How do dvd recorder owners hook to their 508 and HDTV ?

[waltinvt]

I'm pretty new to dvd recording so these may be dumb questions.

My 508 provides a good sharp picture with an S-Vid connection direct to my 34" widescreen HDTV but when I run S-Vid to my new Panasonic E85 dvd recorder (which goes to the same TV via RGB component cables), the same channel doesn't look anywhere near as good.

I've tried with the E85's progressive scan both on and off and neither looks very good although in different ways. The E85's "television" setting is set to 480p 16:9 and although there are a bunch of other settings (most of which I don't understand), nothing I do seems to improve the pq.

I'm beginning to wonder if I should connect the E85 to the tv with S-Vid instead of component but thought I'd ask here first, since it's a real pain to change anything behind my entertainment center. Besides, commerical widescreen dvds seem to play fine with the E85 through this setup so I'd hate to loose the benifit of progressive scan for those dvds.

WaltinVt

 

[j5races]

The reason your picture is worse when using the component output of you e85 is becuase of two things. first the e85 must make a analog to digital conversion (s-video to the hdd) then make a digital to analog conversion (hdd to comp. out). Second when you send the signal straight s-vid to the tv, the line doubler in the television upconverts the image to 480p. but when you send it a component signal from your dvd recorder, then it does not upconvert comp. inputs (most tv's dont). My suggestion is to either use a a/v reciever that upconverts to component video (like the yamaha rxv-750) it does a better job than you pan. dvd burner. The other option is just simply to put the sat output s-vid to say input one on your tv and leave to comp. input for watching dvds only. you would then have to use the composite output of your sat box to record them to dvd, but i dont think it would be that much worse quality on composite as opposed to s-vid.

Jon

 

[waltinvt]

The reason your picture is worse when using the component output of you e85 is becuase of two things. first the e85 must make a analog to digital conversion (s-video to the hdd) then make a digital to analog conversion (hdd to comp. out). Second when you send the signal straight s-vid to the tv, the line doubler in the television upconverts the image to 480p. but when you send it a component signal from your dvd recorder, then it does not upconvert comp. inputs (most tv's dont). My suggestion is to either use a a/v reciever that upconverts to component video (like the yamaha rxv-750) it does a better job than you pan. dvd burner. The other option is just simply to put the sat output s-vid to say input one on your tv and leave to comp. input for watching dvds only. you would then have to use the composite output of your sat box to record them to dvd, but i dont think it would be that much worse quality on composite as opposed to s-vid.

Jon

Actually I have an S-Vid switch box, so I can run my one sat S-vid out to the switch box and then one S-vid to the dvd recorder and another to the tv.

But please help me to better understand what you're saying.

Is the "back and forth conversion" problem you're discribing inheirent to the Panny E85 or all dvd recorders with component outputs? It's hard to understand why they make a $600 piece of equipment that would do this, since most of what people buy these for is to make dvds of satellite / cable tv signals.

One would think they would say something in the setup manual about this as I don't think many would realize they had to run 2 seperate connections from their recorder to their tv. So, basically the component connection would only be used when viewing progress scan, commerical dvds ?

This brings up another question. Based on what you say, what about the dvds I burn from the satellite signal ? Assumming I use a decent speed and have a good signal to start with, will they look as good as the origional sat pq or will they also degrade for the same reasons when viewed through the component outputs?

Walt

 

[David_Levin]

Most DVD recorders do this.

This idea is that the signal from the recorder has been passed through the mpeg encoder. This way you can see what the quality of the recording will look like (If you flip between the record speeds you'll see the picture quality change).

My Philips will pass-thru the S-Video unmolested if it's turned off.

Here's another big annoyance of the pass-thru connection. When passing through the mpeg encoder/decoder my Philips will introduse a 1-2 sec delay. This makes PVR skips fwd/bck difficult to operate.

In my theatre I have my DVD recorder hooked to my AV receiver as a VCR. I can choose to monitor it or the original source with the record select function. Many receivers don't have this in which case the best solution is to hook to the AV receiver, then run a 2nd feed to an extra input on the TV.

My my Family room I use a SIMA two-output switcher. One output goes to the TV, and the 2nd to the DVD recorder. Then, I run an extra dedicated (composite) line from the recorder to the TV (if I need to monitor it during recording).

Yes, the recorder manufacturers should warn people that pass-thru viewing has it's problems.

 

[j5races]

Right, you must remember that there is no digital video output on the dish 501/508/510/522/721 so as soon as you view anything from it onto your dvd recorder or tv it has already gone thru one digital to analog conversion (maybe you have been told that component is a digital connection??) Anyhow then you feed it to you dvd recorder which must convert this analog signal to digital and burn it. So it will lose some quality there. It should still look must better then a vcr tho, so dont give up on your setup. If i were you i would hook up the setup you have thru a reciever. If you hook up the dish dvr to sat the cbl\sat input (on the reciever) with s-video. and you take the vcr out (s-video) to your e-85 recorder. Then you hookup up the e-85 output to your component input on you reciever (vcr input (you should be able to change the receiever to use component for any source you want, like vcr)) and the s- video from the e-85 to the reciever s-video vcr input: and take the component output to component on your tv, and the s-video out to the s-vid on your tv, then when you want to watch a sat show live, then put the reciever on cbl/sat input (and tv on s-vid input)and it will look the best it can. If you want to watch a commercial dvd then put the receiver on vcr and your tv on the component input. and if you wish to watch a prerocrded dvd from sat, then put the receiver on vcr, but put your tv on s-vid and you will get the s-vid signal from your e-85 and try that..... Jon