OK, I just got a new VHS/DVD player & recorder. I have recorded a few disc from VHS. But the discs seem to record a maximum of 2 hours? Huh? How would I record a 3 hour film? Also, what is the difference between DVD+R, DVD+R, and DVD+R DL?
It also takes hours. ?
Basically, I want to save my VHS collection onto DVD.
I have a similar device. If I am recalling correctly (not at home right now), you have to set the DVD record quality and that is what determines the total capacity. It sounds as if you are defaulting to (or selecting) the highest quality.
After recording a few things, evaluating the quality (and looking at the low prices for older DVDs), I will re-buy rather than record if I can find the disc cheap enough.
I’m no expert, but until someone who is comes along…
Most commercial DVDs (like, when you buy a movie on DVD) are dual-layer, which enables them to hold twice as much data as a single-layer disc. That’s what the “DL” in “DVD+R DL” stands for: dual (or double) layer.
Some DVD recorders (including DVD-R drives in computers) have the capability of writing to both layers; others don’t. Check the documentation for yours to see if it can. If so, it’ll probably tell you to use DL discs to record more than 2 hours to a disc. If not, you may have to split the movie onto two discs or (if it has the capability) use compression (which reduces the quality) to fit more time on the disc.
some devices allow you to choose the recording quality and put 2,4 or 6 hours (approximately) on a 4.7GB disc. the 6 hour capacity quality will be good for VHS sourced material.
you have to record in real time.
dvd+r and dvd-r are different formats. use the disc type your recorder supports, some will use both. dvd+r is better IMHO.
DL is 8.5GB capacity which the recorder has to support to us that format. used in long movies.
That has been my experience.
My Hitachi recorder gives me a choice of quality levels, which are named after their VHS equivalents: on a single-layer DVD-R, XP is the highest quality but lasts 1 hour, SP lasts about 2 hours, etc.
Yes, it does. As johnpost said, you can only transfer VHS tapes in real time, so to transfer 2 hours of I Love Lucy you have to let it work for 2 hours. It’s not that bad, the machine does all the work. You don’t have to watch. 
The total recording time is determined by the bitrate. DVDs can use variable or fixed, but AFAIK, standalone recorders offer only fixed. This results in a 1,2, 4 or 6-hour maximum, and it must be set in advance of recording.
And while commercially-pressed DVDs typically have 2 layers, not all standalone recorders will record to more than one layer, and only single layer blank media is available at my local Wal-Mart.
The 2 hour, single layer capacity is approximately equal in quality to a commercially pressed, single-sided DVD. If you want the best possible for your archive recordings, use the 1-hour setting, but of course you will have to span 2 disks or 2 layers.
OTOH, if the truly ultimate quality is desired, you won’t record to a standard DVD format at all, but make a computer file (which can then be stored on a DVD, but may not be playable on standard DVD players). Don’t bother with this unless you are an extreme archivist and you have irreplaceable material.
Hope this helps.
What model VHS/DVD is it? If it’s new it should have a choice of recording ‘speeds’ like VHS did, 2hr, 4hr, 6hr. Longer times mean lower quality, though not as bad as with tape.
Again if its a new deck, um, there’s no difference between DVD-R and DVD+R. Well, there is, but it’s minor and esoteric and of no consequence what-so-ever (early DVD recorders were picky about this, not any more).
DVD (-R or +R) DL means dual layer recordable. It means those blank discs can hold twice as much data, so it means you can double the above record times while maintaining the same quality (4hr, 8hr, 12hr etc.). These discs are much more expensive than regular DVD recordables, more than twice as much. Like four or five times in fact, so you’d only ever use them if you really really had to have a particularly long video all on one disc. Or if you had something longer than two hours that you wanted to record at the highest quality.
VHS/DVD recorders (and all stand-alone DVD recorder units) only record at ‘real time’ speed (i.e. the show is three hours, it takes three hours to record it). Actually, regardless of the recording medium, VHS can only ever be played with a stable signal at normal play speed. No such thing as a ‘high speed dump’ for analog VHS.
A DVD burner in a computer can record at very high speed, an entire +2 hour video can be burned to a disc in only a few minutes, but they’re completely different hardware. And, as I said, even if you used a VHS deck that connected to a PC you’d still have to do them in ‘real time’.
I have a Panasonic DMR-EZ48V.
I have figured out how to copy, but not how to set the recording speed.
You dudes are great- thanks!
On the models I’ve worked with, it’s a button on the panel. Sometimes it’s hidden behind a baffle where the extra options/buttons are (“rec mode”), or an option in the software setup, but I’m sure it’s there somewhere!
The manual is online HERE (11MB PDF). Page 26 has a section titled “Specifying the Recording Time” that shows how to cycle between various recording times (30min, 1hr, 1hr30, 2hr, 3hr, 4hr) by repeatedly pressing the “REC” button.
[There’s also a “Flexible Recording” mode.]
Hope that does the job – let us know!
A quick look at the manual suggests that that setting does not control the bitrate (which determines the quality), but the length of (source) recording time before shutoff.
These parameters are (or should be) independent. It’s possible to record at a low bitrate for a short length of time, and vice versa (up to the available space on the disc). Since there is no 30 minute maximum length for a DVD that I know of, I suspect this setting is not what you want. Beware.
But I could be wrong. Also beware.
THe source being VHS, there isn’t a lot of quality to start with.
In addition to the above, be aware that many VHS tapes are copy protected and many DVD recorders will not copy those tapes. When I tried to back up my VHS collection to DVD at least 1/4 of the several dozen tapes would not record (usually Disney tapes or Paramount). I had to record them on my PC with a device that “ignored” the copy protection.
No, you are correct. That is the “record and forget” setting for automatic shutoff.
that is setting the machine to auto shut off after recording that amount of time. you would use it for recording a show already in progress. that isn’t the answer for this situation.
the unit can record
Recording Time 4.7GB (Approximate) XP Mode 1 hour, SP Mode 2 hours, LP Mode 4 hours, EP Mode 6/8 hours
i don’t have the manual for this downloaded yet.
on other machines there is a menu on the tv screen where you can set the default recording time and in any recording time you program the machine for you can change to recording quality mode for that one specific recording if you want it different from the default.
use no better than the same recording quality mode as you did for the VHS tape. DVD recordings off the air (with digital signals now) are far better than the analog on VHS tapes. so the 6 hour mode on the DVD is far better than the 6 hour mode from the VHS tape. so copying a 6 hour analog VHS tape to a 6 hour DVD would be no loss in quality.
the REC MODE button on the remote steps you through the recording modes (quality and time per DVD) a as you set up a recording.
pages 18, 20 and 24 in the manual explain how to use.
I beg to differ, at least with your last statement. You are cascading modes which discard quality at each step. The 6 hour DVD will discard more than the 1 hour mode will. In other words, in copying a 6 hr mode original to a 6 hr recording, you are degrading an already degraded signal. (Note: this is not a digital copy as you might be thinking, and not a byte-for-byte copy; it is an analog signal that is re-digitized for each transfer.)
Note that ALL standard DVD video modes use lossy compression. What has been discarded cannot be recovered. If archiving is your primary purpose, you would not use a DVD video mode at all (although you could use a DVD as a data storage medium for an uncompressed computer file).
I don’t notice the degrade in quality from dubbing satellite recordings made to a DVR to DVD. Of course it is there. I have some recordings from cable that will copy from one DVR to another, but not DVD due to copy protection. They will, however copy from DVR-VHS-DVD. The signal degradation is certainly noticeable in the VHS medium.
And that is a higher quality than is coming in from your original VHS tape, so you are wasting some of your DVD bitspace.