Frustration with Toshiba D-VR7 - why?!?!

[ottawadave]

Hi all, Thank you in advance for your advice/input.
This week I purchased a Tosiba D-VR7 with the specific purpose to start transferring about 200 home movies on VHS onto DVDs. My goal is to throw a VHS tape in there, hit play, let it play out for 2 hrs, and then edit it on the recorder when I next have time. Cycle like that for a few weeks/months til I get through it all. Bought a spindle of DVD-RWs.

So tape #1, its a VHS tape only about 15 years old, originally recorded in SLP (6 hrs). I put the VHS tape in, put the DVR-RW in, set everything up just right, formatted the DVD to VR (I did some research, and I'm still not sure this was the right call, but this isn't my current issue - but I did VR because it seems a lot easier to edit... The first attempt I made, I was in the "video" mode, but it wouldn't let me edit the recording at the end, so I researched, and saw I needed to switch to "VR" mode to edit after dubbing), and selected record mode of SP (4 hrs). Figured the VHS tape would just run for 4 hrs til the DVD was full, then I could go back in, edit the scenes/bits out that I didn't want, slice it up into individual titles (the tapes are filled with events or shows that are anywhere from 10 minutes to 2 hours long), and that would be that.

Anyways, the problem I am running into is that the dubbing will run on its own fine, and I'll leave the room, turn off the TV, hide the controller... but when I come back in the room, I'll find that the dubbing only ran for a completely RANDOM amount of time. It will have somehow auto-shutoff anywhere from 15 minutes in, to two hours in. The file on the DVD will be as long as the point in the VHS tape that the tape ran until it shutoff.

At first I thought there was some kind of tracking issue on the tape or a blank spot or something that might have caused the machine to think that it was the "end" of the tape, and therefore shut off. But its not the case, theres no blip or anything. And then if I re-start the whole process, put the VHS tape back to the start and start dubbing again, it will run another random amount of time (past the point it stopped at last time) and then stop again at another random point. No consistency at all.

I've tried different VHS tapes, different DVD-RWs... there is absolutely no rhyme or reason for why its happening.

So I then assumed it was the deck itself. I called Toshiba technical help line to see if they had any insight, which they did not really. Their advice - exchange it. Which I did. Get home with the new unit... same problem!!!!

I swear to god I'm not an idiot, and i've worked with a lot of video and audio equipment over the years, so I'm not some newbie. I swear I'm doing everything right, and its all working - except for the fact that the stupid tape stops dubbing at random points of time.

Please help!

(my secondary issue is this whole VR issue - if I want to make DVDs that I can watch on regular DVD players, it seems I can't record on the recorder in VR mode, correct? Even if I "finalize" the disc, it doesn't make it better right? What should I do? Should I be using DVD+RWs instead of DVR-RWs? Should I just record in video mode and don't worry about editing?)

Thanks so much to anyone who can assist with either/both issues. Much much appreciated, and I'll keep my sanity!
Cheers
Dave

[jman98]

Thanks for that informative post. I wish everybody would provide that much detail who needs help. Unfortunately I'm not the best DVD recorder guy here, but I'll start the ball rolling at least.

You have a DVD/VHS combo unit. Unfortunately such combo devices are known to be overly fussy when recording from VHS tapes. As you found out, it takes very little, in your case nothing, for the DVD recorder side to freak out and essentially say "Danger! Danger Will Robinson! Commercial tape detected! Abort recording! Abort recording!" Sadly it happens all the time with combo units. They're overly sensitive and the least little thing makes them decide you've got a commercial tape and they need to stop recording it. The only good solution (you're not gonna like it) is to use separate VHS and DVD recorder devices as DVD recorders are less fussy about recording your homemade tapes than the combo units are. Some DVD recorders are still overly sensitive, but in general it's less of a problem.

Use only Verbatim RW discs. My dad has an old Toshiba VHS/DVD combo unit like yours and it only records to -R and -RW discs. Check your manual to see if yours has such limitations. And don't use VR mode for best compatibility with other DVD players.

