Most efficient way to encode long VHS tapes to HDD/DVD with LG LRH-539?

[ryangarfield]

So I just got this unit and wanted it because it had the HDD capability and thought it would be great for recording my 6-8hr VHS tapes as I could just set it to record overnight and not have to constantly be watching the unit to pause the VCR and swap out DVD-R's. So now that I have these very long recordings on the HDD, you then have to dub it from the HDD to the DVD in smaller chunks which then takes several more hours to do for each DVD. The unit features a fast dub mode where if the recording is small enough to fit onto one DVD and you don't need to make any changes to it, it can copy over in a couple of minutes. So my question is, is the unit capable of breaking up the long recording into smaller 2 hour chunks as its copying the VHS tape without obviously stopping. Or is there some other more efficient way of doing what I want?

Any help is greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
Ryan

[hech54]

With some of the older LG/Medion machines, you could remove the HDD, connect it to your computer, and use a small free tool to transfer the MPEG2 video. Unfortunately that website just recently went down so I can't easily verify that your machine is old enough.

[ryangarfield]

Well, now that would be even more ideal!

I could try and do some research on this, what am I looking for to tell me my machine is capable of this?

Thanks!

[hech54]

This is the description of the site:
https://files.videohelp.com/u/3126/LG%20dump.jpg
I saved everything from that site long ago, but the only thing I ever used from it was the 3(?) small DUMP programs that allowed a PC to recognize the MPEG files on the HDD.
Your LG model number is pretty high....it might be too new.
I tried looking through the data I took from that site but cannot find "539"

[hech54]

Here are the three dump programs if you ever decide to try it:

https://mega.nz/#F!0dpXzQTL!b2XPHRKh3FpyRKdnNfsSGQ

[hech54]

Here is what the programs look like....they are legit and harmless:
https://files.videohelp.com/u/3126/dump%20prg%20sshot.jpg

I don't have an LG/Medion drive attached so of course I get nothing but errors on the program.

[ryangarfield]

Any risk in repeatedly doing this?

[hech54]

Any risk in repeatedly doing this?

The HDD IDE cables are usually a little flimsy compared to the ones you are used to....same plastic connection to the HDD
but the "ribbon cable" coming out of the connection is quite fragile(at least on mine anyway).

[KarMa]

IDE has been phased out of most motherboards in favor of SATA, so be sure your motherboard has a IDE connector. I had to go out of my way a few years ago to get a IDE supporting Motherboard, and also came with SATA. But IDE to SATA adapter do exist but I have no experience with those.

[ryangarfield]

Yeah, I have a few IDE/SATA dongle things that will allow me to connect it to USB. Used them for many other HDD's in the past...I'm sure this one would be no different.

[jjeff]

Not sure about LG DVDRs but with Panasonics it's very easy to split a title into as many pieces as you want and then HS burn them separately to different DVDs. You can't combine titles with a Panasonic(well unless using the playlist feature) but splitting is very easy to do.
It's what I did with 6hr tapes, pushed play on VCR, REC on DVDR, then after split the 6hr SP title into 3 2hr titles which I then HS burned to DVD(takes ~15 min/DVD with a Panasonic).
HS copying to a DVD will allow ~2hrs 7 min SP/DVD which also works great for extra long or fully recorded T-120 tapes recorded in SP VHS, which often times can approach 2hrs 4 minutes.

[orsetto]

So my question is, is the unit capable of breaking up the long recording into smaller 2 hour chunks as its copying the VHS tape without obviously stopping.

No. None of the DVD/HDD recorders will do that automatically because it would almost certainly not work perfectly. Everybody's VHS recordings are a bit uneven: an 8-hour tape is not going to divide perfectly into 120-minute chunks. If the machine did that, you'd likely end up with the split points hitting the wrong spot, and once a recording is split in the wrong place there's no way to re-combine it without a brief but noticeable stall.

The whole point of recording to HDD before burning to DVD is editing flexibility and efficiency. The HDD is more reliable than recording direct to DVDs (which can and do fail mid-recording, requiring you restart from scratch- not efficient). The HDD lets you quickly and easily find good split points and break the 8-hr dub into approx 2-hr chunks. Some chunks might run 109 mins, some might run 123 mins, rarely will it be exactly 120 mins (but the dvd "SP" recording speed gives you headroom of about 124 mins). It really does not take that long to break up the 8-hr dub: just a few minutes. Then you run the four high speed dubs one after the other, perhaps an hour total for the four dvds. At most, this adds slightly more than an hour to the time it would have taken to record directly onto four dvds. That "direct" workflow would require your intervention to swap discs every 2 hours anyway: less efficient than having one entire block of 8 hours free while the unit records to its HDD, so you're only stuck in front of it for an hour to make the dvds at the end.

If this is too slow or annoying, pay a service to do it for you. WalMart or CostCo will do a passable transfer for $10 per hour of VHS, to either dvds or thumb drives (or both).

Or is there some other more efficient way of doing what I want?

No. Not with a six or eight hour tape that has multiple programs on it. Any attempt at automating this in the past has failed: the recorders always chose the worst possible spot to make the split (middle of a touchdown, middle of important dialog, etc).

Plugging the HDD into a PC is of zero benefit if your sole priority is dubbing speed and efficiency: you'd still need to manually choose the split points, then manually author and burn four individual dvds. The only advantage of connecting a recorder HDD to a PC is to use the more advanced editing and menu creation tools available via PC software, without needing to burn a dvd in the recorder and then rip it to the PC before you can access the videos. And some people like to back up their recordings to a huge media server HDD.

Its kind of moot anyway: most dvd recorder HDDs cannot be easily read by or used normally with a PC. As hech54 mentioned, only a handful of older models used standard HDD file systems. Your LRH-539 apparently dates from 2005, very near the cutoff date: you could try to read it on a PC with the software he suggested (if you have a specific need to get the videos onto your PC). If you don't have any interest in authoring your dvds on a PC or otherwise converting the files, don't bother: if your recorder file system isn't PC-compatible, there's a slight risk of Windows messing something up in the HDD that will make it unreadable when replaced in the recorder (requiring you to re-format and lose all the videos on it).