DVD Recorder for S-VHS to DL DVD

[Hermit]

Hallo
I have a project to convert some odd 30 S-VHS tapes to Dl- DVDs for archival purposes.
These are all two hours to 3 hours. Here the Video Picture quality is of Paramount importance and I want to fit them on one single DL DVD each.
Before this I had a JVC DR-10m and quality is very good but it is a old model and lacks in DL.
Unfortunately JVC does not have any DL models so I am left with this head spinning task of choosing right model from so many choices.
I need FR mode and XP quality Tuner is not so important. But good capture chip
I was looking at Liteon but I read they have green tinge and does not have FR mode.
Then I was looking at Pioneer 630H seems to be good I can record on HDD at XP+ and then write to DL DVD with two pass VBR this sounds great, but as I read here Pioneer does not have the good LSI chip and also you don't get printable DL -R DVDs so easily.
So your valued suggestions are welcome. I live in Germany and quite a few models are available here. Thanking you

[bobkart]

The Pioneer 633 works fine for what you're doing, I do it all the time.

But if picture quality is paramount then you will want to use the highest bitrate, in which case you will just get ~115 minutes per DL disc (a bit less than two hours). Although pushing it to 3 hours will probably not make much difference.

The new Pioneer 640 is reported to have at least as good picture quality as the 633, and can burn DVD+R DL's as well as DVD-R DL's. All that's missing from the 633 is the DV input and XP+ mode.

[lordsmurf]

You could always record them on the JVC, dump the two parts on the computer, merge them in MPEG editing software, and then author and burn your DL DVDs. It's a lot cheaper than buying new hardware, and it will work much better. DL media make on DVD recorders leaves MUCH to be desired.

I suggest:
- Womble MPEG-VCR (or TMPGEnc and use the MPEG TOOLS, free!)
- any authoring software (DVDAuthor with GUI is free!)
- PcgEdit with ImgBurn, follow the guide (free!)

And there you go.
Use Verbatim MKM DVD+R DL media.

This is exactly what I would do, in this situation.

[Hermit]

Thank you very much for both suggestions. It gives me a direction. Here in Germany we dont ger 633 but 630 Pioneer. I think thy are the same. Only thing is that Dl +R is not supported.
Lordsmurf idea is also good but then I need more time to do the editing.

[SingSing]

If you start a VHS to DVD DL project, please post your valuable expereince and result here.

[trhouse]

I have been burning +DL almost exclusively for awhile. No dvd recorder I have tested which includes Sony, Pioneer, and Panasonic can handle the layer change seamlessly. The computer method can do it without a glitch.

Panasonic handles the layer change differently. The first layer has to be closed before the second layer can be recorded which is bad if you are trying to make a seamless changeover but if you are recording clips and need to control when the changeover occurs, it works very well.

[bobkart]

I recorded a 100-minute concert (Delicate Sound of Thunder) to the HDD of my Pioneer 633, at XP/LPCM, then high-speed copied that to DVD-R DL (Verbatim) and it worked fine. Yes there is a slight pause during playback at the layer transition, but even commercial DVDs have that, there is even a warning about it, the source of that problem is in the player, not in the recorder, a small buffer to allow reading ahead a second or two would make that go away.

[trhouse]

I have to disagree. It is possible that commercial dvd's may have that caveat for older players, but I have -DL's burnt with my Pioneer 531H, +DL's burnt with the computer, and +DL's from a Sony recorder. The +DL's burnt on the computer show no pause at the layer change on any recent player including Panasonic, JVC, Toshiba, and Sony. In fact, it is difficult to find the layer change even when using slow play with computer burns, whereas it is obvious with any recorder's burn on those same players.

[bobkart]

Slow play would be less likely to show the pause since the player can easily read from the disc faster than the slower rate at which it is being played.

It is my understanding that the layer-change pause is a playback phenomenon and any properly burned DL disc could be played back without the pause if the player were just smart enough to read ahead slightly.

An example of when this doesn't work, is on the same recorder (Pioneer 633), but with a real-time copy to a DL disc as opposed to a high-speed copy. In the case of a real-time copy on the Pioneer 633, at the layer break a second Title is created. Clearly this will not play back without a pause since transitioning from one Title to the next during playback always creates a slight pause in my experience. So I would not consider this istuation as "properly burned" due to the creation of the second Title. And if this was the situation you used to evaluate your Pioneer recorder, then I can see why you might have arrived at the conclusion you did. But a high-speed copy does not suffer from this problem and will play without a break on a good enough player.

I believe the DL discs that result from high-speed copying to a DL disc on a Pioneer 633 are as good as any you can get by burning on a PC in regards to the layer transition. If you think this is not the case then I will gladly examine any evidence you may have to the contrary since I would like to know for sure one way or the other.

[trhouse]

My transfers were all from the hdd to -DL in high speed mode with Verbatim media. Real time means re-encode. The only time I re-encoded was to test the XP+ to SP versus straight SP capture modes.