[hech54]

1) RW discs are not worth the aggravation any more. Just buy a stack of DVD-R (Verbatim or Taiyo Yuden) and use VIDEO mode. Great quality discs are inexpensive....especially at places like rima.com.
2) Never let a DVD recorder just run until the end of the recording and stop on it's own. That's always been a recipe for disaster...and banging your head against the wall demanding this simple and obvious feature should work flawlessly in this day and age is not going to help(not that you are doing it now...just don't go there in the future).
3) The recordings being cut short may have NOTHING to do with the above two statements. Many recorders throughout history have had a nasty habit of stopping the recording when a blank screen is presented to them(between scenes, dark scenes, etc etc). You may need to sit there and monitor what is going on.

[ottawadave]

Thanks so much for the quick replies. Very much appreciated. Great information in there, a lot of which I wish I had known before I just wasted the last week. Ok so good to know then its not me going crazy, the recorder then is just fussy and the auto-shutting off is relatively 'normal'. I'll be patient with it, or if it continues/for trickier tapes, probably will switch over and just dub tapes from another VCR to the recorder as an input. Not a huge problem.

As for the media to use, I appreciate the tips on the types of media... I'm still confused though.. if I use DVD-Rs, or even DVD-RWs, I have basically no eiting power, correct? What I put on the DVD has to stay on there, I can't say, run the recording, and if I forget about it while in another room and I've accidentally gone 15 minutes over on recording a one hour video from my VHS to the DVD, I can't do anything to edit out those extra 15 minutes of content? My research tho has shown that if I use a DVD+RW disc, I can still do some editing (but then the +RWs are VR mode by nature, are they not? Therefore I'll have trouble playing them in most standard DVD players?)

Sorry if some of these questions are really basic... I've never used a DVD recorder before. Burned many DVDs but always with my PC, so I'm able to edit and menu as I please. This seems a bit more difficult and limited to do it with a DVD recorder...

Thank you again,
Dave

[hech54]

This site is geared for "computer editing" nowadays. Editing those DVD-R discs is actually easier on a computer(trust me...I paid over $800 for one of the first DVD recorders all those years ago)than it is on the recorder. Recorders are still VERY handy for newbies to the game but trust me...get that footage to DVD first and foremost at the best quality you can....THEN worry about editing later.
Anything beyond a "two hour" recording on a DVD Recorder is also NOT recommended. That produces what is called a "Half D1" recording on the disc and will make your later editing life more difficult. Yea...your tapes are already 6 hour mode but why make it worse?
Like I said...quality DVD blanks are cheap(inexpensive)....so you'll have an un-edited stack and a "finished product - edited" stack when you are done....you'll have backups of your material AND it did not cost an arm and a leg.
http://www.rima.com/prod/1762-100.html

[jman98]

VR mode offers some editing options, but people with real experience (I have none) on this will have to comment on what exactly that is. However, the way DVD+RW discs work is in a way that is supposed to compatible with normal DVD video and VR mode on -R and -RW discs is different from that. You should be able to play finalized DVD+RW discs on any reasonably modern DVD player, although some older models may not support any RW discs.

I sort of got focused on my reply and didn't fully pay attention to the goal of the original post, but since the goal is to keep these copied VHS tapes, you might consider just recording to DVD-R (or DVD+R if you prefer AND your recorder supports it) instead of RW discs. RW discs are poor for long term storage. Go with Verbatim (not the Life series, but everything else they make is OK) or Taiyo Yuden (buy online) for the best quality media and the most likely to still be playable years from now. If you really need to do a lot of editing then perhaps RW discs are your best bet, but once you get everything finished you'll need to copy those to DVD-R or DVD+R for long term storage.

[darito]

@ottawadave I also have a Toshiba D-VR7 and the editing and recording functions with different media are easily explained by a chart on the user's manual in page 9. It compares all the options in a simple manner. I find the editing functions and options to be confusing. If I ever need editing I'll do it in my PC.

[robjv1]

A lot of DVD recorders (can't speak to this one personally) work just fine with DVD-RW media -- you just want to buy all of the ones you plan to use at the same time and not use them in any other devices for burning. Buy low-speed discs (1x, 2x, 4x), format them in DVD-Video mode, finalize and rip the disc to your computer, edit them in MPEG Video Wizard (or whatever your favorite frame accurate editor is), then burn to TY DVD-R discs and reuse the DVD-RW (format it only in your recorder). I've done about 900 discs using this process with no trouble at all. I've never found editing on the recorder itself to be a productive endeavor and it's just more hours on the laser and writing to the discs.