DVD-R Disc Queries

[DeadWalk]

Dear All

Last weekend I got myself a Panasonic DMR-HS2. So far I've just been using the hard disc, trying out the editing functions, etc, but now I'd like to start creating my own dvds. I

I've been reading various reviews of blank dvd-r's and am overwhelmed with the range available. Which are the best ones (discs that use the Ritek G04 seem to be highly regarded)? Also, ideally, I would like to be able to create labels for the dvds themselves - can this be done? Do the dvd's themselves have to be of a special type or can a label be applied to any disc (like it can be for recordable cd's)?

Who are the best suppliers (in the Suppliers forum, there are threads for UKDVDR.co.uk and Blankdiscshop.co.uk and there doesn't seem to be much difference between them) and alternatively, who should I avoid?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks in advance.

Neil

[DaveJP]

I've had an HS2 for nearly 12 months and in my experience no two HS2s are alike! Whats good on one will not work on another so it's really a trial and error exercise!

Bear in mind that the HS2 will only write DVD-R at single speed so there's no point spending extra to get faster disks. Having said that, it's not so easy to find single disks anymore, but if you can they should be cheap!

You can buy a test sets of 10 disks, each from a different manufacturer.

The last one's I bought were single speed by "One" and they were £8.99 for 25. I make no guarantees they will work in yours though! I've had a single failure in about 20 that I've usewd so far.

Dave

[mickl]

Dave

sorry to take this a bit off topic, but does recording quality from the hard disc to DVD change or is what's on the HD the quality that the DVD will be?

also, can you dump programs that you've already archived to DVD back onto the HD?

ta for info

[DeadWalk]

Dave

Thanks for the reply - very helpful. I was wondering about the write speed of the dvd-r's. I knew the HS2 only writes at 1x but wasn't sure if all discs write at this speed or if I needed specific ones.


mickl

After studying the instruction manual these past few days, it seems that you can transfer/dub:

from HDD to DVD-R
from HDD to DVD-RAM
from DVD-RAM to HDD

You CAN'T transfer/dub from DVD-R to HDD.

The quality of the original recording on the HDD will be the maximum quality of the DVD-R - therefore if you record something on the HDD at LP quality, this will be the maximum quality you will get when dubbing to the DVD-R. Obviously, if the programme on the HDD is of the highest XP quality then you can dub to a DVD-R in any of the quality settings available (up to the capacity of the disc of course).

Hope this helps.