Panasonic DMREX773 - Recording from Sky

Schreck

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Hello,

Interested in buying one of these and have been told that to record from Sky I must use the co-ax feed out of the TV - is this correct?

I'm already doing this distributing the signal through other rooms in the house and whilst the quality is varying I guess this will mean that I can record Sky to disc.

So what I want to know is, what's the best way to record Sky to DVD in the best possible quality, and is this the machine for the job?

Also, if I recorded something of a HD channel would it easily convert to standard?

Many thanks in advance.
 
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Hello,

Interested in buying one of these and have been told that to record from Sky I must use the co-ax feed out of the TV - is this correct?

No.
To record from sky, use a fully wired scart from the TV scart socket of the skybox if your skybox has two scart sockets, otherwise use the single scart socket... and ensure that sky is configured to output RGB which will give you the best signal quality.
I'm already doing this distributing the signal through other rooms in the house and whilst the quality is varying I guess this will mean that I can record Sky to disc.

So what I want to know is, what's the best way to record Sky to DVD in the best possible quality, and is this the machine for the job?

Configure as above.
This is one of the best machines for the job as it will intake RGB.

Note that these DVDR's do not have modulators so they produce no output of their own via RF so cannot be distributed elsewhere via that method.
Also, if I recorded something of a HD channel would it easily convert to standard?

Many thanks in advance.

It is the sky box that does the downgrade to SD from HD ( It's mandatory anyway and there is no choice) so there will be no problem.
 
Hi Gavtech,

Thanks a lot for your information.

The shop assistant I spoke to for some reason played down its ability to record from Sky, but it sounds like it's relatively straightforward which is great news.

Looking forward to getting this machine now and getting it all up and running. Will let you know how it goes!

Thanks again!
 
Got it all set up and whilst I had a few difficulties configuring various connections I've figured it all out. Bought a new scart cable especially and I must say I'm pleased with the recorded picture quality.

Thanks again for your help Gavtech!
 
Another quick question..

If I want to record something that's about 3 hours long, would it be best to record it using SP and then split onto 2 discs? Or should I try FR mode?

Thanks in advance!
 
Another quick question..

If I want to record something that's about 3 hours long, would it be best to record it using SP and then split onto 2 discs? Or should I try FR mode?

Thanks in advance!

Splitting into two discs will give you better quality, essentially because the material will not have to be encoded again.
You can split the material then high speed copy the results

But you can usually get away with compressing up to a recommended maximum of three hours onto a disc, via FR mod, before the quality starts to become unacceptable.

A lot will depend on the nature of the content.
Fast action material will tend to degrade most, or any material where there is lots of movement.

The only way to be sure is try it out an see if you find the compression acceptable, by your own standards.

But FR copies mean that you will be encoding the material twice.
So if you choose the FR method onto one disc, you will get more benefit by recording the original transfer from skybox to '773 in XP mode, which will minimise the loss.
 
Splitting into two discs will give you better quality, essentially because the material will not have to be encoded again.
You can split the material then high speed copy the results

What I intend to do will have a logical split of 2 hours on the first disc, then an hour or so on the second disc. Knowing it will be 2 hours I thought it wise to record on SP mode(?).

But you can usually get away with compressing up to a recommended maximum of three hours onto a disc, via FR mod, before the quality starts to become unacceptable.

A lot will depend on the nature of the content.
Fast action material will tend to degrade most, or any material where there is lots of movement.

Good point - it's likely to have a lot of movement so 3 hours on a disc is probably not advisable for this particular recording.

The only way to be sure is try it out an see if you find the compression acceptable, by your own standards.

But FR copies mean that you will be encoding the material twice.
So if you choose the FR method onto one disc, you will get more benefit by recording the original transfer from skybox to '773 in XP mode, which will minimise the loss.

So with that in mind, do you think I should record the whole thing (3 hours approx) in XP mode, split it into two and then burn them onto two discs using FR?

Many thanks
 
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So with that in mind, do you think I should record the whole thing (3 hours approx) in XP mode, split it into two and then burn them onto two discs using FR?

Many thanks

There is a basic 'golden rule' to keep the number of encodings to a minimum, and preferably only once... so the splitting scenario is always going to be best here... but only if you high speed copy the result.

If you use FR, then you add the compromise of a further encoding.

So if you are prepared to split the material then it would probably be better to split across three discs rather than two: XP original / split into 1 hour sections / high speed copy to disc(s). = only one encoding.
 
For the continuity of this particular recording two discs would be best, so it seems like in this instance SP mode would suit it. So that way no re-encoding will have to be done, I believe. From the tests I did last night SP mode looks perfectly acceptable in terms of quality!

Thanks a lot Gavtech, your posts have been incredibly useful.
 
EDIT: All sorted!!

Thanks
 
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Tried a test DVD I had burned and saw a black and white line at the top left of the screen, but Gavtech has told me this is to do with the overscan settings of the TV.

