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MillimeterIntegrate Review — Panasonic DMR-T3040 DVD Recorder
Feb 1, 2003 12:00 PM, By Steve Mullen
Standalone recorder burns video to DVD-R and DVD-RAM.
 Panasonic’s T3040 integrates a 40GB hard drive that holds up to 52 hours storage in EP mode or 8.5 hours in maximum-quality, XP mode. |
While reviewing Pioneer's PRV-9000 DVD recorder (see the July 2002 issue of Video Systems) I learned two valuable lessons. First, compared to computer software with a DVD burner, a standalone recorder is a delight to use. Simply connect a camcorder or deck, press a few buttons, and then burn a DVD-R in realtime. I burned dozens of DVDs using the PRV-9000 without a single golden coaster.
Unfortunately, while these DVDs had great image and sound quality, they lacked professional polish. Segments didn't begin or end cleanly because there was no way to make frame-accurate transfers from tape. Moreover, the “top menu” was a text list on a plain background. They simply didn't look like commercial DVDs.
When I learned Panasonic was selling a DVD recorder with a built-in hard drive, it seemed to offer the perfect solution. One could transfer video segments to the hard disk and then trim each segment. After adding chapter marks, the segments could be transferred to DVD-R. Before I reveal whether my hopes were fulfilled by the addition of a hard disk, let's examine Panasonic's DMR-T3040 feature set.
The T3040 has a 40GB hard drive that holds up to 52 hours storage in EP mode or 8.5 hours in maximum-quality, XP mode. It records to 4.7GB DVD-RAM or 4.7GB DVD-R discs. If you are planning to distribute DVDs with the expectation they'll play on most set-top DVD players, you must use DVD-R discs. The recorder has two rear-panel inputs and one front-panel input. Each input has a composite and an S-Video connection. To clean up poor source material, the T3040 features a time-base corrector and, for the composite and TV inputs, a 3D Y/C separation circuit. Although the T3040 has a TV tuner, it's virtually useless for most Americans because it lacks a cable/DBS mouse and a way to obtain a program guide.
There is also a front-panel IEEE 1394 DV port for digital transfers from camcorders and decks. You can record directly to hard drive, DVD-RAM, and DVD-R. Unlike the Pioneer, the port will not output DV from either the hard drive or the optical disc player.
Moreover, the port will not accept DV from a computer's FireWire port. That means you must dub to DV tape and then to the T3040's hard disk. If you dub a number of segments to DV tape, the T3040 will provide a bit of assistance. After enabling DV Automatic Recording, copy the tape to the hard disk (or DVD-RAM) via 1394 and each video segment will be separated automatically into a “program.”
The T3040 has two analog (composite and S-Video) outputs, as well as an analog component output that supports both 480i and 480p output. Dolby Digital and DTS audio is output via an optical port. The unit will play these optical discs: CD Audio (but not with MP3 encoding), Video CD (but not SVCD), and, of course, DVD Video.
One interesting capability is a front panel PCMCIA slot that can accept an adapter carrying Panasonic's SD Memory Card. The adapter can also carry MultiMedia, CompactFlash, SmartMedia, Memory Stick, and ATA Flash PC cards. (For more on using these types of memory cards for video, see page 61 of this issue.) JPEG images can be played from any folder on the inserted media card. You can show images one by one or as a slide show. You can transfer images to the hard disk or to DVD-RAM, but not to DVD-R. When you view stills, you can rotate them so vertical images appear correctly. Unfortunately, rotated images aren't flagged and therefore will not be shown correctly after being recorded to DVD-RAM. Moreover, audio cannot be dubbed over a slide show nor can images be used as menu backgrounds.
The T3040 features high-performance, variable bit rate MPEG-2 encoding and AC-3 audio. Four compression levels are provided: one hour (XP), two hours (SP), four hours (LP), and six hours (EP). Naturally, XP and SP offer good image quality — and I found that LP offers much higher quality than VHS. You can duplicate material from the hard drive to DVD-R or DVD-RAM for program distribution or archiving.
