Terapin VDR demonstration VCD.

[AntnyMD]

I hope this is the right forum for my comments.

I've been considering a purchase of the subject VDR. The Terapin site will send you a demonstration VCD made on a Terapin for you to check quality before you buy. What a great idea! I ordered the disk on Friday night ... I received it in the mail on Monday (yesterday)!

I popped it in my DVD player to have a look. I found the clip copied from cable television to be the best of the three presented. There was very little blockiness in medium motion scenes -- less than I expected. The clip copied from video via s-video cable (is that right?) looked good, but it might look better from a source other than someone's badly lit wedding video.

I expect this would do well to copy television shows on the fly that you'd want to watch once then record over the disc. I couldn't say if it would be a good way to archive shows, although I definitely can say this knocks Dazzle DVC1 captures, even with the bitrates maxed out, right out of the water.

I'm gonna rate this one a purchase, based on what I saw with the demonstration disc. I figure it will be a good piece of equipment to have in the interim before DVD recorders become available. Besides, even when I get a DVD recorder (and I will get one!), there will still be some things that are not DVD-worthy, like soaps and the evening news.

[ejai]

I own a Terapin and love it. It is good for archiving and making home videos. It's quality rivals that of Tmpgenc and other software encoders. If you copy a DVD, cable or even satellite the quality is incredible. I purchased a video enhancer and the quality is even better. The best part about it is that you create a movie on the fly, no more waiting for encoding.

Until DVD becomes afforadable I will continue using the Terapin to make VCDs

[patrickm]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
Until DVD becomes afforadable I will continue using the Terapin to make VCDs
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

i don't really have an opinion either way on the terrapin, but in terms of 'affordable' i think $650 for a DVD-RW definitely puts it on a level playing field with a $500 terrapin, doesn't it? true, dvd-r discs cost more, but the ability to do full-length on one disc with great quality is a big plus.

i also agree with the point that some things aren't dvd-worthy sources though too. anyone who's ever seen cox or adelphia cable would back me up on that...

[googlioboy]

[quote]
On 2001-07-31 11:45:44, ejai wrote:
I purchased a video enhancer and the quality is even better.
--Don't even do that. Just place the Terapin in your audio/video rack, just like a second vcr. The trick is to not finalize the disc, and use the Terapin alone to play it. The picture quality rivals dvd.

[AntnyMD]

Why not finalize the disc?

If you leave the disc unfinalized, can you open up the MPEG (or .DAT) in your computer for editing and authoring in Nero, etc?

[ejai]

Nope, you must finalize the disk first, no other device can read the disk unfinalize but the Terapin.