Sure enough after changing my TV picture size it went away. It does however still show up when I put the dvd on my laptop but I'm sure this could be changed on the DVD app's settings.
 
You can actually burn a film which is roughly 2h 8m onto a single layer dvd-r on this machine in high speed mode. Anything longer will be in fr mode.

Obviously some clever trickery inside the Panasonic to optimise that extra 8 minutes. It has came in handy on a few occasions.
 
You can actually burn a film which is roughly 2h 8m onto a single layer dvd-r on this machine in high speed mode. Anything longer will be in fr mode.

Obviously some clever trickery inside the Panasonic to optimise that extra 8 minutes. It has came in handy on a few occasions.

Thanks for the tip - that could be useful :smashin:
 
I've burnt a few discs now and while I'm pleased with the quality when watching the DVD back on TV, it doesn't look quite as good on PC. The video appears to have a strange sort of 'lined' effect - it's difficult to describe. Is this just an unavoidable consequence of converting Sky HD video to DVD format?

There's also a small black area to the side of the screen - so not quite full screen.

EDIT: I've just looked into this and it seems it might be something to do with 'deinterlacing' which would explain why it looks good on a DVD player. So by the sounds of it, not too much to worry about.
 
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Have tried a number of things relating to the above. I changed scart cable, made sure setting were all intact and tried again - but the problem remained.

On disc (when played on PC) there is a large black line to the left of the screen and I'm starting to think that it's related to Sky's Scart Control option. When I turn that off, more of the image seems intact (which would probably stop the black line if I was to burn something recorded in this mode), though the quality is inferior. My only suggestion is that it's something to do with my Sky box, which only has one Scart output.
 
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Schreck said:
My only suggestion is that it's something to do with my Sky box, which only has one Scart output.

Turning scart control off on the Sky box loses aspect ratio switching and the video output defaults to composite video hence the inferior picture.
I doubt there's a problem with the Sky box, connect it by scart to a widescreen Tv and set the box to 16x9 widescreen, if it looks okay your problem lies elsewhere.
 
Thanks for the reply.


My set up is as follows.

Widescreen TV
Sky box -> AV2 of DVD Recorder
TV to HDMI of dvd recorder

Sky settings have scart control on, RFs set to 16:9. Set to RGB. While it's on this setting, when viewing with the dvd recorder you can see there is a small black line at the left side that's even larger when you view a burnt dvd from that source.

All settings on recorder are set to 16:9 or RGB.

I'm baffled! I realise it's a minor issue but I know it's fixable somehow.
 
If I remember correctly, wasn't/isn't there an issue with certain Sky boxes (mine definitely shows it) that shifts the RGB picture to the left of the screen?

Only certain boxes mind you. That could well explain that picture of yours.

Somebody mentioned snipping one of the pins in the scart lead to rectify it, but I really can't remember where I read it.

Good luck fella.:)
 
IAN P said:
If I remember correctly, wasn't/isn't there an issue with certain Sky boxes (mine definitely shows it) that shifts the RGB picture to the left of the screen?

Only certain boxes mind you. That could well explain that picture of yours.

Somebody mentioned snipping one of the pins in the scart lead to rectify it, but I really can't remember where I read it.

Good luck fella.:)

The unusual thing is that after hours of googling most people get the black bar on the right - mine's on the left! It didn't bother me too much until it occurred to me that I could be missing out part of the video (not entirely sure it's doing that but it is still a nuisance.)

Thanks for the post!
 
JayCee said:
Is your Tv an old CRT type or a modern flat screen model...make/ model no would help.

The TV is a SAMSUNG UE46D5000PW.

Thanks for your time, would be great to get to the bottom of it.

My current setup only uses one scart (from the Sky box to the DVD Recorder - do I need another from the Recorder to the TV?
 
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IAN P said:
If I remember correctly, wasn't/isn't there an issue with certain Sky boxes (mine definitely shows it) that shifts the RGB picture to the left of the screen?

Only certain boxes mind you. That could well explain that picture of yours.

That results in a picture shift to the left so the "black line" would be to the right if that was the cause.

IAN P said:
Somebody mentioned snipping one of the pins in the scart lead to rectify it, but I really can't remember where I read it

There are various pins that can be cut but they just result in loss of aspect ratio control and cure audio crosstalk etc.
I'm pretty sure we can rule out the Sky box as the source of the OPs niggly problem as he's stated It's fine when watching Tv via HDMI and a burnt disc is fine when played on the DVDR connected to the Tv.
He only see's the line when the disc is played on his laptop....OP...correct?
 
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That's correct, when you watch it back on a DVD player it looks good. It's only when it's on the laptop you notice it. I did notice though that when you view sky through the dvd recorder, there is a smaller black line to the left, which is presumably the one that gets exaggerated on disc.
 
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Emailed Panasonic and got this "advice"...

"it might be an issue of incompatibility with the codecs on your laptop, or the format the recording has been recorded on the unit. "
 

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