Restrictions when copying from Panasonic recorder's HDD to DVD in High Speed mode

I've copied video recordings of my old band's gigs from VHS cassettes to the hard drive of my Panasonic DMR-EX768EB, with a view to then transferring the material to DVDs for posterity. Once on the hard drive, I've chapter-ised each title to enable skipping from song to song, and created playlists for copying to DVD. So far, so good.

However, the various restrictions and limitations specified in the user manual with regard to maintaining chapter-isation are a major brain-bender. Having got to grips with them (or so I thought), the key issue seems to be that chapters are only maintained on the DVD copy if the playlist is copied across in high speed mode; if not, default chapters are created on finalisation at intervals of about five minutes, if you're using DVD-RWs (as I am).

When the recording mode is set to one of the non-high speed modes, the display shows the DVD capacity in hours, and the percentage of the 4.7 GB 120 min disk that will be taken up by a 1 hr 55 min title is consistent with the non-high speed mode currently selected (e.g. 95% of 2 hrs available at SP, 47% of 4 hrs available at LP, etc.)

Fair enough, but when I set the recording mode to high speed, the on-screen display changes to denote the capacity of the DVD being written to in MB rather than hours (i.e. capacity rather than time), and says that the 1 hr 55 min title I want to copy would take up 176% of the space available on the DVD.

I'm as sure as I can be that I'm not breaking any of the rules regarding use of FR recording mode, mixed audio types, an excessive number of deleted segments, etc. I don't understand (and the manual doesn't explain, so far as I can see) why use of the high speed mode should cause a title of less than two hours in length to exceed the capacity of a two-hour DVD. I can appreciate that having an index to enable the chapterisation would occupy some space, but not that it should appear to practically double the size of the source material! How come use of high speed mode doesn't just alter the time it takes to make the copy? More importantly, any ideas for a workaround that would enable keeping the chapters?

 

I remember making exactly the same mistake myself in the past when I first got a Panasonic dvd recorder. As gavtech would say 'SP' is the recommended quality setting for almost all uses. A good compromise between quality and recording time. That would have given you the two hours. Its worth remembering that only high speed dubbing avoids re-encoding the mpeg video data as its written to dvd. So you did everything right except for setting the wrong quality setting at the very beginning.

 

Gavtech and bonzobanana,

Many thanks for your useful and speedy replies. It did occur to me that the mode under which I recorded the VHS material to the hard drive might be an issue, and here's where I should mention something I didn't in the first place (I'm a great believer in giving too much information rather than too little, but have a tendency to go on a bit, in case you hadn't noticed).

This was my second attempt at copying; the first didn't involve a playlist (I hadn't read that bit of the manual at the time!), and ended up with me accidentally reformatting the HDD instead of the DVD-RW in the tray (stupid [-]me [/-]'DRIVE SELECT' button!; downside - loss of hours of movies saved since January: upside - loss of hours of gardening programs the wife never gets around to watching).

As a result, I had to copy the tapes to the HDD again, and it was only on this occasion that I actively set the mode to XP, it having occurred to me belatedly that I should try to get the highest resolution possible before burning to DVD.

The point is, I could swear that I didn't set the mode to XP before the first tape to HDD copies were made, and so am assuming that the mode would have defaulted to SP, the mode I invariably use when recording broadcasts to the HDD (this whole operation is the first time I've ever copied anything to DVD, from any source).

Assuming that was the case, I could also swear that when I tried to copy the title in question (which had been chapterised but not playlisted) in high speed mode, I got the same 176%-of-disk-space-so-no-can-do result, and once again had to copy in SP mode.

As a result, when it occurred to me to copy the tapes in XP, I didn't think it would make any difference to how much space on the DVD would be required. I suppose I was thinking of it in terms of taking a photocopy of a sharper photographic print than of a blurrier one (and I kidded myself that I could see a difference between the quality of the second copy on the HDD made in XP and the first in SP).

There's some tortuous analogy I'm trying to work out involving pouring liquid from one container to another, but it involves the volume/density of the liquid and the volume of the containers changing in the process, and I can't get it straight in my head. I'm going to copy the tape again tonight in SP mode and see what the options are after that.

Thanks again for taking the time, gents - Gavtech's tips about taking RAM backups and not using DL discs would never have occurred to me. Great forum!

 

Gavtech,

Thanks again - your watered-down beer analogy works very well with regard to the issue of quality and volume. You've got a real knack for explaining things in clear terms, a rare thing these days, I find.

I've now re-recorded from the VHS in SP and, sure enough, after chapterising and playlisting, the title fits on a DVD when copied in high-speed mode. (I can add my recollection that this wasn't possible the first time to the long list of things I could have sworn were the case that subsequently turned out not to be!) The chapters are where they should be, and having been finalised it plays on my PC and another DVD player. Job done!

The fundamentals you've made me aware of with regard to encoding and so forth will prove invaluable from hereon. Many thanks to you, and more power to you and the forum!