Once you have transferred one or more video segments to the hard drive, you can trim them. This is a time-consuming process. All tasks begin with choosing either the hard disk or optical disc drive. (Most operations that can be performed on the hard disk can also be performed on a DVD-RAM disc.) When you activate the Navigator, you'll see a list of programs stored on the selected disk. Here is where you'll encounter Panasonic's auto-play function that you'll either love or hate. The first program automatically begins playing when the Navigator appears. As you scroll down the list looking for more programs, each one in turn begins playing. Press Pause — not Stop — to cancel playback, or else the Navigator disappears. I would have preferred to press Play to start playback.
To trim a program, press the remote's right arrow button and choose from a list of editing operations. You can erase a program, give it a name, divide it, or shorten it. After choosing to shorten a program, mark the first frame of the program. After that, you must locate and mark the frame prior to the frame that you want to be the first frame visible. After deleting this unwanted material, locate and mark the frame after the last frame you want to keep. Then you need to locate the last frame of the program, mark it, and delete the unwanted program tail. If you are wondering why Panasonic didn't design the software to allow a user simply to select the desired first (mark-in) and last (mark-out) frames of a program, I think I know why.
The DMR-T3040 is a re-badged consumer DVD recorder. A typical consumer will be deleting unwanted commercials throughout a recorded TV program. Moreover, most TV viewers won't need to accomplish this trimming with frame accuracy. Which explains another troublesome aspect of the T3040's design — its lack of a jog/shuttle control.
Instead, the unit offers the ability to enter, from Play mode, multi-speed fast-forward or reverse play. From Pause, you can enter multi-speed slow-motion forward or reverse. But there is no frame-by-frame step forward or reverse. And, although the Reverse Skip button will zap quickly to the first-frame, the Forward Skip button will not take you directly to the last frame. For a disk-based product, the T3040's design is not sophisticated.
Thankfully, I found removing unwanted head and tail material to be almost frame-accurate. After trimming the programs you want to burn, next you'll want to give each program a name. Panasonic's onscreen keyboard is very efficient to use. Now set up the DVD-RAM or DVD-R itself by giving it a name and choosing from nine great-looking backgrounds.
If you are recording to DVD-RAM, you can dub at high speed from the hard disk. With DVD-R, only realtime dubbing is offered. Interestingly, the compression ratio you choose for dubbing to DVD-RAM and DVD-R can be different from the compression ratio employed when the hard-disk recording was made. This means MPEG-2 video from the hard disk is decompressed and then recompressed. This compression cycle occurs even when source and destination data rates are identical. Therefore, if you input via FireWire, your material undergoes multiple de-compression and recompression cycles that may result in a loss of image quality.
The DMR-T3040 does not have the capability to place chapter marks at arbitrary points in a program. I tried using the Program Divide function to divide a long program into segments, each of which was given a chapter name. I also tried using a playlist of segments to overcome this lack. Unfortunately, audio was muted for up to a full second at segment transitions.
Hoping that these audio gaps would be eliminated when a transfer to DVD was made, I burned a DVD-R. I assumed data from individual segments would be integrated into a continuous data stream during the burn, thereby eliminating audio gaps. After finalizing the DVD-R, I played it back. Unfortunately, the audio gaps were still present.
As part of this review, I burned and finalized several DVD-Rs. They played fine — except for the audio gaps — on my standalone DVD player. Unfortunately, unlike with the Pioneer, they would not play on my Apple PowerBook.
We have here a good-news/bad-news situation. The good news is that the DMR-T3040, with a street price of under $1,000, enables you to burn DVD-R discs with acceptable image quality and with a professional look.
The bad news is that the T3040 has multiple design problems. Hopefully the future will bring affordable DVD recorders that are designed specifically for professional DVD production.
BOTTOM LINE
Company: Panasonic
Los Angeles
(323) 436-3500
www.panasonic.com
Product: DMR-T3040 DVD recorder
Assets: Integrated 40GB hard disk holds hours of footage; variable bit rate MPEG-2 encoding yields good image quality; nearly frame-accurate trimming; efficient on-screen keyboard for menu creation.
Demographic: Video pros looking to avoid golden coasters while burning DVD-R or DVD-RAM discs in realtime.
Price: $1,040
Contributing editor Steve Mullen is owner of Digital Video Consulting, which provides consulting and conducts seminars on digital video technology. Mullen can be reached at d-v-c@mindspring.com. His website is www.mindspring.com/~d-v-c.
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