panasonic DMR-E30 is a DVD recorder. 3D Y/C separation is a good feature. Usually recording speed is specified as EP (4 hr.), LP (2 hr.), or SP (1 hr.)

You were probably watching the DMR-E30 on a normal interlaced TV.

Now for the Dell.

The LCD monitor is progressive not interlaced. Special DVD playing software is needed to deinterlace the video or it will look something like this where the image is in motion.



If your Dell has a video output, you can connect it to a normal TV for a better picture. You would need to adjust the picture in display overlay settings.

Wow, didn't know that about the difference between TV's and flatscreens and DVD quality. Thanks for the info.

[lordsmurf]

The E30 has many known quality issues, excess "splotches" effect being one of them, even in 2-hour SP mode, as well as a bad IRE error where the video is far too bright for USA tv sets. That machine is made for Japan, not USA. Flub import job on the part of Panasonic.

[gom]

The E30 has many known quality issues, excess "splotches" effect being one of them, even in 2-hour SP mode, as well as a bad IRE error where the video is far too bright for USA tv sets. That machine is made for Japan, not USA. Flub import job on the part of Panasonic.

If that's the case, those chaps should be arrested for fraud.

There is nothing worse than making an expensive item available to the public with all kinds of hype only to find out it's not ready for prime time.

[edDV]

Opps bad memory on my part.
DVD recorder speeds.
HQ = 1hr
SP = 2hr
LP = 3hr
EP = 4hr