Toshiba RD-XS34 editing out adverts

[RosemaryP]

Can someone tell me - to edit out adverts from a telly programme recorded on Hard disc are you supposed to go to creat chapters - divide when the adverts start, and divide again at the end of the adverts. Going through the whole recording doing this each time you come to adverts and then when you have done them all go to chapters and delete the ones that are adverts.

This seems very complicated and you could delete the wrong chapters by mistake.

I cannot see anything in the manual to explain it.

RosemaryP

[redsox_mark]

Best way is to divide chapters as you describe, but don't delete them. Instead, create a playlist, and select the chapters you want to include. This doesn't delete anything, so no worry if you mistake, it is also better for your HDD. As your programme will be every other chapter it is quite easy to select the right ones - generally the even numbered chapters (chapter 1 is generally junk before the programme, chapter 2 the first segment of the programme, 3 is adverts, 4 more programme, etc....)

Once you have a playlist, you can watch that, and/or dub it to DVD.

Mark

[RosemaryP]

Thank you Mark,

I have seen playlists listed in the manual but did not know what they were and so just ignored that bit.

Will try what you said.

Hi,

Use the chapter divide button bottom right of the remote. Place a book mark when the adverts start then again when the adverts end.

Goto the edit menu, I think you select the bottom item to delete selected items. It will show programs you have recorded, hit the button to view the chapters you made in your program, one of the coloured buttons I am doing this from memory I dont have the machine infront of me.

Then you can highlight and enter one the ones you wish to delete. This moves then to the bottom pane, then select start and it deletes those chapters and merges the other together.

Just click to move down every other chapter. Also when you click to move it to the lower pane it tells you how long that chapter is, thus adverts will be about 4-5 minutes.

HTH
Quinn

[El_JimBob]

Now, unless i'm gravely mistaken, won't Quinn's advice result in a horribly fragmented HDD? One of the things that was pointed out to me at Xmas when i bought my XS32, was that deleting small parts of a recorded show (adverts for example) could result in problems later on....
Just my 2 bucks, but playlisting seems to be the safest and most convenient way to go.

[whatdoiknow]

I hope not because that is all I am doing at the moment, I am copying some DVDs and VHS to the HDD and sometimes I'm not there to stop it so I create the chapters up to the ending then all the cr@p at the end is the last chapter which I then delete.

[redland_doug]

Is fragmentation really a problem? Isn't that assuming rather a lot about the filesysystem on the HDD? As far as I can tell noone knows what filesystem the Tosh uses. I doubt (that is I really hope!) that it isn't something as duff as FAT!!! It should use a filesystem optimised for AV, that hopefully won't fragment. There are many log structuring and journalling techniques that can get round this. Of course it could just be FAT I suppose....

Doug.

[JethroUK]

Originally Posted by redland_doug

Is fragmentation really a problem?

No - The drive will be optimised for maximum a/v performance incl whooping great big sectors and buffered to iron out the wrinkles

Originally Posted by redland_doug

Is fragmentation really a problem?

Yes - If you reclaim 5 minutes drive space (delete) between hours used, then you end up with fragmentation = noisy over-active drive at best & failure at worst

I don't have a tosh, i have philips, i think it uses 1/2 meg sectors and the book says it won't even reclaim less than 5 minutes because of fragmentation (recommends not chopping anything that tiny out) - but i expect the principle is the same for all a/v drives if you want them to continue to run smoothly

not much benefit in reclaiming a few minutes of space when you can use a playlist and reclaim (delete) the whole contiguous chunk later anyhow

[redland_doug]

Agreed, but it all depends on how clever they want to be. If you have a filesystem which inherently fragments, then you can still get over it (background defrag'ing, which stops the moment some 'real' work need to be done, etc). Or you can be _much_ smarter, and use log structuring techniques which never fragment, but do have the drawback of having to garbage collect (again something that can be backgrounded if you are smart enough). Trouble is that in the wonderful world of cheapy consumer electronics no-one seems to want to spend the money to develop such filesystems. (Yes I do work in this sector!).

In the meantime, I'll be careful not to delete much stuff!

Cheers,

Doug

[redsox_mark]

The XS32 manual (not sure about the XS34) has this advice, which is why I use the Playlist method. Also, it is easy to recover if you make a mistake – once you delete a chapter it is gone.

“When you save necessary scenes from recorded contents, it may not be a good method to delete unnecessary portions from a recorded title in the HDD, then copy the remainder to a DVD-RAM disc.
Repeating this method increases blank spaces in the HDD, on which contents will be recorded discontinuously
(fragmentation in the HDD), resulting in slowdown of the system or incomplete deleting operation, in the worst case, the system may refuse any commands for play or recording, to protect the damaged HDD.
To delete unnecessary scenes from a title to save, first make a Playlist (virtual title) by collecting necessary scenes, then copy the Playlist to change it into a new title, finally delete the original one. This method is more simple and can save your time and reduce possibility of such fragmentation troubles of the HDD.
To avoid HDD fragmentations, it is also recommended that you execute periodically deletion of all titles in the HDD or initialization of the HDD. Before initializing the HDD, be sure to copy necessary contents to DVD-RAM discs, because initializing erases all data in the HDD. Library ( page 140) data are also recorded in the HDD. If you do not want to erase them, copy them into DVD-RAM discs before initializing the HDD. Load the backup DVD-RAM disc into the recorder after initializing the HDD, copy the data back to the HDD.”

Mark

[bradavon78]

The X34 says the same thing.

Does it have a defrag program like the Panasonic?

[pilotsnipes]

Well could someone just clear something up for me with regards the XS34.

If I goto the Edit menu for the HDD, select all the titles and then goto delete, will that be the same as initialising the disk?

Is that acceptable to remove all/any defragmentation and allow the machine to start again over a "fresh" disk surface?

Thanks!