DVDR vs Video First Generation Recording Question

[EdwardGein]

Would appreciate any answers, including that from NAbstentia who I acknowledge sometimes knows what he's talking about, if when recording a first generation tape will there be much noticeable difference in quality between DVD recording and VHS recording? Specifically, I only have one HD DVR (I realize I can not record HD copies) that now makes external copies. It is in my living room. My current DVD stand alone recorder (LiteON 5001) is set up in my bedroom. I figure occassionally I will want to make a permanent copy of something that's on my DVR. I do not wish for budgetary reasons to buy a second DVD recorder for my living room. If I have to I can of course just move the DVD recorder to the living room to record off the DVR when needed but I don't want to go through that hassle. It is easier for me to just connect a spare VCR to the DVR and record off there. I then figure I can copy the VHS tape to DVD and not lose a generation. I realise this is more time consuming but I prefer this as its more convenient to me overall. My basic question is, is the first generation quality of recording this originally on Video tape as opposed to DVD going to be significantly different (a 10% or more drop in quality), than recording it straight to DVD?

[N. Abstentia]

One way to find out....

But for me, the quality loss would be too big to bother with. You're going to lose the most quality going from DVR to VCR, then you'll lose more quality going again from VCR to to DVD recorder. You've got two stanges of analog/digital conversion to go through there.

But why not try it and see what it looks like? If it's not something hugely important that you want to keep then you might be able to deal with the quality loss.

[EdwardGein]

One question for you, I thought if you go from VHS to DVD and the transfer is digital you don't lose any quality and produce a DVD clone of what's on the original VHS. Your saying that you still lose quality going to DVD and thus don't produce a clone, am I correct? Thus if you go from DVD to DVD you produce a clone but VHS to DVD you get a generation loss. If so, then its obviously not worth doing the method I proposed.



One way to find out....

But for me, the quality loss would be too big to bother with. You're going to lose the most quality going from DVR to VCR, then you'll lose more quality going again from VCR to to DVD recorder. You've got two stanges of analog/digital conversion to go through there.

But why not try it and see what it looks like? If it's not something hugely important that you want to keep then you might be able to deal with the quality loss.

[N. Abstentia]

Yes, VHS is analog so it's impossible to do a digital transfer from VHS. If you have an $800-$1000 S-VHS deck that would be the best possible situation as it will have great output stages. The output stages in a $49 VCR are simply crap and that's where you'll lose most of your quality. Don't forget you'll also have some MPEG compression going to DVD so there's more quality loss.