usafret, Thanks for the tip I will switch over to HP disk's rlim, I was not aware there was an option to Finalize the disk on the Sanyo FRW 500. I will have to look for that now. Thanks guys for all the handy tips.
Cyb,to finalise the disc,press STOP twice on the remote,and then press SETUP,go over to the right of the menu and select EDIT DISC.You'll then get a list of choices,and FINALIZE should be listed there. good luck.
By the way,my Sanyo is dead.I killed it.Well,i merely put it out of its misery.It was out of warranty,and it made a coaster one time too many for my liking.Unplugging from the wall was the only way to reset it,and it was eating discs like there was no tomorrow.So the Sanyo is dead,long live the Sanyo. I stake my claim to be the first in this thread to commit electronic euthanasia. Here lies the remains of a Sanyo DRW500.(R.I.H.)
Hate to hear that Cult!! At a time when I started to take a hammer to mine, you helped me through it. I just wanted to say THANKS again and hope you still monitor this thread. Your wealth of knowledge would surely be missed. Jerry
culttvguy, Thanks for the Finalize info that worked for me. One more question: Is there a way to NOT have a icon menu. I wanna just burn the movie, then finalize it. so when you play the movie it just start up and plays? I always end up with a icon and have to press 1 to play.
I've had a 500 for almost a year, with only a few problems: (1) Occasional Coasters. (2) Finalized recording has occasional >pause/delay< during playback. (3) When trying to record a vhs that I recorded from TV, I sometimes get RECORDING PROHIBITED. Verrrrry frustrationg. My Questions: Is there a disc brand compatibility chart somewhere, and I read in a previous thread something about hooking up a Sima CT-1 module to "dismiss or override" copyguard signal, although I still can't figure out where such a signal would have come from in many cases of my off-air recordings. Many thanks!! -The New Guy on the Block
Cyb,I know what you mean,you want an autoplay function,so you dont have to access the movie through the menu.Not sure if you can do it,and i no longer have the unit to be able to know for sure,and i couldnt find any reference to it in the manual. There's a phone number in the manual in case you need help,maybe they could let you know,its 1800 813 3435 Glad you got the finalise to work!
jake16qp, I had that same weird "RECORDING PROHIBITED" when trying to copy a vhs tape recorded from a TV signal. The Sima CT-1 (or CT-2 that I bought) solved the problem for me.
culttvguy, Thanks for all your help. I too am gonna crash this unit with a hanner. I am on my 4th unit so far in 3 weeks. I get 3 or 4 movies from a unit. Then it starts to make coasters. The one i have now, burned 3 movies and now it operats real slow. press any key and it takes forever for it to respond. like it's out of ram or something. I am takig it back tonight. I am dont playing with this unit. Time to upgrade or downgrade. I have a sony 710A DVD burner in my PC I have never had a problem with it. It has never failed me. I will start looking for a Sony external unit now. Steve
culttvguy, lol sorry for all the typo's in my last message. I just wanted to let ya know I am going to buy the ILO DVD burner with an 80 gig hard drive also. I have a friend that bought one. he said he has burned over 150 movies and never had a failure. I am going to try it out. Thanks Again.
Steve,there have been discussions about that recorder in this forum,here's one http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/129037 some like it,some dont.I know that if it were me,i would get a dud unit,and end up dropping it on the floor again !! Good idea about taking a hemmer to the Sanyo,i was thinking of doing that and recording it on my video camera,and then uploading it to one of thos ewebsites where you can upload weird stuff.people would be like "why's this guy doing this?" and the answer would be "for a laugh,of course!"
hello. i was just reading this forum and i have found many bad things about the DRW-500. i thought i might shine some good light on it. i believe it is a great product for 200 dollars. i have never had it skip or anything. i think it is very good. it takes about 6-10 seconds at the end of a recording to finish it up. what i do is i take the video i recorded and copy to my computer to edit out all the junk i dont want then burn to some RiData dvds i got at newegg i think they are some of the greatest dvd 100 for 40$ so i believe this is a great dvd burner. although the gui is a little rough around the edges.
