e55 or e85?

[Teshia]

Hi,

I'm wondering which I should buy, the E55 or the E85. The E85 has a built in hard drive, but I'm wondering how essential this is. What kinds of problems could I run into with the E55 that would be solved with the E85? I'd be doing a lot of VHS backup - old tapes mainly, so I need a reliable TBC in the deck and the assurance that if the quality of the tape wasn't great that I wouldn't lose a blank disc in the process of capturing. Does the E55 just capture VHS direct to disc or something?

[tag]

I'm wondering which I should buy, the E55 or the E85.

Well, if it must be one model or the other (i.e. no other brands) and you have a Costco in your area, then get the E55.

I'm not sure about Canadian prices but in the U.S. Costco is selling the E55 for $199.97 with what amounts to a virtually unlimited warranty.

[spiderman2k1]

If you want hard drive E85 if you want one with out hard drive E55 easy.

[Teshia]

I guess what I'm asking though is what difficulties am I going to run into if there isn't a hard drive in the E55? Is recording just done straight to a blank disc? Is the DVD-RAM space separate from the tray for the blank DVD-R?

[tag]

I guess what I'm asking though is what difficulties am I going to run into if there isn't a hard drive in the E55?

Nothing that can't be solved with the $300 you'll save by choosing the E55 over the E85.

Is recording just done straight to a blank disc?

Yes.

Is the DVD-RAM space separate from the tray for the blank DVD-R?

Same tray. DVD-RAM is a disk that looks remarkably similar to a DVD-R disk.

[Hector M]

Hey friend
The beneficts of having a recorder with HD is that you can save the data into it and then make multicopies at 4x; this means a 2hrs (or a 4.7g) footage can be dumped into his own DVD recorder in about 15min. ALso you can save multi images or several recordings and leave there for near future re-recording. For me it's a most. The price of the E85 is about $620
Hector

[Marvingj]

E85 without a doubt. Whats great about a HD, you don't have to waste ant DVD's.

[Teshia]

So if I want to do in deck editing on the E55, I'd have to do it on the DVD-RAM disc, but there'd be no way to then transfer that to a blank DVD-R without having a computer in between with a DVD-RAM disc, right?

[richdvd]

The E55 is on sale this week for $449 at Future Shop.
I just bought one yesterday and I like what I see so far.

[spiderman2k1]

I like the hard drive just when I feel like it. If there is abunch of stuff on one day and I want to record at SP two hour speed no problem. I do not need to be home to charge disc and put in another black DVD-R. I'm not a big menu person so i really do not care about menu's. I like menu's I just do not want to do them. Panasonic Menu's are very basic but they work fine.

[handyguy]

Actually, DVD-RAM is a HD!

So you get a 4.7 gig HD on each side, so a doubled sided one gives you about 9 gigs. You can then put in as many as you want but they have a write rating of 100,000 times.

With a Panny with HD you get more parts to deal with & you don't have to change disks. In LP mode, you get 4 hours per DVD-RAM disk of very decent video & you can edit on it too. You can't edit on dvd-r.

[tag]

The E55 is on sale this week for $449 at Future Shop.

That's well over twice what Costco is selling them for ($199.97).

[Teshia]

Well I make it a policy never to shop at Futureslop. I can get it for $420 at G&G Electronics in Toronto (at least that's what they quoted me over the phone). I'm going to check with Costco though. If I can get it for $420 (Canadian) in Toronto, I can probably get it for even better at a Canadian Costco. Do these things ever have any rebates on them?

[richdvd]

That's well over twice what Costco is selling them for ($199.97).

I am talking in Canadian funds.

Well I make it a policy never to shop at Futureslop.

I know they are idiots..but where I am, they are my best option.

[Teshia]

Ok, so here's another question about the Panasonics. I hear they all have some kind of proprietary codec or something? Am I going to be able to play recorded discs from an E unit on another DVD player?

Am I also going to be able to rip off video from the discs to my computer using standard tools like DVDShrink or SmartRipper and be able to work with them the way I normally work with MPEG2 DVD video files?

If this codec I'm hearing about is going to cause any problems, I'd want to know about it up front before it gets too late.

[ofbarea]

There are no proprietary codecs in Panasonic E55, but there is a non standard setting. For the EP recording mode you have two choices 6 or 8 hours. You may find compatibility problems if you decide to use 8 hours EP mode. The 6 hours setting is OK.

