Comparative quality of Pan85 Hi-speed dub vs. FR

[psychotronicfilms]

I am in the process of making backups of some multi-disc sets of TV series from the '70s that were shot on video.

When it comes time to burn these 30-min. episodes off the hard drive to DVD-R, I'd like to balance out visual quality with quantity per disc.

I realize I could record them in the SP mode and make high-speed dubs that would fit 4 episodes per disc, but in the past I've been surprised at how good 3 hours worth of material can look when burned in Flexible Recording mode (not awfully different from SP to my eyes).

If I understand correctly, encoding them at SP and burning them high-speed means there is no re-encoding done to the information, therefore a more accurate transfer.

I'm curious as to what the prevailing wisdom is regarding using this approach versus encoding the episodes at XP, then Flex Recording them 6 to a disc (approx. 3 hours).

Will the higher picture quality of the XP offset the re-encoding process, or will the final picture quality of the DVD-R be noticably poorer than a shorter length disc that stayed in SP for the entire process?

Any opinions are welcomed as this is a major job and I don't want to waste a lot of time going about it the wrong way. For what it's worth, I'll burn the discs at night while I'm sleeping, so the time saved on a high speed dub doesn't factor into my equation...

Thanks!

- Psychotronicfilms

[donpedro]

Try same episode both ways and decide yourself. You are best judge which is better for this question.

[psychotronicfilms]

Hahaha

I had a feeling that would be the answer!

I was just curious to hear from other folks who may have made the same comparison in the past...

- Psychotronicfilms

[oldfart13]

A friend has converted old 60's series that were shot on film to DVD but every time he uses DVDShrink to add 4 episodes to a disc (originally only 3 will fit) the picture is noticeably poorer to my eyes. These shows are in Black and White and with no colour information to worry about they should look fine 4 to a disc but because of the re-encoding, they lack detail and you get macroblocks. I guess you'll have to judge for yourself though...