Is there a good dvd recorder for 4hr recording?

[GlassOnion]

What is the best stand alone dvd recorder for 4hr recording?

[redwudz]

Remember you are asking for opinions, not necessarily facts. I like the Pioneer units with large hard drives.

And this question is more suited to our DVD Recorders Forum. Moving you.

[GlassOnion]

Reason i ask is i have the panasonic DMRES-20, i have no problem recording tv shows on 4hr,the picture is fine. when i record wrestling,with all the fast moving it becomes pixelated a bit,i was just wondering if theres a better machine that would give me a better picture in 4hrs

[mats.hogberg]

Four hours to a DVD? It has to look bad.

/Mats

[Brent G.]

The pixelation could be your carrier. I know when I switched from cable to ADSL for TV & modem, there is pixelation on high speed movement on the TV (without going through a recorder). This is because the modem is carrying the modem data, and video for 3 tv's so its compression will pixelate when there is a lot of motion on the TV. (It's getting overloaded with data or the compression rate is too high)

I can record wrestling from satellite just fine using 4 hour mode on my Pioneer. (I have a friend who is a wrestling fan).

If you buy a new DVR, I'd recommend getting one with a hard drive. Also buy it from a place that will take it back within 30 days no questions asked. If you use it more than 1 hr a day, then get an extended warranty on it because they are extremely expensive to fix and will always fail within a few weeks of the warranty expiring.

Brent

[GlassOnion]

Thanks. i get the pixelation from raw and smackdown and tna,any of my tapes that are older,not smackdown and raw,the picture is fine at 4hrs,alos tv shows are fine,just mainly the wrestling.again thanks

[Epicurus8a]

I rarely exceed 2hrs 15min due to poor quality (single layer discs). If you want to get 4 hours on one disc, I'd suggest a recorder that can handle dual layer discs: The Pioneer DVR-640H and Panasonic DMR-EH55 are the first ones that come to mind. (BTW, I haven't tried either machine.)

[lordsmurf]

Quality is directly related to the encoder and the bitrate. Panasonic is a poor encoder at Half D1 values and lower bitrates. It will look awful beyond SP mode.

JVC, on the other hand, does excellent quality up to 4 hours.

Most people fail to understand MPEG encoding. An SP mode 2-hour DVD is nothing magic, it uses 720x480 @ 5000-5500k VBR. An LP 4-hour DVD is half of that, 352x480 @ 2000-2500k VBR, and therefore, theoretically, should be transparent in quality, coming from traditional sources (cable, satellite, VHS, antenna, etc). Sadly, most equipment is optimized for 2-hour SP only, and looks like barf beyond that cherry setting. It has little to do with running time, and more to do with quality settings; forget what you think you knew about VHS quality (and it's relation to running time), it's not the same at all.

A few machines are tweaked from front to back, like the JVC, good at all settings (up to 4 hours ... NO MACHINE looks good past 4 hours and a few minutes).

Some Pioneer and Toshiba machines do quite well at 3-4 hours too, though it gets harder to follow the models, as those companies keep changing things on their equipment.

LSI chipset equipment handles Half D1 encoding better than most others.

Sadly, JVC is harder to find these days (not many models in the USA anymore, better selection in Japan/Europe/Canada), so I'd suggest seeking out a Toshiba XS-series (with hard drive) recorder. That's about as close as you'll get to a JVC.

Wrestling is one of those content that really shows off the flaws of MPEG encoding. Just look up "wrestling" and "JVC" in the forum, and you'll see lots of positive feedback.

I record a lot of wrestling too (especially transferring my 1990s WWF recordings to disc). The 2-hour and 4-hour are going to look about the same, just remember that! For better quality, do 1-hour or 3-hour settings (more bitrate to keep noise at bay!).

Another good suggestion I see above is worth repeating: get a good DVD recorder for SP mode, then use dual-layer discs, which should give you ALMOST 4 hours worth of time. The LG models would be my pick for this.

Good luck.

[MeekloBraca]

Thats what Ive done what Smurf suggests.

I record my racing tapes over to DVD. So like wrestling you have fast moving objects on the screen which look pixalated as you said. So I record...say a 2 hour 40 minute race in 1:20 incriments and edit them. SOunds like a lot of work? Well I edit in my own menus, add a nice picture and have a pretty decent looking dvd menu.

