RECORDING
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Recording Overview
About DVD recording
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• This recorder cannot make recordings on CD-R or
CD-RW discs.
• Our company takes no responsibility for recording fail-
ure due to power cuts, defective discs, or damage to
the recorder.
• Fingerprints and small scratches on a disc can affect
playback and/or recording performance. Please take
proper care of your discs.
Disc types and recording formats, modes,
and settings
This recorder can play three different kinds of DVD disc:
pre-recorded DVD-Video discs, DVD-RW and DVD-R
discs. The disc format for DVD-R discs is always “Video
format”—the same as pre-recorded DVD-Video discs.
This means that once finalized, you can play a DVD-R
in a regular DVD player.
By default, the DVD-RW disc format is Video Recording
format, though you can change this to Video format, if
required. (Reinitializing the disc will erase the contents
of the disc.)
The recording mode is closely related to the disc for-
mat. If the disc format is Video Recording format, then
the recording mode is VR mode; if the disc format is
Video mode, then the recording mode is Video mode
(except for DVD-Video, which is not recordable, and so
does not have a recording mode).
Within the recording modes (which are fixed for the
whole disc) are the record settings. These can be
changed as required for each recording and determine
the picture quality and how much space the recording
will take up on the disc.
About HDD recording
Recording to the internal hard disk drive (HDD) is basi-
cally similar to recording to a VR mode DVD-RW disc.
You have the full choice of recording quality options,
including the manual mode, and of course you can
record, erase and re-record as many times as you like.
The capacity of the hard disk drive means that you can
store many hours of video on it, even in the higher qual-
ity recording modes. To help you organize the contents,
the HDD is divided into ten groups. You can name and
use these groups as you like—for example, you might
have a group for movies, another for TV shows, and
one for camcorder recordings.
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The maximum number of titles that can be recorded on
the HDD is 255.
Notes for recording
• The recording times shown are not exact because the
recorder uses variable bit-rate video compression.
This means that the exact recording time will depend
on the material being recorded.
• When recording a TV broadcast, if the reception is
poor or the picture contains interference, the record-
ing times may be shorter.
• If you record still pictures or audio only, the recording
time may be longer.
• The displayed times for recording and time remaining
may not always add up to exactly the length of the
disc.
• The recording time available may decrease if you
heavily edit a disc.
• If using a DVD-RW disc, make sure you change the
recording format (Video mode or VR mode) before
you record anything on the disc. See page 28 (Disc
Format) for how to do this.
• When using a DVD-R disc, you can keep recording
until the disc is full, or until you finalize the disc.
Before you start a recording session, check the
amount of recording time left on the disc.
• When using a DVD-RW disc in Video mode, recording
time available will only increase if you erase the last
title recorded on the disc.
• The Erase Title option in the Title List-Original menu
only hides the title, it does not actually erase the title
from the disc and increase the recording time avail-
able (except for the last recorded title on a DVD-RW
disc in Video mode).
Recording TV audio channels
This recorder can record either NICAM or regular audio.
If the NICAM setting (page 21) is set to Auto, then if the
broadcast is NICAM, you can record the NICAM audio.
If the broadcast is non-NICAM, the regular audio is
always recorded.
Recording time and picture quality
There are four preset recording quality modes:
•
HQ
– Highest quality setting, gives about 1 hour of
recording time on a DVD disc.
•
SQ
– Default quality, sufficient for most applications,
gives about 2 hours of recording time on a DVD.
•
LQ
– Slightly lower video quality, but doubles the
recording time on a DVD to around 4 hours.