I found that those burns glitched at the changeover in the 531H which created them but not computer burns.

I have to make one distinction however. I did test Ritek+DL media on the computer. Ritek glitched at the changeover just like the Pioneer created -DL's. Here is a test of Ritek media,



I also found intially that I had errors with Verbatim +DL burns on the computer which turned out to be a firmware problem that was solved by updating. So computer burns can be less than desirable as well if the media is not the best and firmware is not updated.

[bobkart]

Ah okay we are talking about two different things. So it's no wonder we are not agreeing.

My discussion/explanation was not intended to address problems reading the disc. I was assuming the disc in question was readable without excessive retries.

You appear to be describing a situation in which you get high numbers of PI/PO errors, no doubt causing retries which manifest as a pause. With these PI/PO errors occuring at the start of the second layer, the pause coincides with the layer change. Understood.

I was describing a much simpler phenomenon, in which there is a slight delay on virtually any DL disc (including commercial discs) during playback, which is even warned about on the packaging of commercial DL discs. As the reading drive reaches the layer break it must switch over to reading the second layer (including refocusing the laser). This tends to take a second or so, and without sufficient read-ahead by the player, the result is a slight pause in the playback, in my experience it is less than a second, and completely unrelated to any read errors/retries caused by a PI/PO spike coinciding with the layer break.

What you seem to be saying is that when you burn a DL disc on a PC (except Ritek), you don't see the pronounced PI/PO spike at the layer break, compared to when you burn a DL disc on a standalone DVD Recorder. That I believe. I too have seen those spikes. In fact I've yet to get a Ritek RiData DVD-R DL disc to take a good burn on any burner I've tried them on (Pioneer 633 and three PC-based burners), there is always that spike at the layer break and I get the ineveitable read error there as a result.

[trhouse]

I do not see any pause when playing commercial or computer burned +DL's on the 531. Do you see a pause on the 633 with commercial or computer burned disks when playing past the layer change?

I do see a pause with -DL's burned by the 531 however. Verbatim media in both cases. Since the player is the same, I would conclude it is not a player problem. I do not believe it to be + or - related since the same happened with a Sony GX315 with +DL.

[Hermit]

Hallo trhouse

I have a question Here in Germany I have two models which I am attracted to
Pioneer DVR-630 H-S DVD HDD -Rekorder 250 GB HD with High Resolution Recording / XP+ / Dual-Pass HDD-to -DVD Copie (Two Pass Optimized recording)
But this does not have +DL support and costs €429 Bit costly
The Other option is
Pioneer DVR 540 H-S DVD- and Hard Disk-Rekorder 160 GB HD This only has XP mode and there is no mention of Dual Pass on Amazon.de site and it costs less €370

My idea is to first capture the S-VHS tapes from my S-VHS JVC VCR SVHS S7960 E in XP+ mode and then later to burn on to DL Verbatim DVDs

My question is will it make a difference in quality if I capture in XP mode instead of xp+ mode and then reencode using the Two pass optimized mode?
Also does Pioneer DVR 540 H-S DVD- and Hard Disk-Rekorder 160 GB HD makes use of Dual Pass VBR ? ( I just read that for +R DL this recorder does not support Video Mode which is the mode I am interested in !!!)

If anybody has experience about this ? Comments are welcome.

About the layer change in DL Pioneer anual says that it will make a new Title But that is OK for me

[bobkart]

I do not see any pause when playing commercial or computer burned +DL's on the 531. Do you see a pause on the 633 with commercial or computer burned disks when playing past the layer change?

I do see a pause with -DL's burned by the 531 however. Verbatim media in both cases. Since the player is the same, I would conclude it is not a player problem. I do not believe it to be + or - related since the same happened with a Sony GX315 with +DL.

I agree it's not + or - related.

Offhand I would have to say yes to seeing pauses as you ask about. But I will check to be sure and report back.

Hermit: yes the manual says it will make a new Title on DL discs at the layer break, but that statement is inaccurate, at least for the 633. It only makes such a new Title when being burned in real-time mode. In high-speed mode, you don't get the extra Title.

[trhouse]

I tested the XP+ to SP re-encode of the 531H versus the straight capture to SP mode in this thread,

https://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=279460

I was disappointed to find that the straight SP capture was better than the quasi two pass XP+ to SP re-encode. The Pioneers will allow capture to one mode and re-encode to another but I did not test for example, XP to SP. From my experience with XP+ to SP, I would suspect the straight SP capture will still be better.

I have not tested the newer x4x series of Pioneers. I was planning to replace my 531 with a 640 for the expanded hdd size and +DL support but instead, I upgraded my 531 to a 500 GB drive. The 640 information also said that it would not support +DL video mode. I hoped that was not true but I cannot confirm it. Maybe someone who owns one can do that.