[InXess]

I get no pixelation on LG LRH-780 (available in Canada also to US buyers via futureshop.ca) and 4 hr mode looks nice (kids TV shows that we cram on a single disk - 5 1-hr episodes less commercials - roughly 43 min a piece) 250 min on a single disc DVD-R = max capacity. Looks good, slightly less sharp then digital TV (minimal, acceptable loss).

[BCdave]

I can confirm InXess' experience with the LG LRH-780: I tape baseball games in 4 hour mode, and to my eye, the PQ is about equal to the original analog broadcast. All LG recorders have the LSI encoding chip referred to by lordsmurf, which I believe accounts for the exceptional quality down to 4 hour mode for LG and JVC.
Here's the press release for the LG DR1F9H, a non-HDD model available in the USA (although I'd recommend the 80GB or 250GB HDD models sold in Canada, as they're usually on sale for about $265US/$440US at futureshop.ca, the Canadian affiliate of Best Buy) http://www.lsilogic.com/news/product_news/2006_07_25a.html

One desirable feature missing from the LGs is FR recording, to fit the recording to the blank disc. Most JVC models have this feature, as do Pioneer & Toshiba recorders. The LGs, however, will record to all formats, including +RDL (I recommend the Verbatim DL discs)

[trhouse]

The person who started this thread has a Panasonic DMR-ES20 which also has the same LSI chipset as the JVC and LG. Four hour mode is a compromise for all brands. Some compromise by dropping to 1/2 D1 at four hours ( JVC ) others ( Panasonic, Pioneer 640 ) stay at full D1 and lower the bitrate. One results in softness in the playback and the other more blocking.

Verbatim +R DL is my solution if the four hour recording has to go to a disk. For time shifting cable TV, a hard drive recorder is a better solution since SP mode recording can go for 12 hours such as with the Pioneer 531. The 12 hour limitation is created by the firmware and refers to a single title.

[InXess]

With LG LRH-780/790 you won't even miss the 2.5 or 3 hr mode as the difference between 2 and 4 hr mode is almost not there (you would have to know it and be looking for flaws). If I played 4hr rec. mode video to anyone I bet no one would notice that it's not a regular broadcast (digital).The video is very clean. Initially I was not happy about the lack of FR encoding but after testing it I don't even notice it anymore. Without knowing what's the source you could easily take it for a regular broadcast and there's nothing in the picture that will make you feel you are getting some inferior material. You can record at one quality setting to the HDD and transfer to DVD at another (re-encode). Overall, quality-wise LG has a clearly superior product. No regrets whatsoever.

Edit:
I recently recorded auto and motorcycle racing, just great, like the original. As a time-shifting device it is as good as SA 8500 PVR (perhaps under close scrutiny not as good but has to be very damn close). 4hr mode definitely exceeded my expectations.

[lordsmurf]

The person who started this thread has a Panasonic DMR-ES20 which also has the same LSI chipset as the JVC and LG. Four hour mode is a compromise for all brands. Some compromise by dropping to 1/2 D1 at four hours ( JVC ) others ( Panasonic, Pioneer 640 ) stay at full D1 and lower the bitrate. One results in softness in the playback and the other more blocking.

I don't agree. This is online myth.

While Panasonic uses the LSI, it does so poorly. Their machine is still optimizing for SP mode, and everything else looks bad. It's because they make a boneheaded insistence that LP be 720x480,m which is inadequate bitrate (Full D1 @ 2000-2500k).

LG and JVc, on the other hand, use Half D1. Now this is where the myth come in, about a "compromise" being made. Using Half D1 is not a compromise when your original source is at or near the same resolution to begin with. Using Full D1 will not magically make lower resolution source sharper. Now, there are some situations where a DVD recorder might artificially sharpen an image, but it's never suggested, as they do a poor job. Use a SignVideo DR-1000 if you want to sharpen something (and then record in a higher res too).

The only one compromising quality here is the pig-headed Panasonic that makes a poor choice in recording resolution. The JVC and LG make no such compromises.

