Recording tests: how to do?

[Cirruz]

I there,

I've seen several DVD recording tests in this forum, mainly from the Ice Age DVD. Is there a guide on how to procede, in order to do it in the same way everybody does?

My main problem is with copy protection... The Panasonic DMR-EH50 I bought complains about everything I throw at him! It's very annoying... It even complains about an old VHS tape I recorded from TV air broadcast! Is this normal? I can't even record the menus and screensaver from my DVD player (without a DVD in the drive)!

The DVD player it's a Mustek DVD-V520 and I tried the Macrovision hack posted in the "DVD Hacks" section. But that didn't solve the problem... Does anyone have a clue on how the handle this?

Thanks in advance!

[CrayonEater]

If you're trying to copy a DVD from a DVD player to a DVD recorder then you are not doing it in the same way everybody does. Just about everybody does it on the PC using software.

As far as VHS goes, VHS can appear to be copy-protected to some DVD recorders, even home-recorded tapes. All DVD recorders are required to prevent recording if they detect copy-protection signals from the source, be it a DVD, tape, etc. but more often than not these "signals" are false alarms. I recommend returning that DVD recorder if you can. If not, you can get a Time Base Corrector from anywhere from $100 to $500 and that *may* remove the embedded signals that are screwing with your DVD recorder. A TBC/clarifier is a very good idea anyway if you are doing VHS to DVD transfers at it corrects signal timing errors coming from the source.

[trhouse]

I have done a lot of testing using the THX test patterns from the ICE AGE. One of these threads has been made into a sticky recently. What I should do is add a section to that sticky about how the tests were done so that others can repeat them.

Gshelley61 and I with help from vhelp and Lordsmurf were finally able to use mostly freeware to do these tests so that any of us testing the same product could get the same results. Originally, I tried to duplicate Gshelley61's results but could not due to differences in software.

[Cirruz]

If you're trying to copy a DVD from a DVD player to a DVD recorder then you are not doing it in the same way everybody does. Just about everybody does it on the PC using software.

Hi CrayonEater, thanks for your response. For DVD "backup" purposes, I use CloneDVD2! What I was asking for was how to do the performance tests on the settop DVD recorder.

[Cirruz]

I have done a lot of testing using the THX test patterns from the ICE AGE. One of these threads has been made into a sticky recently. What I should do is add a section to that sticky about how the tests were done so that others can repeat them.

Just for a quick checkup: did you directly connected the DVD player to the recorder? Have you had any copy-protection problems? And to extract the frames, did you use VirtualDub-MPEG2? Thanks.

[trhouse]

Not exactly. I used dvd shrink to copy the THX test part of the ICE AGE disk to a dvd without any compression so the quality is the same as the original disk. I then played that disk which has no protection into the recorders. That requires access to the original disk. You may not need to do that. I think it may be possible to just copy the original jpegs from the sticky and play those into the recorder providing your player can play jpeg's.

I used VirtualDubMod. They may be the same program.