Page 1 of Panasonic E55 recording modes

Hi to everyone,
Well, I went for the Panasonic E55 and I am hoping for a bit more advice please.
I know the E55 has 4 different recording modes with varying levels of compression, obviously XP being the most desirable with regard to sound and picture quality but limited to 1 hour of recording time. I find the 2 hour SP setting pretty good too but not long enough for a film that runs for say, 2 hours 20 minutes for which I have to use 4 hour LP mode.

The LP mode is ok for a few soaps for the missus but not good enough quality for a film longer than 2 hours, IMHO.
Is there a work-around for this problem? Can I record at better picture quality for longer than 2 hours? I was under the impression that by buying a DVD recorder I could record the entire content of a dvd at roughly the same quality, a good example being I want to record Gangs of New York tonight on Sky but it is 2 hours 40 minutes long, on LP setting I won`t be impressed with the quality for sure.

Anyone got any advice please?

The Panasonic has a Flexible Recording mode that allows you to fill the disc to the exact length of any recording . On the remote is a button marked F Rec (under the sliding flap on the E50 remote but the E55 might be different). Press this and up will come a screen where you can set the exact time (GoNY is 160 mins or 2hrs 40mins.long) Use the up/down forward/back buttons to do this. When you`ve set the time come back out horizontally using the left arrow key and then down to the next row to highlight the select box. When you want to start the recording press the enter key on the remote and the dialog box will disappear and the recording will start. It will stop precisely 160 mins later and you will have the best quality it is possible to compress into this time. Magic eh?

PS Try reading the manual!!

Remember the DVD of GoNY will be a duel layer with 9 gig of information on. All DVD recorders use single sided discs that are 4.7 gig, but I`m sure you will be happy with the Flexible record method.

Read the manual? Oh yeah, now why didn`t I think of that? lol

Seriously mate, I did read the manual, twice in fact.

What I didn`t say in my first post was that I had already tried Flexible Recording for a program that ran for 4 hours, it didn`t look any different than the standard 4 hour LP mode to me, sub VCD quality.
The reason I *didn`t* say anything was because I wanted totally unbiased opinions without me sending everyone off down the "FR will sort you out" route which is what I could see happening.

I tried FR again last night with a program that ran for 3h 20m, it still looks sub-VCD to me.

So (deep breath) I`ll try asking the same question is a slightly different way....is there anything APART from FR that can be altered to improve recordings? Does FR employ a variable bitrate for recording or does it simply pick one of the 4 pre-set modes anyway, in which case I can`t see any advantage in using FR.
Is the bottom line that FR is only effective with recordings that go a little over the two hour mark, like a film that goes for 2h 15m?
There`s no trick I don`t know about? No hidden menu? No firmware upgrade? etc

If FR is the only way to improve picture quality, I think I`ve just bought a very expensive 1 hour video recorder! Hopefully, someone will prove me wrong.

Best wishes :D

LP. = 4 hour is better than VCR. I`ve had 2. S VHS video`s & it`s better than that. Two hour recording mode is hardly any different to the one hour. I have what is noted to be one of the best 36" TVs going the `Picture Frame` Toshiba & even in 4 hour mode recorded from my Netgem the quality is miles above VCR. What are you viewing it on? What cables are you using? What are you recording from.

Viewing on 32" Sony Wega widescreen, from version 2 Sky+ box using 20 quid gold plated Cambridge Audio scart leads in RGB mode. I use a mixture of Datawrite and Ritek blank media.