Recording Recording time and picture quality

05Recording

Recording time and picture quality

There are six preset recording quality modes1:

•XP – Highest quality setting, gives about one hour of recording time on a DVD disc.

•SP (Standard Play) – Default quality, sufficient for most applications, gives about two hours of recording time on a DVD.

•LP (Long Play) – Slightly lower video quality, but doubles the recording time on a DVD to around four hours.

•EP (Extended Play) – EP gives you around six hours of recording time on a DVD disc.

•SLP (Super Long Play) – SLP gives you around eight hours of recording time on a DVD disc.

•SEP (Super Extended Play) – SEP gives you around ten hours of recording time on a DVD disc.

Please note that there is a trade-off between recording time and quality. The longer the possible recording time, the lower the recorded picture quality.

In addition to these settings, when Manual Recording is On (see Manual Recording on page 96) you can access 32 different recording quality/time settings (MN1–MN32), a high-quality audio mode (LPCM), and a super-high quality (data transfer rate of around 15 Mbps) HDD recording mode (XP+).

When setting a timer recording there is a further option, AUTO, which maximizes the recording quality for the space available on the disc loaded at the time of recording. (If recording to the HDD, the recording quality is maximized to fit on to a DVD disc.)

Recorded audio

In all except the LPCM mode, sound is recorded in two channel Dolby Digital format. When set to LPCM, sound is recorded in high quality, uncompressed Linear PCM format.

If the broadcast audio is bilingual and you are recording in Video mode or to the HDD with the HDD Recording Format set to Video Mode On, or on the LPCM setting, use the Bilingual Recording setting (page 94) to select the A/L or B/R audio channel to record before recording starts. In other cases, both channels of a bilingual broadcast will be recorded and you can switch on playback.

Restrictions on video recording

You cannot record copy-protected video using this recorder. Copy-protected video includes DVD-Video discs and some satellite broadcasts. If copy-protected material is encountered during a recording, recording will pause automatically and an error message will be displayed on- screen.

Video that is ‘copy-once only’ can only be recorded on the HDD or in VR mode (see below).

When recording a TV broadcast or through an external input, you can display copy control information on screen. (see Displaying disc information on-screenon page 32).

CPRM

CPRM is a copy protection/scrambling system developed for the recording of ‘copy once’ broadcast programs. CPRM stands for Content Protection for Recordable Media.

This recorder is CPRM compatible, which means that you can record copy-once broadcast programs, but you cannot then make a copy of those recordings. CPRM recordings can only be made on CPRM-compatible DVD-R (ver. 2.0/8x or higher) or DVD-RW (ver. 1.1 or higher) discs formatted in VR mode or on the HDD.

DVD CPRM recordings can only be played on players that are specifically compatible with CPRM.

Note

1.All recording times (both in this manual and those shown by the recorder) are approximate. This is because of the way that the video is re- corded; you may get slightly more or slightly less, depending on what you’re recording.