[MarkG]

The E55 records directly to the DVD. The E85 Directly to DVD or the Harddrive,your choice. These use DVD-Ram format which is great in that it allows Editing,simple erase proceedures,Simultainious record and playback,chase play,time slip etc,all the cool things a harddrive will do,right on the DVD. However DVD-Ram is the least compatible. Most players wont play RAM,however even the cheapest Panasonics will. The E55 is a great unit for the money,and does so much more than other non harddrive recorders ,because of the Ram feature. It is a really nice high tech simple to use solution for finally replacing that ole VHS recorder in ways other dvd recorders have not. The E85 with the Harddrive offers the addition of 213 hours of record time,ability to dub DVD to Hardrive or viceversa,and ability to make copies of DVDs(non copywrite protected,of course) Neither of these units have Firewire. Both will also burn DVDs in -R format. Here is something to consider...If you choose to have a harddrive,you almost dont need DVD -Ram. You can do all you recording and editing on the Harddrive and burn your final product to the more compatible DVD-R. That being the case,if you choose to have a Harddrive,you might consider the Sharp HR300, DVD-r harddrive unit which is less money than the 85,and has the additional features of Firewire and an Auto Record function which will allow easy record control from a satellite box or digital cable box.The 85/55 have niether of those features. Hope this helps.

[handyguy]

If you are going to edit it later, change the recording mode from: AUTO to FIXED. This keeps the picture the same size.

[edlav]

My 2cents. With DVD-R discs so cheap now I buy the 2X TDK when they go onsale. Slow for a computer recorder but great for the standalone. Then if I want I rip them to my computer and run it through TMPGEnc DVD Author to edit out unwanted footage and add better menus. Then I burn on a printable disc and still have the original as a backup.

[Teshia]

If you are going to edit it later, change the recording mode from: AUTO to FIXED. This keeps the picture the same size.

What is that? VBR and CBR? What recording speeds are available on the E55? Specifically, they talk about hours, but I'm more interested in knowing what bitrates they're using for the different speeds. I don't usually think in terms of hours like VCR people, I think in terms of bitrates.

[MarkG]

Re bit rate on the Panasonics,all I can see from the specs and Techinfo is that it is a VBR in any mode. I know the difference between the 6 and 8hour mode for EP is what they do with the audio and you will furthur loose some audio quality in 8hr EP but probably not loose picture quality from 6-8hr.

[handyguy]

I don't know the bit rates.

There are some forum posts about people trying to get 2 hours on a dvd & here we have a Panasonic doing 8 hours. Hmmmm.

[chas0039]

The bit rate is the number of bits of information per second. The bitrate varies throughout any DVD because MPEG2 is a variable bitrate compression solution.

If you reduce the information, i.e. quality, low enough I suppose you can get 16 hours of semi-watchable information on a disc.

[Teshia]

Well I suppose the best way to find out is to record something at each speed, then put it in a player that has a bitrate meter on it. My Sony DVP-NS400D has an onscreen readout of the bitrate average and layer/head position so I suppose it could be determined that way. I'm suprised it's not listed on the tech sheets for the unit though. Seems like fairly elementary stuff, not to mention important.

[Teshia]

In other news, I went to Costco in Canada. They carried one model - a Phillips. They don't do orders. Basically you come in, if it's there you buy it. I asked the guy if they ever saw themselves ordering in any E units and the guys said no. Was a totally crap operation Costco is in Canada - not anywhere close to the way it's run in the states. Because of this, they couldn't even give me a Canadian price on the unit - WAY stupid. I guess I'll be buying it in Toronto from G&G Electronics.

[MarkG]

I dont believe Sony will read the Ram DVD. If the bitrate is variable as needed,whats the difference? Do you really need to be concerned? If its Picture quality ,I have seen the PQ of the E55 and E85 in 8hour EP. Not really that bad. What tree are we barking up here??? If it is compatibility,then why even bother with Ram since its not ,with much of anything anyway. Maybe this is a dumb question ,because I am no expert when it comes to the recording process itself,,but just curious now, what is the issue here with bit rate??

[ofbarea]

The problem with the 8 hours EP mode is that the recorder uses lower bit rates for the audio. The resulting bit rate may not be compatible with some DVD player even if recorded in DVD-R.