detail information

The one major drawback with the VHS tapes is the time consuming process that is required to edit content.  For example, if one has a 2 hour recording which contains an ad break every 15 minutes or so, the only way to eliminate the ads is to re-record the programme using a 2^nd VCR.  Even still, the person would need to sit there throughout the duplication process in order to pause the 2^nd VCR each time the ads came on. 

This Lite-On Recorder makes it a fairly simple to eliminate unwanted content such as ads or even split or merge recordings.  When it comes to content on DVD-RW or DVD+RW, it is also possible to erase individual recordings to allow further recordings to be made.  Unlike a VCR, there is no risk with overwriting content by mistake as it is possible to mark which recordings can be overwritten or even mark recordings to protect against accidental editing.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to edit content sourced from a data CD or on a (Super) Video CD, even if the content is copied over to the Internal HDD.

Splitting a recording

Splitting a recording is a fairly straight forward process.  To split a recording, first select the recording to split from the Video browser or recordable DVD menu (on a disc not yet finalised).  Then press the 'Edit' button on the remote to bring up the edit menu:

Navigating can be a bit tricky as there is no option to jump to a given spot.  If the recording contains chapter marks, this makes navigation a lot quicker, however without any chapter marks; navigation can be quite tedious, especially with a lengthy recording.   To begin navigating, the preview must be put into play mode by pressing the play button and then navigation can be performed using the chapter navigation, fast forward or rewind buttons.  Once the desired spot to split is reached, press pause and then select 'split' and press 'Enter':

The splitting process takes a few seconds and results in the first portion retaining the original filename and the 2^nd portion stored in a new file with the original filename with '_01' appended to it.

Merging a recording

Merging a recording can be handy for joining up multiple recordings such as all the football matches leading up to the final for a particular country or a multipart programme, which is split up across several days or weeks.

To merge two recordings, simply go into the editor for the first part, select 'Merge With…' and then select the 2^nd part:

Unfortunately, when it comes to recording on DVD, it is only possible to merge one recording with the following recording, assuming both are using the same recording quality.  When it comes to recordings on its HDD, only recordings with matching quality and type can be merged.

Editing Chapter marks

By default, the Recorder adds a capture mark every 5 minutes into a recording, which allows the user to quickly skip ahead within a recording without relying on the fast forward feature.  However, chapters do have another advantage in that they can be placed different scenes within a recording.  For example, a chapter mark can be set for each location within a holiday recording.

In the edit screen above, the chapter for the current edit position is shown in yellow.  The Recorder gives an option to add a chapter mark at the current position, remove the chapter mark prior to the current position or hide the selected chapter.

Hiding a chapter

As most consumers use a VCR to record from commercial TV, it would be really handy to be able to eliminate the ads during a recording.  Well this Recorder makes this process fairly straight forward. 

To hide a chapter, first insert a chapter mark at the start point and another chapter mark at the end point, then navigate back a few seconds so that the current position is within the chapter to hide and finally select 'Hide Chapter'.  If there is one or more chapter marks present in the middle of the section to hide, these would need to be removed to avoid having to hide multiple chapters in-between:

Once the chapter is hidden, the disc plays as if the hidden section does not exist.  For example, while playing back in our Sony standalone, there is no noticeable pause during the time when the hidden chapter is skipped. 

One good use for hiding chapters would be to hide the commercials.  This is as simple as setting a chapter mark at the start & end of the ad session and hiding this.  Hiding chapters also works on DVDs that have not been finalised.

Renaming a recording or picture

To give the title a new name, the text editor for the name can be brought up by selecting 'Rename'.  The text editor can also be used for renaming pictures, music tracks as well as folder names:

Although the editor may look like a handy method of quickly entering letters, unfortunately it there is a small delay when navigating about the characters, making it even a fair bit slower to use than even with a non-predictive text entry mobile phone. 

The following Video Clip shows an example of entering the text 'Sample Recording' as well as the symbol, uppercase, lowercase and International character sets:

The Protection options locks all editing controls for the current recording until the lock is removed later on.  This is useful to prevent accidental modification:

Erasing or overwriting a recording or picture

The Erase option deletes the full recording.  Any title on the HDD can be erased.  Unfortunately as the 'Erase' feature is in the Edit screen, some may mistakenly think this as an option to erase the current chapter within a video recording; however it is not possible to simply erase a chapter.  The only way to physically erase the chapter would be to split the content before the chapter, split the content after the chapter and then merge the two end sections. 

Unfortunately, unlike erasing a title from HDD, erasing a title from a rewritable DVD will result in a fragment of free space.  This means that if a new recording starts within the space freed by deleting a previous recording, the recording must end where the original recording ended unless the following chapter has also been erased or marked as 'Overwrite'.  The following screenshot shows a deleted recording:

One drawback we find with the erase picture is that it leaves a 'Deleted' icon in the place of the original recording, even when the disc is played on another player or even finalised.  The above screenshot shows an example of a 'Deleted' icon present when played on our Sony standalone.  However, if we try to play this 'Deleted' icon, it will begin playing the following title.

