Dubbing on Panasonic E80 using Divide Program and Chapters

[Peerless]

Hi,

I'm having a devil of a time dubbing with my Panasonic E80 which I consider to be the greatest thing since sliced bread! I'm putting 8 hours of video on the HardDrive in SP from a T-160 Video Tape. I use "Divide Program" and divide the original 8 hours into 8 60 minute programs. I dub 4 hours using 2 DVD-Rs. The machine will not let me dub a third. It marks xs next to the program description and although it starts to dub additional chapters it quits. Finally after doing this a few times the Navigator begins to act erratically. It eventually crashes and defaults to Reformat the Harddrive. I have never used this function but it is the only command that the machine will accept. I reformat and everything works fine. Unfortunately, I lose everything on my HardDrive. The manual describes this as some sort of copy protection as the machine considers the original 8 hours as one program which you are trying to dub several times- my interpretation. I am reluctant to try this again but would like to dub the tapes as I described. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Peerless

[LizardTracks]

Funny ..... the E80H has a continuous recording limit of 6 hours. How are you even getting 8hrs uninterrupted on the HD?

I'd recommend you break up the source into 2hr. blocks. It's easier to manage and you can create a play list that seamlessly spans multiple 'source' sections up to the 6hr continuous limit......

[thoots]

Peerless,

You sent me a private message in regards to this -- my apologies for not getting back to you until now. (Been very, very busy with other stuff!)

At any rate, I can't add any other insight beyond the advice above -- every two hours, or some similar convenient time, hit the "STOP" button and manually break up your recordings. I sure can't tell you anything in regards to why the E80H is acting the way it is -- about all we can do is offer the proverbial "if that doesn't work, try this."

Good luck with it!

thoots