Hi all, Thank you in advance for your advice/input.
This week I purchased a Tosiba D-VR7 with the specific purpose to start transferring about 200 home movies on VHS onto DVDs. My goal is to throw a VHS tape in there, hit play, let it play out for 2 hrs, and then edit it on the recorder when I next have time. Cycle like that for a few weeks/months til I get through it all. Bought a spindle of DVD-RWs.
So tape #1, its a VHS tape only about 15 years old, originally recorded in SLP (6 hrs). I put the VHS tape in, put the DVR-RW in, set everything up just right, formatted the DVD to VR (I did some research, and I'm still not sure this was the right call, but this isn't my current issue - but I did VR because it seems a lot easier to edit.. The first attempt I made, I was in the 'video' mode, but it wouldn't let me edit the recording at the end, so I researched, and saw I needed to switch to 'VR' mode to edit after dubbing), and selected record mode of SP (4 hrs). Figured the VHS tape would just run for 4 hrs til the DVD was full, then I could go back in, edit the scenes/bits out that I didn't want, slice it up into individual titles (the tapes are filled with events or shows that are anywhere from 10 minutes to 2 hours long), and that would be that.
Anyways, the problem I am running into is that the dubbing will run on its own fine, and I'll leave the room, turn off the TV, hide the controller.. but when I come back in the room, I'll find that the dubbing only ran for a completely RANDOM amount of time. It will have somehow auto-shutoff anywhere from 15 minutes in, to two hours in. The file on the DVD will be as long as the point in the VHS tape that the tape ran until it shutoff.
At first I thought there was some kind of tracking issue on the tape or a blank spot or something that might have caused the machine to think that it was the 'end' of the tape, and therefore shut off. But its not the case, theres no blip or anything. And then if I re-start the whole process, put the VHS tape back to the start and start dubbing again, it will run another random amount of time (past the point it stopped at last time) and then stop again at another random point. No consistency at all.
I've tried different VHS tapes, different DVD-RWs.. there is absolutely no rhyme or reason for why its happening.
So I then assumed it was the deck itself. I called Toshiba technical help line to see if they had any insight, which they did not really. Their advice - exchange it. Which I did. Get home with the new unit.. same problem!!!!
I swear to god I'm not an idiot, and i've worked with a lot of video and audio equipment over the years, so I'm not some newbie. I swear I'm doing everything right, and its all working - except for the fact that the stupid tape stops dubbing at random points of time.
Please help!
(my secondary issue is this whole VR issue - if I want to make DVDs that I can watch on regular DVD players, it seems I can't record on the recorder in VR mode, correct? Even if I 'finalize' the disc, it doesn't make it better right? What should I do? Should I be using DVD+RWs instead of DVR-RWs? Should I just record in video mode and don't worry about editing?)
Thanks so much to anyone who can assist with either/both issues. Much much appreciated, and I'll keep my sanity!
Cheers
Dave