Finally, the overwrite feature allows a recording to be overwritten the next time the disc is used.  This may be a useful alternative to erasing a title since the recording is not actually lost until the next time a recording is made.

Setting a thumbnail

A nice way to present a DVD, especially one that contains personal recordings would be to put interesting images as the title's thumbnails.  This can be done for recordings on HDD as well as on DVD.  To do this, simply open a recording in the editor, seek to the desired spot which contains the image to use as a thumbnail and select 'Set Thumbnail'.

Once the thumbnail has been set, it will appear on the browser or in the case with a disc, on the disc menu also.  The following screenshot shows an example of the above image set as the thumbnail for the 'Horse Racing' recording:

Folder Editing

On the HDD mode, it is often handy to be able to split up a folder or merge a few folders together such as grouping pictures or audio recordings.  Unfortunately, it is not possible to modify folders on a data disc, even if it is prepared by this Recorder.  Also it is not possible to put video content into folders.

The following screenshot shows the folder edit menu for the Picture tab:

The rename option allows the folder to be renamed or given a new title.  This brings up the same text editor as with the editor for recordings.

The 'split from…' option splits a folder in two, resulting in files shown before the split position remaining in the original folder and the files from the marker on moved to a new 2^nd folder with the title of the first folder and '_01' appended to the folder name.  Moving individual files with in a folder can be quite tedious since there is no option to move individual files.

The 'Merge with…' option joins two folders together.  When this option is chosen, the Recorder will ask for the other folder to merge with:

The above snapshot shows an example of merging a music folder; however the same process applies with merging picture folders also.

The Erase option deletes the entire folder.  We would recommend being very careful when deleting music albums since as this Recorder has such a slow CD reading speed, it can take 45 minutes just to copy one full album back on if accidentally removed.

Finally, the list of thumbnails shown towards the bottom allows the user to set the thumbnail for the folder.  When it comes to music folders, the Recorder only gives a choice of five built in thumbnails as shown in the following screenshot:

Copying content

This Recorder makes it extremely simple to copy content from a disc to HDD, apart from copy protected titles.  For copying content from HDD to disc, the disc type must match the content to be copied.  For example, Video CD content can only be transferred to a disc formatted in the Video CD format. 

One method to copy is to press the 'Copy' button on the remote.  This brings up the Easy Guider's copy menu.

The other method is to highlight the title or folder to copy in the browser and press the 'Copy' button.  The following screenshot shows an example of copying a folder:

The Disc Tools menu provides some useful tools to finalise or erase a disc, clean up old or unwanted titles off its HDD or even to defrag the Recorder's HDD such as if the Recorder is running a little sluggish:

Erasing a disc or the Internal HDD

The 'Erase' option allows the user to quickly erase a disc or the Internal HDD. The following screenshot shows the 'Erase' screen:

Performing the erase is fairly straightforward, by simply highlighting either DVD or HDD, pressing enter 'Enter' and confirming the warning.  The only drawback is the lack of a full low-level disc erase, but then again the only way to recover content from an 'erased' disc is with specialised PC recovery software.

Finalising a Disc

Finalising was already covered earlier in this review as this operation has to be performed on recorded CD-R's, CD-RW's, DVD+R's and DVD-R's before they can be played back in other DVD players.  DVD-RW's that have been quick-initialised also need to be finalised before playing them elsewhere.  The following screen screenshot the finalising screen:

HDD Cleanup

Anyone who frequently records programmes on VHS tape usually encounters a problem over time where they have a lot of full tapes, but cannot decide which ones to record over or keep.  The same scenario can happen over time with the Recorder such as if the user ends up allowing the Recorder to fill up with recordings.  This is where the clean-up tool comes into play:

As shown on the above screenshot, the user has several methods of finding content to remove.  The 'Delete Older Files' option comes in handy to eliminate old recordings that are unlikely to be played again.  If the Recorder is getting fairly full, the 'Delete Larger Files' comes is useful to find the largest recordings on the HDD.  The 'Delete Seldom Played Files' is useful to eliminate rarely played titles.  These three options show up a screen similar to the following screenshot, starting with the highest ranking title for the option chosen and then with the 2^nd, 3^rd and so on:

The 'Delete Album' option allows the user to delete full folders, however it may be just as handy to use the 'Erase Folder' option within the browser as the browser shows up six albums at a time, unlike this screen which only shows one a time:

Finally, the 'Delete All' option performs the same as choosing 'HDD' within the erase screen.  This only gives one warning, so use it with caution:

Defragging the HDD

As with any hard drive in a PC, over time when recordings are made, merged, split and deleted, this can cause the hard drive to become fairly fragmented.  As a result, there can be recordings which may be physically split up several times across the hard drive, although to the user they appear as one continuous recording.  While this may not affect playback performance, it will affect the performance of copying recordings from HDD to DVD and vice versa.

The defragment tool is available in the Tools menu.  When selected, the following screen appears:

The defragmentation process totally depends on the amount of content on the hard drive as well as how severely fragmented the drive is.  During defragmentation, the following screen shows: