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Panasonic H80 Recorder... (1 Viewer)

Matt Brighton

Stunt Coordinator
Joined
May 17, 1999
Messages
76
I have this unit and love it, now that I've gotten used to the functions, features, etc.

But (yes, there's a but), I'm afraid that the 80 GB HDD won't be enough. I want to be able to record tons of stuff (and I only record in SP, most likely my problem) and am afraid the HDD won't last me long enough.

Do they sell bigger HDD for this unit or am I just going to eventually have to delete some of my programs or use another rec. speed?

Thanks in advance!
 

SteveK

Supporting Actor
Joined
Jan 10, 2000
Messages
518
Matt - Is the H80 also a DVD recorder? If so, you can frequently "dump" whatever you need to DVD, rather than simply deleting it. No matter how big your hard drive, sooner or later you're going to run out of space unless you periodically copy to DVD or delete titles. Recording at a slower speed would help, but of course the playback quality would suffer.

I've had a PVR for several years now, and just recently purchased the Toshiba SX32, which is a DVD recorder and 80GB hard drive. I just hooked it up yesterday, so I haven't had the chance to test it yet, but my first impressions are favorable.

Good luck!

Steve K.
 
Joined
Mar 23, 2004
Messages
34
SteveK summed it up. I have the same machine as you do, and I make it a point to dump all my savers to DVD-R, and as soon as I know I've got a good copy off the HDD it comes. Let's face it, even with a 120 you're going to get to the same point fairly soon, so get used to transferring.
 

Derek N

Agent
Joined
Jun 9, 2003
Messages
33
I have the DMR-E85H with the 120G HDD and even that is could fill up if I didn't delete or burn.

Having read the extensive threads on this site about the E80 it is my understanding that eventually the HDD will need reformating, esp. with heavy recording. The HDD is supposed to be short term storage device (even says so in the manual) so I would get busy transfering the stuff you want to keep. Would hate to lose everything you recorded if and when the HDD decided it wanted reformating. Now I don't want to scare anyone because mine has not needed this, but the thread seemed to indicate that it was a common thing for heavy users. You could always use dvd-ram if they were programs you didn't want to keep forever but just didn't have time to watch yet.

Derek N
 

SteveK

Supporting Actor
Joined
Jan 10, 2000
Messages
518
I've now burned several DVD-Rs, and it's quite easy to do and only takes about 15 minutes or so (depending, of course, on the length of the program and the recording speed). I will only be using the hard drive for short term storage, until I have time to burn it to DVD-R.

I have decided that I will primarily use DVD-RW instead of DVD-R. They cost a bit more, but you can reuse them repeatedly (supposedly up to 1,000 times), so they'll pay for themselves very quickly. I'll use DVD-R for stuff I know I want to keep, or I'll copy it to DVD-R from -RW if I decide I want to keep it. But for throwaway stuff, I'll use RW, then erase and use again. DVD-RW isn't quite as versatile as DVD-RAM, but it's much cheaper.

We'll see how it works.

Steve K.
 

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