Cyberhome 1600 - doesn't record in PAL as advertised

[gf123]

I've got a number of VHS home movies that I'd like to copy onto DVD. Some are in NTSC but others are in PAL (I lived in England for a few years).

I bought one of the Cyberhome 1600's as I understood it could record in both NTSC and PAL. The Cyberhome website states that it does record in both formats and it's also mentioned on some other retailers websites - for example Circuit City says that it's got both NTSC and PAL tuners for recording.

Unfortunately this is all wrong as it doesn't record in PAL. These retailers are therefore stating something that is obviously untrue, and I feel this is wrong. Something about making false claims in advertising...

When you input a PAL signal (from my PAL VCR) you just get a nasty black and white picture with lots of dropped frames. In other words the same type of picture you would expect from connecting a PAL VCR to an NTSC VCR. There is a section in the setup menu for "changing" the TV system but unfortunately the drop-down box is disabled and permanently fixed to NTSC. There doesn't seem to be any way to change it - unless somebody knows of a hidden menu and/or hack. I tried feeding the signal through the composite cables and also through the TV tuner - same results both times. I haven't tried the S-video input as my VCR doesn't have one.

However this machine will play non-coded PAL discs okay. The picture is pretty good with nice colors and no dropped frames and everything works as it should. I also found a hack for playing region-coded PAL discs. Insert the disc, wait for the error message to say wrong region and then hit the menu button followed by the '1' key - or on some discs hit the '2' or '3' keys instead. It will then play the disk (and give a good picture) but certain features won't work - for example it's sometimes impossible to bring up the main menu (on some disks, not others) and the fast-forward and rewind buttons don't seem to function. But at least it will play them, albeit in a restricted form.

As for recording in NTSC, the quality of the recordings is actually very good, I couldn't tell the difference between the original VHS tape and the DVD copy - providing you can get the machine to work properly. The whole recording process seems to be very hit and miss and I've got a lot of coasters to prove it! There doesn't seem to be any logic behind it, sometimes it will record and finalize okay but other times it will either quit recording halfway through the disk (and then lock up) or else it will crash during the finalizing section. And sometimes you insert a disk to record and it will come up with an error message saying "Bad Disk" even though the disk is brand new straight out the packet. The onscreen help menu does give a list of manufacturers disks that are recomended. I was using TDK brand (and these are not on the 'approved' list) so maybe this could be the cause of the problems.

When you do strike lucky and get the disk to finalize it does play back okay - on this machine. But the results are mixed when running the disk through other players. Strangely my Cyberhome 300 will not play the disk at all! My JVC machine will play it but I can't bring up the main menu or use the fast-forward and rewind buttons. If so then the disk will jump back to the very beginning and start playing over again. Very frustrating. But the disks do play okay in my PC and I was able to copy some video to the hard drive.

So in summary I'm disappointed that this machine is being advertised as being able to record in PAL when quite obviously it doesn't. I've wrote to Cyberhome to express my displeasure (no reply yet). As for NTSC recording, it does give good results - sometimes. But prepare for lots of frustration and coasters along the way!

I might mess around with it for a few more days but I suspect that it'll be returned to Best Buy in the very near future.


Can anyone recommend a US-brand DVD recorder that will record in both PAL and NTSC formats? I'm not interested in converting from one system to another, I just want something that will give me a PAL recording from a PAL source or an NTSC recording from an NTSC source. Any help much appreciated.

Dave

[RowMan]

Just a hunch, but did you try to record your PAL tape anyway? It's possible that the machine cannot record PAL and convert to NTSC (for your TV display) at the same time.

This just came to mind because I have a DVD player that can convert PAL to NTSC and decode anamorphic widescreen, but cannot do those two things at the same time. You might want to do a test recording and then play it back to see what happens.

Also, make sure there is no disc in the tray and that the video input is not set to the tuner when trying to change the video system of the recorder. Some of my DVD players will restrict the changing of settings if there is a disc in the tray.

[gf123]

Thanks for the tip RowMan but I did try recording a PAL disc and the recording was just the same, i.e. a bad quality black and white picture. It's obviously recording the PAL source with the NTSC tuner with the inevitable results. I also tried your suggestion of changing the menu without a disk in the tray but I still can't get the TV mode to change from NTSC.

What annoys me about this machine is that I bought it purely because of its advertised PAL recording abilities. Cyberhome and all the online retailers shouldn't be allowed to state something which is blatantly untrue. Surely this is false or misleading advertising.

But I'll keep experimenting for a while to see if there's a hidden menu lurking somewhere which will let me change the TV system to PAL.

Dave