i have the panasonic dmr E50 and also an apex dvd player. I want to back up my existing dvd's that i own, becuase my brother uses them as well and they end up getting scratched, which causes me to have to go buy them again. i have used a digital video stabilizer between the player and the recorder, but it doesn't work so far. any help would be appreciated.
How is it not working? Do you get an error message? (I think mine says something like "This disc cannot be duplicated.") Or are you not getting any video? How do you have the 2 hooked up?
it says that the dvd cannot be duplicated, i got the digital video stabilizer becuase a few people said it should work, but it hasn't. i think they had different brands of dvd recorders. my hookup is dvd player, hooked up to digital video stabilizer, which is then in turn hooked up to the dvd recorder.
Well, I've used the stabilizer before, and it worked fine. Last summer we had a guy who tried everything, and still couldn't get it to work: http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/39202 Now in that case both him and I tried the same movie "The Matrix" as well as the same recorder and the same stabilizer. Myself, I have made backups of some Disney VHS's onto DVD and had trouble with the stabilizer not working. I still say if you are planning on making backups of DVD's; doing it on the computer is the way to go. It's faster, easier, and you can keep Dolby Digital sound. One last thing to try in your case is a new battery in the stabilizer. Other than that, I'm not sure what else I can suggest.
yeah, your name seemed familiar. trust me i have been trying nothing has worked for me yet, so i have given up, i have been basically using my recorder like a VCR and taping shows that i missed on tv, so it has been a waste of money for me up to this point cuz is does not serve the function i bought it for. i figured maybe somebody had come up with a new method or something i tried now which is a year later almost oh i read some things online and apparantly the model i have doesn't work with any digital video stabilizer except for this new one that came out but it is really expensive, i could just as well buy another recorder with the money i would spend on it here is the link i found: http://www.cable-decoder.com/digitalgold.html#box4 let me know if you have any other ideas, or i might as well just sell my recorder on ebay or something.
That's just it; I own the [bold]exact[/bold] same Panasonic DMR-e50 and it seems to work fine for me. I had even tried the same movie as you and got it to work for me. I've also talked to other people since who have bought it, are copying DVD's, and the main questions they've had was keeping menus, Dolby Digital sound, etc. I'm wondering if the macrovision sensor is out of whack or something. One way to test it is to grab a DVD that doesn't have protection (like one you've made on the DMR-e50) and try to copy it. If you get the same message, then you know the unit needs to be repaired. I've also seen on here: http://www.dvdrhelp.com/dvdplayers.php that there is a hack to remove the macrovision all together, but you need a serviceman's remote to do it. Maybe talk to a small TV repair shop to see if they can do it for you.
The Prospec DVE772 works. $200. You're better off importing it than buyin' it locally, though. Ordered mine from Japan Direct. http://www.japan-direct.com/products.asp?type_id=1 Works fine with my stand-alone Panasonic DMR-HS2. Recently, however, I installed a Lite-on DVD writer, and I think it's about 100% better than using the settop box. Now I only use the settop box to record TV shows. If I want to back up a game or DVD, the Liteon is far better. Way cheaper too. I highly recommend doing your backups via PC. The settop boxes seem to be far more picky about media, and they are far slower (realtime recording). I don't know how much cash I've dropped on cheap media, only to find that the Panasonic doesn't recognize it. The Liteon eats anything I feed it, and doesn't complain. That's my two cents.
i was wondering as another route to go,are there any good programs for pc that elminate the css so that i can feed it out from the s-video jack on the back of my laptop to the dvd-recorder?
hmmmm. I don't know! Dvd decrypter is cheap/free, and will strip the CSS. It allows you to save in ISO or File mode. I think you'd need a separate app, then, to play the iso or files. I don't know of any app that'll mount and play the disk image, but I'll bet there's one out there. But yes, ripping it to your laptop's harddrive, and then streaming it to the settop recorder --should-- be a solution. Or so it seems to me. But I'm a noob, and could be completely wrong about that.
