Panasonic DMR-E80H Progressive-Scan DVD Player/Recorder with Hard Drive , Silver
clarification re A/D conversion &amp; DVD-R dubbing: DOES work
I'd like to clarify some misconceptions in previous reviews,<BR>regarding &quot;double-conversion&quot; or slow-speed dubbing of programs from HDD to DVD-R.<br />This unit CAN dub a program from harddisk to DVD-R, in &quot;fast&quot; mode, with NO re-digitizing or re-conversion, even programs w/ commercials edited out and chapter-marks retained.<BR> eg, there is NO quality loss for this dubbing and it goes faster than realtime (1hr to fill disk; time taken depends on size of the program, which depends on the quality &amp; program length; eg, 1hr of SP/2hr-speed program, will dub in 30minutes, to fill half the disk.)<br />But, this does require you FIRST record the program to HDD, with &quot;DVD-R compatible mode&quot; *activated*. You have to make this setting in the setup menus. Supposedly this also deactivates the &quot;Hybrid VBR&quot; variable-bitrate encoding feature, but I haven't seen any impact on picture quality, and checking the bitrate on a computer, it still seems VBR and not constant. It's definitely a good idea to turn this feature on.<BR>It's off by default.<br />If you leave this feature off, or if you choose to dub a program in different quality to fit on DVD-R (eg, 2hr-speed HDD program, dubbed to smaller 4hr-speed on DVD-R), then the unit WILL re-convert from analog during dubbing, and speed is reduced to real-time (eg 2hrs to record 2hr program.) You will lose some picture quality, and any defined chapter marks, although edits or playlists should be retained.<br />This is not a &quot;hidden secret&quot; or a deception. It is mentioned many times in the manual, although it is perhaps not intuitive.<br />re digital video in: this unit does NOT have firewire video in. Some other models do have it (DMR-E100H, DMR-E60, etc.) That feature will let you record digital video (MiniDV/digital8) to DVD MPEG format, on HDD or DVD-R/RAM, with no analog conversion, eg highest quality.<BR> However for home videos, I don't believe this makes much practical difference... it depends on how good the analog (S-video) out from your camcorder is. There may be slightly more noise or quality loss in the picture. If anything, I've seen the analog-in encoding quality to actually be superior to my PC's firewire to MPEG all-digital conversion! The MPEG hardware on this unit seems superior to software encoders.<BR> If you are concerned, you can opt for the more expensive DMR-E100H model (which also has bigger harddrive and SD/PC-Card slot for digital camera memory cards etc.) I personally do not need it since any digital video, I will capture, edit and burn to DVD on my computer, not using this recorder. I am glad Panasonic has provided several models with different features and prices, so that consumers can choose what they need.<br />All TV programs and other analog line-in video of course is encoded once; this is true for any other DVD recorder. Some satellite recorders (eg DirectTV Tivo, or others) use the digital satellite video data directly, but not this unit as there is no satellite receiver. <BR>It would be a nice feature if Panasonic included a &quot;IR remote blaster&quot; to control channels on the satellite receiver, to record those programs... perhaps in a future model. VCRs don't have this either. This is one reason I stay with cableTV :-(  If you want this, look for Tivo satellite receivers or other models.<br />While the recorder respects CPRM broadcast copy protection flags, and won't record Macrovision-protected tapes, no broadcasters are using this flag (yet), and I don't think any other recorders defeat Macrovision either. It would be nice to use this to transfer purchased VHS movies/tapes to DVD for safekeeping, and not worry about piracy-paranoid broadcasters, but...so far it's not a big issue. You can always buy the retail DVDs :-) <br />Hope this clarifies the issue for all future reviewers and shoppers.