HDD to DVD recording ; Do quality suffers or not?

[vida_loca]

I read some reviews here that say when transfering video from a Hard Disc Drive to a DVD disc the quality of the final product is lower than that of the original material. But I have also read the following:

Crutchfiled holiday catalog (Pionneer DVR-510H):
Because the signal remains digital during transfer, there's absolutely no quality loss!

crutchfield.com (same item):
HDD-to-DVD Copying: Recordings can be copied from the HDD to recordable DVD or from DVD to the HDD with no loss of audio or video quality.

pioneerelectronics.com (DVR-810H):
You can even record content to the hard drive while dubbing different content from the hard drive to a DVD. It’s fast and easy, and the content remains in a digital state throughout, so the quality level is very high.

So what's the truth? Consumer Reports have done studies on DVD recorders as recently as their Decmber 2003 issue but they have not looked into this.

p.s. You might often see the 2 models mentioned above listed with a "-S" at the end (i.e. DVR-510H-S) but that simply stands for the color, in this case, silver.

[donpedro]

Please change character size in your post back to NORMAL

Now back to your question.

Both are true. I don't have an experience with HDD burner so it might work diferently.

For copy with no loss, DVD settings have to match HDD program settings. There is also something called High-Speed copy (no loss).

Of cource when you are trying to fit 2h program recorded in HQ mode (1h=1DVD) then when you copy that to DVD (SP mode or whatever name it is) it will recompress it more.

[thoots]

I read some reviews here that say when transfering video from a Hard Disc Drive to a DVD disc the quality of the final product is lower than that of the original material.

.......

So what's the truth? Consumer Reports have done studies on DVD recorders as recently as their Decmber 2003 issue but they have not looked into this.

I've seen the Consumer Reports "report" on DVD Recorders. I am usually a fan of CR, but their "consumer electronics" reporting has been pitiful. Anyone who doesn't have some other decent understanding of most new technologies will probably come away from a CR report with a perfectly wrong impression. This particular report was just a few paragraphs that I really thought put perspective on absolutely unimportant parts of the technology -- like the authors never even bothered to take one of these things home to see what they might use it for.

At any rate, using the Panasonic units for the discussion, you can indeed do "high speed dubbings" from the hard disk drive to a DVD-R with no loss of picture quality -- it is indeed a "digital copy" of the video. However, you can try to do things where such a "digital copy" is not possible -- like recording the video at one picture quality setting, then trying to dub it to the DVD-R at a different picture quality setting. Once you understand how the dubbing works, it's a piece of cake to make sure you record your video in a manner that'll allow you to do "high speed dubbing" and get a "digital copy."

Hope that helps!

thoots

[Destroyer]

Just got my Pioneer DVR-5100H the European model of 510H

The high speed copy only works on this model when no re compression has to be done.

It also seems like the recorder only got one set of encoding/decoding chips. So when re compressing the material to fit on a DVD no recording can be done simultaneously, otherwise the recorder can do this while doing a high speed copy.

Regarding the audio, I have no idea (not tested yet) what will happen if I copy a DVD with more than two audio channels to the HDD. I assume that I will only have stereo sound when playing the copy.

[vida_loca]

Thanks. I'm beginning to understand now. For example, if I record an hour-long program in XP mode to the HDD and transfer it to a single-sided 4.7 GB disc (DVD-R/RAM), there will be no loss of quality. That will also be true if I use XP mode to record a 2-hour program to the hard drive and then transfer it to a double-sided DVD-RAM disc. But if I transfer that same 2-hour show to a single-sided 4.7 GB disc, quality will decrease in comparison to the original Hard Disc Drive recording because of recompression.

[Xetaxus]

Yes Vida Loca, You've pretty much got the idea, but take into consideration:

1. Recompressing 2hrs into 4.7GB or HQ/XP to SP, you would hardly notice the difference if at all IF you are recording a standard analog television programme (at least that's my experience with my recorder- Phlilips DVDR890). Digital television and DVD-ROM (stamped/pressed) however, is a completely different issue.

2. It's when you start recompressing further that you will gradually see the quality deteriorate eg. 3-4hrs to 4.7GB and so on and so forth.

Hope that helps you a bit more