How do I avoid my recorder re-encoding during a dub?

[Cyrax9]

Hey everyone,

I have a Panasonic DMR-E500HS and was wondering how to avoid having my recorder do the infamous re-encoding of video when dubbing from HDD to DVD. Can this be prevented only on DVD-RAM or only on DVD-R,or on both formats?

For example, everything I record is in SP Mode so there's no re-encode to worry about from SP to LP or anything like that. Here's my issue:

DVD-RAM:

1. Can I dub in "real-time" from an SP-Mode recording on the HDD to an SP-Mode DVD-RAM and NOT re-encode the video?

2. Will using "High-Speed Dubbing" of an SP MODE recording transcode (copy) rather than re-encode the file to a DVD-RAM? (Easily ripped and reused on my PC.)

DVD-R:

1. See DVD-RAM
2. Will using High-Speed Dubbing and, say 4X Discs cause quality degradation?

Finally one more question, DVD-RAM claims that you can rewrite to the disc "1 Million times" before you notice any quality loss. OK, I know you can reuse a DVD-RAM alot but really 1 Million times? Has anybody used DVD-RAM enough to tell me when it finally needs to be replaced to avoid quality loss? Can I rewrite to it, say 1000 times and not worry, or is this a major unknown. (I know it can't be exact but the general # of times would be appreciated, I don't have 1 Million shows to copy but I would like to know at what point my DVD-RAM Discs will give out and start acting like VHS.)

[magic75]

If you use high-speed copying you will get no quality degradation. The encoding chipsets can't work any faster than 1x, so highspeed copying and reencoding isn't possible.

btw, transcoding and re-encoding is pretty much the same thing.

[Cyrax9]

Hmm... something's been changed then because awhile back I remember a lot of fuss over the Panasonic units and their "secret re-encoding when dubbing" although this was in 2003/2004 so maybe it was "fixed" when they took care of the whole IRE Disaster. (Or at least tried to fix that mess.)

I always thought transcoding was taking a clip of a video, say the first five minutes of a 15 minute program and recording just that part without rte-encoding while re-encoding was taking the entire 15 minute video and recompressing it.

I appreciate the info on High-Speed dubbing, I'm assuming this is for both DVD-R and DVD-RAM as I usually master onto DVD-RAM, but thank you for the information. Also you wrote:

The encoding chipsets can't work any faster than 1x...

According to the manual I can do "High-Speed Dubbing" onto 8X DVD-Rs in this unit @ 8X, I don't know if the manual is "lying" again (e.g Unit has a TBC/unit has a stablizer but Panasonic chose to bastardize the term TBC to describe it) but in any case the help is appreciated. High-Speed seemed to look fine to me when I tried it but I remember someone once mentioning that Panasonic units re-encoded.

Thanks for the help though, I appreciate it.

[magic75]

The encoding chipsets can't work any faster than 1x...

According to the manual I can do "High-Speed Dubbing" onto 8X DVD-Rs in this unit @ 8X,

Exactly my point, therefore re-encoding when doing High-speed dubbing isn't possible as the encoding chip can't encode any faster than realtime, hence at high-speed dubbing the encoding chip is bypassed and the data on the harddrive is simply copied bit-by-bit to the DVD. Do you understand? Your manual isn't lying.

Normal dubbing <=> Re-encoding is ALWAYS performed
High-speed dubbing <=> Re-encoding CAN'T be performed

Hmm... something's been changed then because awhile back I remember a lot of fuss over the Panasonic units and their "secret re-encoding when dubbing"

I don't think it has "changed", they just added the high-speed dubbing feature.

[Cyrax9]

Ahh thank you for clearing that up for me. I really appreciate it.

I'm going to probably dub everything in High-Speed now to avoid any re-encoding pitfalls, I hope it's the same for DVD-RAM which is my mastering format and would be a pain to replace.