How to compare DVD Recorders ?

[donpedro]

also you can read tons of comments on the site already, left column:
DVD Writers
& recorders feature
& user comments

I've got it first time you posted this comment here in this topic. I am interesting in (as much as I can make it) real test and not subjective comments from more or less biased people. By showing "pictures", everybody can decide by them self and not rely on comments from other people.

[donpedro]

Here is question for rest, who are interested in this process....

I am planing to play recorded disc on PC with Power DVD and by moving frame by frame stop at the same fram for each scene that I will compare.

Then use "Capture Frame" functionality and paste picture to "Microsoft Paint" and save it as "24-bit Bitmap *.bmp" file.

That is so far that I have..... Any problems with that process ?

[thoots]

donpedro,

I'll throw one more curve into this, if you'll indeed be testing an E80H, especially if you test it at the "XP" mode:

As far as I'm concerned, the E80H records "directly to DVD-R" at a noticeably higher quality than it does "recording to the hard drive," and yes, I'm talking about the best, XP quality mode. I'd call the differences awful darn close to the difference between XP and SP modes recorded to DVD-R.

At any rate, I would recommend taking some samples recorded directly to DVD-R, as well as recorded to the hard drive, when evaluating the E80H...

thoots

[donpedro]

thoots,

too late... E80H is in the store again and I recorded to HDD first of course

Anyway... why would there be difference ? I don't get it ? Any theory behind that ?

[bugster]

donpedro, I applaud your efforts in this endoeavour and wish you the best of luck.

Just to make things more complicate for you, IMHO, to test each recorder properly, you need to use the same source material AND device for each test. You also need to perform the test using all possible connection methods. By this I mean Composite, S-Video, component/RGB and where available, Firewire.

Sorry if I just made your life more difficult

[donpedro]

Maybe one day I will collect all the inputs and be able to do at least something. So far it seems inposible. Anyway... I'll try my best.

[thoots]

too late... E80H is in the store again and I recorded to HDD first of course

Anyway... why would there be difference ? I don't get it ? Any theory behind that ?

Well, mainly, it looks like I'm getting a higher bitrate for recordings done straight to DVD-R than I am to the hard drive. Kind of the same thing as between XP and SP -- lower bitrate, lower quality.

This might have something to do with "DVD-R Compatible Recording," as perhaps that lowered the bitrate as compared to "normal" recording. I can tell you this much -- the manual states that the E80H hard drive can hold 17 hours of XP quality video, but when my drive is clean, the thing says I've got 18 hours 13 minutes -- some kind of evidence that this might not be the highest bitrate the thing can record with.

I know there was a thread in the AVS Forum where they were comparing all the different settings, including whether to stick with DVD-R Compatible Recording or not, and it seems they were saying it was not necessarily the best way to go for ultimate picture quality. Guess I'd better go poking around to see if I can find that again....

At any rate, I'm just about ready to turn DVD-R Compatible Recording off, and try it with the "normal" setting, to see if that yields better picture quality. Then, we'll have to see if that survives a "re-encoding" dubbing session in better shape than a "high speed" dubbing session. Might take a few days to get there, but I might well give that a shot!

thoots

[MOVIEGEEK]

Here's a website that has clips in different formats: www.archive.org/movies/movies.php