My father just purchased a Philips DVDR985 DVD Recorder/Player.

I had a few questions about the recording quality.

Personally I like to record Basketball games and some television shows here and there. Is it possible to record basketball games at high quality?

Someone mentioned in the review section on this site of this machine
Playback is of good quality when recording in High Quality mode which yields 1 hour worth of recording per disk.
Any other recording mode (2 to 4hr) has too many digital/pixelation artifacts on moving scenes... event the 2 hour mode. I don't think it is due to the compression rate, but rather, a poor IPB frame sequence which is not configurable. Real-Time recording sounded good, but not on this recorder, unless willing live with the 1hr limitation.

Now normally I record my Basketball games on SP mode on my Digital8 Camcorder (I usually use 2 tapes for ONE GAME). Is there anyway I can trasnfer these games to a JUST ONE DVD without losing much quality if ANY?

I really want to be able to record Basketball games in high quality and be able to get 2-4 hours of high quality recordings on DVD. Is this possible considering my source is CABLE TV? Or would I have to record in SP MODE on DVD as well to get close to 100% source quality?

I would say my D8 SP mode recordings with my SONY Camcorder of Basketball games are excellent. Problem is I want to put these games on ONE DVD and maybe in the future be able to leave my DVD recorder when recording Basketball games -- with my D8 I have to be there to edit the games because I am under time contraint with my ONE HOUR SP MODE.

So is it true? Is 2-4 Hour modes really bad for recording Basketball games, will their be defenite pixelation and POOR quality in comparison to my D8 recordings of Basketball games on normal cable TV via analog passthru?

Can someone help me with these huge ordeal?

Thanks.

-Nikos