Hi there.... this has to do with archiving stuff onto DVD as well as onto digital tape. I'm burning backups of my DV tapes onto DVD-R's under the theory that I'd rather not have all my eggs in one basket... and it's easy to locate footage that way... I have maybe a couple thousand hours of raw vid.

Currently transferring U-matic SP to DV, which works, and I have found that using a Panasonic DMR-E50 deck in 1-hour mode through the s-vid jack produces quite decent backups.

HOWever, two weeks ago, in the middle of a burn, the panasonic deck lost its mind and would not complete the burn, eject the disk, etc... nor would any of panasonic's tech tricks make it do so. I had to ship it a couple thousand miles. (it's under warranty still)

The media I was using are Ritek "Ridata" G03 disks, which are theoretically well-rated. However, when panasonic sent the deck back, they included a xerox of the paragraph which says the unit "works best" with panasonic-brand media. Well, OK, for the sake of argument maybe it does; but if you can find it, it's expensive. Moreover, the documentation does not say that it will melt down if you use another brand. Ritek is generally well-reviewed.

I'm a little chicken to stick another one of those disks in... but I have about 300 blanks, worth as much as the recorder. Any suggestions by you DVD-recording cognoscenti on this forum?

many thanks

DW

I've had the same issue with Ritek general purpose white inkjet printable discs on the Panasonic DMR-E50.

The problem, although verrrry intermittent, seems to be in the early stages of recording. I've had to go in with hemostats to pull the media out of the machine (yes, I'm sure this procedure is frowned upon by Panasonic). When opening the door to get at the DVD, it seemed that the disc wasn't completely on the spindle. To correct this problem, I've made sure the disc is centered in the drawer when inserting it for recording: haven't had a problem recently.

Thanks Mark.

Any particular technique for getting the thing out with a hemastat without destroying the machine? Strikes me as a useful thing to know....

best

DW

Okay, Don, you didn't hear this from me...

I try not to touch any of the Panasonics components, and grab only the DVD media with the hemostats. I then slide the media out of the machine as gently as possible (I try to keep as straight a path as possible to minimize the possbility of damage to the recorder).

Of course, this procedure typically gouges the disc; but you can't reuse it anyway.

HTH