Wide World of Women

I have a panasonic DMR-E85H that I record TV shows with. this unit (and most DVD recorders) have the following stats in these recording speeds:

XP speed: 704X480 resolution with a 8-9 megabites per sec (MBPS)

SP speed: 704X480 resolution with 4-5 MBPS

LP speed: 352X480 resolution with 2-2.5 MBPS

EP speed: 352X240 resolution with 1-1.5 MBPS

QUESTIONS:

1) which is more important to picture quality.....resolution or bitrate?

2) I cant see hardly any difference in picture quality between SP and XP speed yet the bitrate is doubled in XP mode!!! WHY???

3) if you are a capper or you record off TV with your PC what resolution and bitrates do you use for perfect quality recording?

4) I have a 2 hour DVD (texas chainsaw massacre) that gives a bitrate of 8MBPS on a single disc......HOW in the hell can a commercial DVD give 8MBPS when the DVD's I use are limited to 1 hour at 8-10MBPS (XP mode)????

PLEASE give info!....THANKS!!!!

Here's what I've noticed with my dvd recorder:

1) The bitrate and resolution both effect the quality of the recording. The higher the bitrate the less pixelation especially for things moving across the screen fast. Resolution effects the overall clarity.

2) There is a difference in the XP (HQ 1hour) and SP (standard 2 hour) albeit not much. I make caps and clips that I save on my hard drive, and it makes a little difference to go HQ (I use dvd+rw and erase over and over though). If you just want to record a show the SP mode is fine. My dvd recorder also has

3)I don't record directly to PC so I don't know about perfect resolution and bitrate.

4) Commercial dvds are dvd-9 (dual layer). You can buy blank ones, but IMO not worth the money. Just record in SP which and save 5 bucks a disc.

Also, if you have component video output on your satellite/cable box and inputs in the dvd recorder, that's the best way to go. S-video cable works fine for me, plus my sat receiver doesn't have component output (can't wait to upgrade to HD).

BTW my dvd burner is Phillips dvdr-75 which I purchased almost 2 years ago. I've heard some of that bad reviews about this unit, but I've recorded over 250 discs, and it still works with just about the same failure rate as when it was new.

Hope this helps.

resolution is more important

THANKS for the input.....Ive seen duel layer discs a while back and they were an insane $10 each at walmart!!!....I get a DVD RAM disc for $3.50 and buy DVD -R discs on sale for 35 cents each.....NO way am I buying the duel layer discs....I dont think the recorder can record them anyway.

I was wondering if anyone who records on a PC has tested various bitrates and resolutions? and the results?

Thanks.

I was just reading more info at a DVD info site.....these are the bit rates for various media:

VHS VCR in SP mode: 2 MBPS

comercial DVD 8MBPS

MPEG-3 for HD : 20-40MBPS

HD: 55MBPS

a 4.7MB (actually 4.37MB) standard DVD blank disc will record 1 hour at a average bit rate of 9.7MBPS.

on resolution a standard VHS VCR has 240X352

I still havent seen a single stand alone DVD recorder that can record in HD (some PC's can).....from what Ive read its very expensive to get the hardware chips that will process 20-55MBPS thats required for HD recording??.....ALL stand along DVD recorders are limited to 8-12MBPS

If you are recording newsbabes there is really no need to record in XP. There are no fast moving scenes like in movies or sports to require that high of a bit rate