Solved! DVD recording question

badgermaniac

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I have an HDTV with an excellent picture.

However, when I record, the quality is much poorer. I believe this is due to the cables that connect the various components. I have at least one high quality cable, but am wondering if I am using it in the wrong way.

My system is very simple: the HD receiver and TV, a dual DVD/VHS recorder.

Where should I place my high quality cable to generate better recording quality?

Should I replace all the base cables with higher quality ones? Which ones are necessary and which will not affect my performance?
 
Solution
You are recording to a VCR. enough said. the analog cables from the HD receiver is a big step backwards in quality 1080 to 720 or less. Now take that input and output it thru a dirty recording head to a tape that has beed recorded several times and your left with some bad recordings.
You need to get a HD DVR with DVI or HDMI inputs.

mhelm1

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You are recording to a VCR. enough said. the analog cables from the HD receiver is a big step backwards in quality 1080 to 720 or less. Now take that input and output it thru a dirty recording head to a tape that has beed recorded several times and your left with some bad recordings.
You need to get a HD DVR with DVI or HDMI inputs.
 
Solution
When you say high quality cables, do you mean the connection they are using such as S-Video vs. composite, or just a better brand. You should be able to record to DVD at pretty good quality, assuming you setup the option correctly and don't use a composite connection from the TV to the recorder. You would need to use a component or HDMI connection to get a good signal to the recorder. Even S-Video will degrade the signal quite a bit, although it's way better than the composite cable.

You will still see a loss of quality unless you get a DVR as mhelm1 suggested.
 

badgermaniac

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No. I am recording from HDTV to a DVD.
 

badgermaniac

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I do have one HDMI cable, but obviously, I am not using it correctly (hence my problem).

It is going from my TV to my satellite box.

I am assuming I need another one going from the TV to the DVD recorder? (Which logically would explain the poor recording quality.)
 


HDMI to the recorder will improve things, but even then you need to configure your recorder with the proper settings. If you set it to fit more on one disk, even if you use a $200 cable it will not make one bit of difference. How is the recorder connected now?