[davideck]

The person who started this thread has a Panasonic DMR-ES20 which also has the same LSI chipset as the JVC and LG. Four hour mode is a compromise for all brands. Some compromise by dropping to 1/2 D1 at four hours ( JVC ) others ( Panasonic, Pioneer 640 ) stay at full D1 and lower the bitrate. One results in softness in the playback and the other more blocking.

I don't agree. This is online myth.

trhouse is exactly right.

While Panasonic uses the LSI, it does so poorly. Their machine is still optimizing for SP mode, and everything else looks bad. It's because they make a boneheaded insistence that LP be 720x480,m which is inadequate bitrate (Full D1 @ 2000-2500k).

This is a subjective picture quality issue. Stated from a different perspective;

"While JVC uses the LSI, it does so poorly. Their machine is still optimizing for 352x480 mode, and everything else looks bad. It's because they make a boneheaded insistence that the noise reduction always be on, which is inadequate for 720x480 resolution which is necessary for anything but the poorest of VHS quality sources (less than 240 lines of horizontal resolution)."

Everyone has their own picture quality preferences, but the compromises are real. There is a reason why all manufacturers choose 720x480 for their higher quality capture modes.

[Capmaster]

It's hard to pick a recorder for "4 hour recording" because the material will determine in a large part how well it turns out. Record a movie that's mainly dialogue and ...yeah ...it'll be fine. But record a movie with flashing lights and fire, the two hardest scenes on an encoder, and you'll have macro blocks all over.

Two movies that come to mind for torture testing encoders is Starship Troopers 2 and Event Horizon. If you can find a recorder that will record one of those 1.5 to 2 hour movies off satellite without macro blocks - GRAB IT!! Chances are it will record a less stressful 4-hour movie just fine.

[LCSHG]

I think [redwudz] Said it very well

Remember you are asking for opinions, not necessarily facts.

I have used 4hr more than once and the result has been very good. I have, on rare ocasions, used 6hr and the result is not that bad. [This is In The Real World]

I have a liteon 5045 and two 5005, two ilo RHDo4 and a R04 all with LSI chipsets.

I have only seen pixelation or anything resembling it when snow or rain on the dish screws up the satellite reception, and once when a DVD hiccuped on a 2hr recording

[GlassOnion]

In the 4hr mode on the panasonic dmres20,when i tape wrestling i have on VHS from say back in the 70s early 80s,before the picture was say more high tech and lots of lighting its fine on 4hrs or for that matter any tv show i tape in 4hr speed is fine,when taping raw or smacdown its real pixilated,are you sayin the LG make will help that in 4hr?

[trhouse]

trhouse wrote:
The person who started this thread has a Panasonic DMR-ES20 which also has the same LSI chipset as the JVC and LG. Four hour mode is a compromise for all brands. Some compromise by dropping to 1/2 D1 at four hours ( JVC ) others ( Panasonic, Pioneer 640 ) stay at full D1 and lower the bitrate. One results in softness in the playback and the other more blocking.


I don't agree. This is online myth.

This is not myth. It can be easily tested by applying different quality sources to a recorder making these compromises and looking at the results. The comment is about what manufacturers do to get a four mode, and not intended to be about the circumstances, involving source and display, in which they are best applied. Note the author of this thread never mentioned in the original post what the source was, only the subject matter.

Using Half D1 is not a compromise when your original source is at or near the same resolution to begin with

This has merit. It is generally true that for low resolution, high motion video the 1/2 D1, higher bitrate compromise is a good one, just as it is generally true that for high resolution, low motion video the full D1, lower bitrate compromise is a good one.

I do not believe any of these manufacturers are making a poor choice at four hours. The fact that there is a choice leaves it up to the consumer to recognize what these manufacturers are doing and decide for themselves which compromise is the most suitable for their type of video.

Standard VHS sources with 240 lines of resolution are pretty good candidates for 1/2 D1 unless it is S-VHS which at 400 lines of resolution may suffer from it.

when taping raw or smacdown its real pixilated

What do you mean by "raw"?

[FulciLives]

The answer is that 4 hours is just too much time to record to a single layer DVD disc.

Even if using Half D1 resolution I still suggest strongly to stay at around the 3 hour mark for "best" quality.

So I guess my recommendation would be to pick a DVD recorder that has a 3 hour mode that uses Half D1 resolution.

