Sony DVDirect

[Mike Kujbida]

It’ll definitely be faster than capturing into Vegas, rendering and burning. What you won’t get though is anything you can do in Vegas & DVDA such as titles, audio & video corrections, fancy menus, etc.
Think of it as a replacement for your old VHS recorder.

[Terry Esslinger]

Well,
Ran my first test. About one hour of VHS video recorded directly to DVD in real time. Since it is not an “authoring app” I of couse did not expect anything fancy. My first surprise was a good one. It actually placed a thumbnail picture and a menu. Of course you couldn’t choose what pic. The next thing I found was that the video and sound quality was actually quite good. Now for the bad – and totally unacceptable. Apparently the encoder could not keep up with the incoming video and there were NUMEROUS glitches where the video would just stop for a second and then catch up. Funny though, the sound appeared to continue unaffected.
Now to see if there are some settings that can correct this. This was a test just right out of the box.

[Ron Shook]

Terry,

[Terry Esslinger] “Apparently the encoder could not keep up with the incoming video and there were NUMEROUS glitches where the video would just stop for a second and then catch up.”

If you are recording on the Sony and playing back on your set-top DVD player, I’d guess that what you are seeing is not recording errors but rather playback errors. 1 hour recording mode on DVD recorders is often not a good idea. Although it may be slightly better quality than 2 hour mode, the bit rate will be a bit too high for some set-top players resulting in video glitches like you are experiencing. Thus, it’s a good idea to use the 2 hr. mode when recording on a DVD recorder for playback on another device, even when the amount you want to put on the DVD is an hour or less.

However, if you are experiencing these problems when you both record and playback on the Sony DVD recorder, then you have a bum unit. It ain’t supposed to work that way.

Ron Shook

[Terry Esslinger]

Ron,
I think you are on the right track. The first disc was burned using the HQ setting whic Sony states will burn 1 hour of video to a DVD and had the aformentioned problems.

I reset the Sony unit to burn at HSP which Sony says will burn 1 1/2 hours on a single disc. Still had some glitches but not nearly as many when replayed on my GoVideo dual deck. Decided to ty it on my Denon high end deck and it played fine! So the media is getting recorded fine, it seems to be a playback issue. Funny thing is I never have a problem playing back DVDA burned discs on the GoVideo unit. I actually have 3 test playback units. 1. Cheap Cyberhome unit. Seems to play everything 2. GoVideo dual deck. Has a problem now and then and an older high end Denon deck which I seem to have the most trouble with. I think older is the important adjective there!

My next test will be to record at SP which Sony states is the 2 hour recording on single layer disc. The HQ setting is their default setting. Its too bad they don’t give bit rates so that we can compare.

[John Frey]

We have been using this unit on a lot of shoots where either the camera output or switcher output feeds it for a backup. We use firewire out when recording straight from the camera. This has been a big timesaver for us when shooting 4 hour board meetings. We don’t have to spend 4 hrs. the next day dubbing to 4 DVD’s from 4 source tapes. Also, all of our Realtime DVD recorders (we have 4 different brands in 2 studios) will create a new menu item each time that you push stop. Just hit pause if you do not want this and you are combining another tape source onto the same disc. We have also experienced the Sony recorded discs in the best mode occasionally having hiccups during playback on certain DVD players.

John D. Frey
25 Year owner/operator of two California-based production studios.

Digital West Video Productions of San Luis Obispo and Inland Images of Lake Elsinore

[Ron Shook]

Terry,

[Terry Esslinger] “My next test will be to record at SP which Sony states is the 2 hour recording on single layer disc.”

So…, how did that work out? That’d be a bit rate of around 4.5 mb/s which is similar to the bit rate that most Hollywood titles use and every set top or DVD-ROM player should handle well.

Ron