Page 1 of PHILIPS DVDR 880 RECORDING PROBLEMS

I must really be thick!! He`s my problem: Lets say I record 3 programmes at SP on my 880, one of 60 mins duration, one of 45 mins, and one of 15mins. I now erase the the 45 minutes show and the 15 minute one, leaving two empty titles with those 2 durations on my TV screen, plus the 60 minute show still intact. I now want to record a programme on the remaining 60 free minutes. But when I go into record, the 880 selects the empty title duration of 15 minutes, and 15 minutes recording is all I get. I can`t even get the available empty 45 minutes title to record over.
What IS going on? Am I being really stupid?
Please help......... someone.
bigTALL

Try cueing the disc to the end of the 60 min recording by watching the last few seconds then press stop. Now press record and DO NOT HOLD for safe mode to kick in. It should take off fine from here. Mine works OK this way.

I presume your discs are RW and not write once +R with just a few minutes left as obviously while you can delete programmes from a +R disc you cannot re-use their space. I am sure you know this though.

This item was edited on Tuesday, 21st January 2003, 18:02

Hi Zipman....Have tried your suggestion...but alas no luck...am now recording trash over the smaller empty title.... in the hope that next time it will offer me the longer title to record on..which is better than nothing.
Thanks bigTALL

Hi Zipman...further to my recording over empty titles problem on my DVDR 880....I recorded trash over the smaller 15 mins empty title...instead of then being offered the 45 mins empty title to record over, the display simply said DISC FULL...any ideas where my missing 45 minutes has gone????? Hopefully, you can help.
bigTALL

Hi again.

Are you definitely sure you are recording on a RW rewritable and not a write once R as i cannot see why it will not record over your empty title. On a write once, if you erase titles you cannot re-use their space and it may well call it an empty title.

Or you have recorded your 3 titles in different modes, ie HQ, Sp, SP+ etc and this is reducing the time left on your disc.

Finally, go back to my original suggestion. On your 60min recording, cue near the end and stop so that you are still in your first title and not using a free title. Try recording now, this will create a new title and should be okay. On a RW disc you can stop anywhere on the disc, press record and it will overwrite everything onwards.

Make sure you have not protected your 45min recording. Scroll right on the menu and see what it says.

Best luck.

Hi again...& thanks a lot for getting back.
Firstly, I am using a RW disc, so there is no problem there......nor have I protected the disc. I have racked my brains to discover how this situation has come about...so this is now what I can recall: Today, on a fully erased RW disc, I recorded from TV, 1 hour 45 minutes of stuff in SP. However, I wanted only the first hour. I did not record any chapter idents. I forwarded to 60 mins in and divided the title. The screen, I believe, then showed 3 titles.... the first 60 mins that I wanted....the next 45 mins that I didn`t want, and the remaining 15 mins, which hadn`t been used. I then erased the 45 minutes section...giving me , as I thought, a total of 60 mins in SP available.
I have tried, as you suggested, going to the final seconds of my 60 min recording, pressing stop, and then record..without going into safe record. However, it at once shows a countdown, recording from 15 minutes. It is almost as if the 45 minute unwanted section has become protected, but I understand that you can only protect the whole disc, and not a specific title. Perhaps, it is simply not possible to divide a title, erase the unwanted section, and then retrieve it to record over.
Once again, if you can help me out here, I`d be very grateful.

Hi,

I think we have found your problem.

Manually inserting a dividing title cannot be reversed or overwritten until the disc is completely wiped.

All you had to do was go in 60min, stop then record and it would have created it own title for the new recording.

I think you`ll be fine when you wipe your disc but you`ll also lose your 60 min recording.

Hopefully, we are there!

Let me know how you get on.

Yes..many thanks, I think you are right..I just went about getting rid of the unwanted section the wrong way! I`ll do as you say in future...pause at the relevant point...60 minutes in or whatever, and then just hit record. I am hoping however, that in a different situation, where I have 3 titles and have subsequently erased 2 of them (without dividing the title!) that I can retrieve the full disc empty space where the 2 recordings were, for a single new recording? Is this the case?

Can I take the liberty of asking just one more question since you seem so familiar with the quirks of the 880. I have had difficulty in transferring VHS tapes to DVDR. Using a Scart connector to do the transfer, and monitoring the input on the 880, the picture stalls and freezes with the sound wowing. It`s Ok on the O/P of the video, but not OK monitoring the 880 input. I tried a different video playback machine which improved things , but when I tried to transfer a 2nd or 3rd. generation tape to DVDR...the same problem. No difficulty with DVD to DVDR...and changing to Super VHS output on my SVHS machine to SVHS 880 input doesn`t help.
If you have heard of this problem before and can help, I promise not to bother you again!! By the way, when the problem first became obvious, I got another new 880 from Dixons, but it has the same problem.
Very many thanks.

Bloody hell I think I will stick to VHS!

Hi,

Yes you will be fine in future retrieving the disc space as long as you dont insert any divisions.

The only time you need do this is for example, say recording 4 x 30 min shows in one go. You will then only get one index picture for the whole two hours. It is then that you can go to the start of each half hour show and divide the titles so you get an index picture for each programme. If you want to keep them on a +R you will have to make edits compatible in the menu and use a second dvd scarted through the EXT2 of your recorder to record onto a write once disc. You can then erase the +RW for re-using.

With regards the VCR recordings, again scart through the EXT2 socket and you should be fine recording your video archives. Bear in mind that some pre-rec tapes will be copy protected and will not allow transfers. On you own tapes, however, there should be no problem. I have done it ok.

Best luck, let me know if you need any further help.

This item was edited on Wednesday, 22nd January 2003, 09:03