Some of the newer LSI chipset DVD recorders have a 3 hour mode that uses ... as I understand it ... the Half D1 resolution. I think the Funai DVD recorders also use Half D1 at the 3 hour mode.

I love the Pioneer DVD recorders but they don't use Half D1 until you are way past the 4 hour mode which makes no sense. Toshiba DVD recorders (at the least the HDD models) are also great but I'm not sure when they switch to Half D1 resolution.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[robjv1]

No kidding about MPEG2 compression and wrestling - it is a great challenge. I've messed around with different recorders and equipment forever trying to get it to look right and in my experience the JVC recorders (I have the DRM-100 - best recorder I've owned thus far) do an admirable job.

I used to have a Lite-On LVW-5005 for this project but I am a bit of a stickler for quality and it was a bit too soft for me on the three hour LP mode (hacked) and the SP mode didn't quite handle the fast movements as well as I'd hoped, but it did a pretty good job. I would notice that when the action really picked up, small, detailed areas of the picture -- details like the faces of the wrestlers -- would have "stair-step" looking artifacts. The JVC does a better job I think in the same SP mode with stuff like this. It doesn't produce such a ragged looking image.

Now I must say there is nothing that bothers me more then MPEG2 artifacts... I just cannot put them out of my head when I watch something, it just ruins the experience for me, and when you watch a lot of wrestling encoded on a crappy recorder then it is unbearable.

So I really wanted to archive my stuff using between 60 minutes and 120 minutes of video per disc -- so I would suggest on whatever recorder you get I think the "FR" (free rate) function is a MUST if you want to encode wrestling.

Basically what I've decided on is to split everything onto two discs -- you can get dual-holder DVD cases from lots of places online for cheap -- although if you don't have a multiple disc player you DO actually have to get off the couch to change the disc :P) Even after you buy the cases though, it's STILL cheaper then dual-layer discs, and what is really the big deal with having two discs. I'm not sure I trust the longevity of DVD-dual layer discs in the long-run, but that might be the skeptic (and cheapskate) coming out of me. I say just stick with one disc and spend that extra money you will save on the cases and putting it towards a better playback device or a proc-amp.

I have played around with the settings on some tough tapes and I feel that using FR-80 or FR-85 on my JVC is best. I like my wrestling sharp too (and use a DR-1000 enhancer and a PA-200 proc amp) and I find it looks better using the FR-80 versus the SP or three hour modes. Since most wresting pay shows run about 10 or 20 minutes short of 3hrs, this spreads things out evenly over two discs. The artifacts are also minimal when using this, even when the speedy crusierweights start flying around. Even when I play the discs back on my LCD monitor the artifacts and imperfections don't jump out and slap me in the mouth as much (although as to be expected the VHS sources look miles better on a good CRT, or even a crappy CRT really) and everything looks nice and relatively sharp.

One thing I have noticed is that early 1980's NWA wrestling (dark arena, muted colors) tends to look better then the glitzy, super-saturated, super contrasted, busy image of the WWF early 1990's stuff. Just less to overwhelm the encoder I am guessing?

So to actually address the original posters questions -- for a person like me -- not really. I think the JVC is your best bet though regardless of what bit rate you use, it's just a fine recorder. If you use a JVC VCR and feel it softens your image too much as some people feel (a debate that will continue I am sure) then get a DR-1000 which will give you MUCH more control over the sharpness on a variety of sources then presets like "sharp" or "soft" are going to give you.

Don't forget to get a TBC and a JVC VCR with a TBC if you are doing transferring a ton of tapes recorded in the early 90s (like 95% of my stuff) on that 2-headed mono no-name VCR your dad bought for you at Goodwill in 1988 -- because the only thing jumping on your screen should be Mr. Perfect and not your misaligned video.

[GlassOnion]

robjv1 you refering to the wavy pictures and stuff when transfering

[deuce8pro]

(I have the DRM-100 - best recorder I've owned thus far) do an admirable job.

It does. But I dont think it offers time based correction? Someone correct me if im wrong.

[davideck]

Toshiba DVD recorders (at the least the HDD models) are also great but I'm not sure when they switch to Half D1 resolution.