I'm in agreement with Tpyatt. I've been extremely happy with my DRW500. I haven't experience any problem with the unit and the recordings has been exceptional. Mind you, there are still features on the unit which I haven’t the time to read up on … eventually when I need to use a particular feature will I make the time. Anyway, with all the DVD media challenges that many of you are facing, I have been recording on Memorex 8X DVD +R and Memorex 4X +RW which have performed flawlessly for me. The 8X DVD +R will also read on other DVD units such as JVC and Panasonic belonging to my relatives.
Typatt, what software do you use to copy the DVD to your computer and "edit out the junk"? I too have had a pretty good experience with the DRW-500, although I made lots of coasters with Memorex 8x discs before I upgraded the firmware as described earlier in this thread. Haven't made one coaster since the firmware upgrade.
I accidentally posted this message to a new thread - I'll copy it here in case it's missed. <<<<<<copy of other thread>>>>>>> Please forgive my ignorance, but I'm really new to this equipment. I have been authoring DVDs for some time now on my PC using Pinnacle Studio 9 and a Dazzle DVC150 capture device and/or digital camcorder. I bought the Sanyo for the convenience of dumping the 3,000,000,000 VHS tapes that have accumulated in our house for 21 years. The capture and rendering process on the PC takes far too long time to be convenient and hence I only dumped 1 - 2hour tape in 2 years. I agree with everyone else that the Sanyo manual leaves much to be desired. I also downloaded and installed the FLASH upgrade from Sanyo's site. It would have been nice if they had listed what bugs the update fixed since I don't notice anything new or different since the update. The site itself is pretty sorry for support - I intend to write to them about that. They might have their sales increase if they had better information on the web. Despite that, I've been able to record 4 DVDs so far (have had the unit for 3 days) without a hitch after I discovered that it really has problems with DVDs unless you finalize them. My question is this: is there a way to edit the files on the PC after they've been burned on this unit? I.E., I would like to take some of these and create some attractive menus and chapters. However, Pinnacle doesn't work with VOB files - it only recognizes and opens MPEG. Does anyone know what format the files are on the disc BEFORE the Sanyo finalizes? Or is there a software utility that will convert the VOB files to MPEG? That was the only disappointing thing with this unit is that the disc menus, chapters, titles etc are very spartan. However, I realize that it's not an expensive, sophisticated piece of equipment -- simply made for recording like a VHS recorder. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Jeff
I was also having trouble with RECORDING PROHIBITED. I obtained the SIMA CT-1 digital video enhancer. This corrected the recording prohibited problem but now when I record from VHS tape to DVD i am having trouble with the picture wobbling. I noticed in a previous thread someone mentioned about using the "Enhanced position" mode button to stop this wobbling. SIMA CT-1 does not have this function. I am now getting frustrated. Could someone help me with further suggestions? i also posted this under SIMA CT-1 topic by accident.
There are "video stabilizers" that you can buy at Radio Shack. Basically it's a little box that plugs inbetween the two components through the composite video cable. Usually they run on a 9-volt battery. The "wobble" that you're talking about is the copyright protection on all VHS commercial tapes. The "stabilizer" removes the wobble and also prevents the picture from fading in and out (another copyright scheme). The units are less than $20.00.
Kingsmead,assuming that you can open the unfinalised discs on your PC,you can download a program called ISOBuster which you may be able to use to extract the video from the disc.I cant test it myself becaue i lost the program with all my other stuff when my hard drive crashed a couple weeks ago. If you are looking for software that you can use to edit /clip/trim programs,try TMPGenc DVD Author.You can edit with it,and make DVD's of varying lenghts by specifying bitrates etc,and burn discs by using the built in burning tool.I get good results with it.You are right that the rendering process takes a while,but what i usually do is record 6 programs and them encode overnight while I am asleep,then burn them to disc the following morning,and do the same process again.
