I've had my Panasonic DMR-E100H for just over a year now, and only just cottened on to the special set-up requirements for quality recording and dubbing...doh!

Here's my scenario:

1) I have quite a few footy matches on my HDD that I want to dub to DVD-R and keep as a collection.

2) They were recorded with the Hybrid VBR Resolution on "Automatic".

3) The Hi-Speed recording mode was off.

4) They were recorded from Foxtel Digital SP mode.

5) Their quality at playback off the HDD is fine (basically same as original broadcast), however when dubbed to DVD-R (again in SP mode) the quality drops quite dramatically on playback of the disc. They appear very pixilated during fast movement, and the general picture sharpness and clarity are somewhat lost. I've since read that they're are being "re-encoded" as they're dubbed to DVD-R in real time, and should've been recorded with Hi-Speed mode ON. Live and learn I guess.

Q1) Please confirm this wouldn't happen if I had the above settings correct and dubbed in Hi-Speed instead of SP, and is the only tweak I have missed?

Q2) ...also, is there ANYWAY of recovering the games I already have on my HDD onto DVD-R without them looking so bad?

I would have thought as long as you keep them less than 2 hours on the DVD-R, the quality would be the same as the HDD version.

If you copy more than two hours of SP mode recordings the resolution drops down to something like 360 x 288.

Div
Regarding Q2, can you get the recordings back on to a PC HD via iLink/Firewire? In other words, does the Pana iLink port allow you to export back to a camcorder. If so, then you have a chance to do the compression and burning on a PC, which should be more flexible (but time consuming) and give much better quality.

Sway

I've read that unless you dub to DVD-R in Hi-Speed mode, the program is re-encoded (no matter the length) therefor PQ is lowered.

From my tests so far seems to be the case.