The Toshiba RD-KX50 changes from Full D1 to Half D1 at 3.8 Mbs (146 minutes with D/M1 audio). The loss of picture detail at Half D1 resolution is clearly visible on both the HDMI and the analog outputs.

A great input source for this test is the TV Guide Channel. The one in my area has a stationary legend (with a slowly changing current time character display), a scrolling character display below the legend, and picture content above (including a stationary TV Guide logo). Make a short recording of each record mode on a DVD, and then skip from recording to recording during playback. You can also compare to the original source by stopping or switching. Loss of detail can be seen by focusing on the current time character display and the TV Guide logo.

The difference in detail may seem slight, but keep in mind that it represents original picture content that is being lost. It is not noise. It is not sharpness. It is detail. Once it's gone, it's gone.

MPEG compression artifacts look terrible too, but I see them at almost all resolutions and bitrates. This includes HDTV, sadly enough. So I'd rather preserve my source at the resolution that it needs and use a high enough bitrate to minimize the artifacts.

[davideck]

(I have the DRM-100 - best recorder I've owned thus far) do an admirable job.

It does. But I dont think it offers time based correction? Someone correct me if im wrong.

The JVC is less tolerant of horizontal jitter errors than many other DVD Recorders. In contrast, the Toshiba is particularly good at reducing horizontal jitter.

[lordsmurf]

when taping raw or smacdown its real pixilated

What do you mean by "raw"?

WWE Raw (formerly WWF Raw) is the Monday night event. I think it's currently being shown on USA Network. WWE Smackdown is on UPN (CW, I guess, now). And then WWE ECW is on SciFi (why on earth they put it on Scifi is beyond me... it's not SciFi in any sense of the word).

You also have TNA and some other smaller ones.

[robjv1]

I agree -- the less you add artifacts to source that already has them, the better. I was watching Alien the other night on Cinemax HD I believe via Comcast (trouble right there alone probably) and towards the end where Ripley is running around the ship and there is a lot of smoke and flashing lights the ENTIRE picture became a big MPEG2 artifact mess. There is just no way around it, so I think using the highest bit-rate you can use is ideal in most situations if preserving the original detail is important to you.

[MeekloBraca]

"Now I must say there is nothing that bothers me more then MPEG2 artifacts... I just cannot put them out of my head when I watch something, it just ruins the experience for me, and when you watch a lot of wrestling encoded on a crappy recorder then it is unbearable."

Agreed 100%. And I am someone who uses the recorder to archive my old Raw's and Nascar races, both of which have fast moving objects which artifact. The DRM 100 isnt perfect, i still see small artifacts at FR 75-FR90 mode which is a little odd, but it holds the resolution well and still produces the best reproduction of what the VHS tape looked like.

[robjv1]

Yeah there are certainly still SOME artifacts at FR-80 -- but with wrestling you will see it in XP mode even. I don't know -- perhaps it would be better to capture everything AVI and do multi-pass filtering, but that would exponentially increase your time invested in it for sure. FR80 or so for me is a great balance of disc use vs quality. Much of the WWF/WCW stuff that's been released on VHS (or stuff taped off the air) will likely never be seen in it's original incarnation aside from those releases, due to the licensing issues involved with the music on the shows, along with lawsuits restricting the use of certain logos and intellectual properties featured in said shows. A lot of them have seen DVD releases, but they are typically heavily edited in terms of the aforementioned issues, both visually and in the audio. It is no fun! This makes it important for collectors of rare video or VHS sources that have no chance in making a DVD release to preserve this stuff in the best quality possible.

[InXess]

...where Ripley is running around the ship and there is a lot of smoke and flashing lights the ENTIRE picture became a big MPEG2 artifact mess. There is just no way around it, so I think using the highest bit-rate you can use is ideal in most situations if preserving the original detail is important to you.

I've read quite a few times in this forum that explosion fireball is the most demanding scene to encode. I think that you are much closer to the truth. News events as well as sports events with a slew of photographic flashes are by far the most demanding in terms of encoding to MPEG2 as the change is dramatic from 1 frame to the next and then back to original (3 frames for the whole sequence, explosions, fire take a lot more). No wonder that when you see a strobe light your picture goes blurry from blocks. That would be typical at less then optimal quality encoding for given material.