The
DMR-E20 includes four new features that make it more attractive than its predecessor.
The central innovation is its DVD-RAM disc drive — the same one being used in
Pan asonic’s new stand-alone computer drives. This drive lets you record not
only on DVD-RAM discs but also on write-once (un eras able) DVD-R blanks in
a format DVD-Video play ers can play, which allows you — the oret i c ally,
at least — to make a video of your kids that grandma can play on the player
you bought her last Christmas.
The other significant new features are made possible by the disc drive’s incredible 22.16-megabits-per-second data-transfer rate — more than twice the highest data rate of the DVD-Video system — which lets you play a disc at the same time you’re recording on it. Panasonic uses this capability in three ways, depending on whether the recording being played back is the same one being recorded (the Chasing Play and Time Slip functions) or a different program altogether (Simultaneous Rec and Play).
Chasing Play starts playback from the beginning of the program being recorded. Time Slip, on the other hand, can be used as a “confidence check” since it goes 30 seconds back from the point being recorded and puts the image in a window on your TV. You can then use the front-panel roller control to move the playback point forward or back in 1-minute increments (you can’t make this adjustment with the remote control). These features — similar to those provided by hard-disk video recorders using the TiVo, ReplyTV, and UltimateTV interfaces — all worked as described in the manual and are useful if you do a lot of off-the-air or timer-activated recording. All three features are available only for rewritable DVD-RAM discs, however, not for write-once DVD-Rs.
With the DMR-E20, Panasonic introduces an EP recording mode that can make DVDs up to six times longer than in the deck’s highest-quality mode, XP, which offers extremely clean video recording. (The previous “slowest” mode, LP, made recordings only up to four times as long as XP.) Using a double-sided 9.4-gigabyte (GB) DVD-RAM disc and the EP mode, for example, you can make a 12-hour recording — but you’ll have to flip the disc over halfway during both recording and playback. Using the more common, and considerably less expensive, single-sided 4.7-GB DVD-RAM and DVD-R discs, the maximum recording times for the XP, SP, LP, and EP modes are 1, 2, 4, and 6 hours, respectively. (A survey of several New York City stores found blank 9.4-GB DVD-RAM discs selling for $40 to $50, 4.7-GB discs for $25 to $30, and 4.7-GB DVD-R discs for $10 to $15.)
Recording in EP mode comes at a price, however. First, there’s the same loss of horizontal resolution that occurs when you switch from the good- to excellent-looking SP or XP modes even down to LP (see “In the Lab” on the facing page). This loss of detail won’t be noticeable with common source material, like VHS or 8mm camcorder footage, since the resolution resembles that of those media. But the images are distinctly less sharp in LP and EP dubs from higher-quality sources, like MiniDV or Digital8 camcorders or conventional live TV broadcasts. (There’s even a very slight — but usually unnoticeable — reduction in sharpness from watching a source through the recorder’s circuits without recording it.)
To compress the video data as much as possible, the EP mode seems to record only one of the two video fields that make up a 1/30 second video frame. On playback, the recorded field is displayed twice to fill a frame but at considerably reduced vertical resolution compared with the other three modes. Objects in slow- to moderate-speed motion exhibit a slight stut tering effect. This isn’t visible on talking-head programs, but with sports the picture can look slightly jerky. Use the EP mode judiciously.
In contrast to the video processing, the audio processing, which records everything as a two-channel Dolby Digital signal, seems to remain the same with all recording modes. Its quality is superior to what you can get from analog videotape and is second only to that of a CD recorder. Given this, you could use the ultra-long recording time to capture radio music mar a thons or opera broadcasts.
The
DMR-E20’s other major features are pretty much the same as I found in the DMR-E10.
On-disc editing, possible only with DVD-RAM discs, consists of placing selected
segments of already recorded programs into playlists, which are essentially
sequences of rapid cue ing instructions that the recorder reads during playback.
