strange green line and other anomolies

[pan-dmre30s]

1.

I have noticed on several Variable bit rate recordings of VHS tapes to DVD-R using my panasonic DMR E30S an artifact at the bottom of the screen.

It is always on the right side and lasts for about 15-30 seconds.

Is this something to do with the VCR/Tape possibly?

2.
Also I have had one DVD record and finalize however it failed to play the 13th chapter of a 15 chapter movie.
(Each chapter is 5 minutes apart)

my apex player gets past this glitch but the video is blocky and garbled at this spot.

is it due to disc defect (using cheap DVD-R media )

Anyway it is so far an impressive machine.

[PhilipL]

Withdrawn

[pan-dmre30s]

Thank you for your reply.
You were correct on both points.

Point 1.

I was able to notice that it was indeed noise from the VHS tape after some more examples were recorded.

At first it did not look to be across the entire screen due to low position on the picture.

I just saw some green pixels at one corner of the screen.

Other examples were more pronounced .


Point 2.

So far my success rate is 2 failures from 30 discs.

It is always on a chapter later in the disc.

these were at the bottom of the spindle and were damaged in shipping I guess.

Nothing visible which is seen with naked eye however like scratches or pits.


New issue to diagnose:

I was recording a Varibale Bit rate dvd-R two days ago.

And at a certain point the DVD recorder stoped the first recording and inserted a new recording automatically.

That is the resultant dvd had 2 recordings where the movie was split at a certain point about an hour into the movie.

I noticed this before finalizing when it said I had 2 recordings instead of the normal one.

I did not touch the remote or the unit during the recording

the resultant dvd seemed to be fine and not missing any video to my knowledge.
It finalized and plays okay.

The second recording did not have a time/date on the menu

has anyone had this happen before?


second Question: how do you find out your firmware version?
I did not see anything about this in the manual

I apreciate any help.

[pan-dmre30s]

I am answering my own question posted earlier.

The problem of a secondary recording starting on its own is related to
DVD-R sector errors and the unit detecting this somehow.

It will start recording one video set VTS_01_X.VOB for example at beginning of show.

When it hits a set of bad sectors on the DVD-R it will start a new video set automatically.

Disc finalizes and plays okay except for the few bad sectors at end of video set one.

As a result you loose several seconds of video/audio.

Two new issues experienced

1.
Automatic shutdown of recording while in a timed record mode before timer expires.

a U11 message is displayed on unit front and disc is garbage afterwards because it will not finalize the partial recording.

Also the panasonic unit does not read the disc correctly anymore.

Curious if this could be caused by a sudden insertion of copy protected video source or is this again because of media errors.

2.
Had one recording where chapter breaks were at 12 minutes instead of the normal 5.

All recording options were set same as all others.

Makes browsing the video more awkward due to few chapters but it plays fine.

[PhilipL]

Withdrawn

[pan-dmre30s]

Thank you for your response PhillipL

I can accept an occasional foul up. This has happened to me before on 2 media types even on a computer.

I had suspicions on the media but did not want to just guess as I dont know for sure what heppens when protected video is added after recording starts.

I am not willing to pay a lot for media myself because I need so many hundreds now. (went through 100 ACCU and 200 DVDPro so far)

I am now using the DVDPro discs I bought previously months ago in bulk for a computer recorder Pioneer A104 until they run out which is soon.

However when looking for new replacement media I noticed they clearly state DVDPro DVD-R discs do not work on Panasonic standalone DVD recorders.

I can say that they have worked for me but they are not very reliable with a failure rate of around 8 out of 100. I used them because I had them already mainly.

I plan to switch back to the ACCU DVD-R discs which are slightly more expensive and verified to be supported in panasonic standalone recorders.
I have no ideas that they have ever went into a verification lab however.

Personally I do not like their silver top and prefer the white DVDPro discs.