The editing facilities are limited by the deck’s inability to reliably cue segments
down to an individual frame, the occasional slight stutter as the player jumps
from one edit segment to the next, the minimum reliably obtainable “shot” length
of 3 seconds, and the inability to replace or otherwise edit the audio independent
of the video cuts.
You could, of course, take a recorded DVD-RAM you made in the DMR-E20 and further edit the material in a computer equipped with one of Panasonic’s new DVD-RAM drives and appropriate software. And you could edit digital camcorder footage on such a computer and write it to DVD-RAM or DVD-R. If you need editing facilities beyond those supplied by the DMR-E20, you might consider using a computer-based recorder from the start to avoid repeated conversions between the DVD and MiniDV video-encoding systems. (The recorder lacks an IEEE 1394, a.k.a. FireWire or i.Link, connector for digitally importing MiniDV or Digital8 footage.) It would be more versatile than the DMR-E20 and might even cost less!
You could run into similar repeated encode/decode cycles in your quest to make that DVD-R for grandma. When you record on DVD-Rs, you get none of the simultaneous recording/playback features mentioned earlier, nor — more important — any of the playlist-editing features. You can’t even change the intended playback order of the program segments. At most, you can delete programs from the disc menu that’s generated when you “finalize” the DVD-R for playback on other machines (similar to the process of finalizing a CD-R/RW disc in a CD recorder, it prevents further recording on the DVD-R). In short, you have to be extremely vigilant when using DVD-Rs to make sure you’re recording precisely what you want.
If you edited a program using a DVD-RAM disc instead, you’d be left with the problem of getting the edited version onto a grandma-compatible DVD-R without copying it back onto vid eo tape (yuck) and rerecording it onto a DVD-R. Depending on the original source material, the recording mode you use, and the quality of VCR employed, you might end up with a DVD-R that looks worse than a VHS tape-to-tape edit!
Panasonic’s manual states that the play ability of your finalized DVD-R on other DVD-Video players “is not guaranteed” but depends on “the player you are using, the DVD-R, or the condition of the recording.” But I had no problems recording on a TDK DVD-R blank and playing the finalized disc on six DVD-Video players, includ ing the four tested in this issue (“Progressive Views,” page 46). The video quality of the dub was determined by the DMR-E20’s recording mode. And while you can’t manually define chapters the way they are on prerecorded DVD movies, the recorder automatically inserts handy chapter marks every 5 minutes.
So the DMR-E20’s ability to record on DVD-Rs shouldn’t be overestimated. This function is probably best used for archival preservation of high-quality material using the excellent XP mode and of very long programs using the EP mode. I’d make my edits for grandma on a DVD-RAM and send her a tape copy to play.
Now, don’t get me wrong, the DMR-E20 is a giant step in the right direction for re cordable DVD. The DVD-R facilities do offer some degree of compatibility with non-DVD-RAM machines. The three play-while-recording features bring to a re mov able-disc recorder the kind of control over TV pro gramming previously available only from hard-disk recorders. And while I consider the Panasonic deck’s editing functions somewhat primitive, they might be all most users will need. They’re certainly about as easy to use as can be imagined.
The DMR-E20 is probably best suited to making high-quality “keeper” DVD-RAM dubs of timer-recorded TV programs from which the commercials have been expunged by playlist editing. The resulting discs mark a big advance in picture quality and con venience over the best you can get with a VCR. And all of the Panasonic’s recording modes — even the resolution-impaired EP — score big over analog videotape for their superior color performance (no “bleed ing”), lack of video noise, and rock-solid picture stabil ity. I’m looking forward to the next gener ation of DVD-RAM record ers, which I hope will offer improved editing capabilities and will probably be priced closer to high-end VCRs — whose days are clearly numbered.
| Fast Facts |
| Key Features:
DIMENSIONS 17 inches wide, 4 3/4 inches high,
13 7/8 inches deep |