On Sun, 25 May 2003 22:38:18 -0400, tnom@mucks.net wrote:

>It seems that Pioneer, Samsung, Philips and possibly others are now

>selling these units.

>

>I have a few questions......

>

>Do they record at 720x480 and at a constant bitrate of 8 meg/sec?

The Panasonic, at least, can adjust record compression

depending on time left on disk... (besides offering specific

time-selections).

>If so how can they outspeed my fast computer when it comes to

>encoding to mpeg2? When I encode to mpeg2 it takes hours.

Depends on the encoders. Both Sonic and Ulead software can

record/encode in real time on a computer, though the results

are not as good as when done non-RT when things get

difficult in the image (lotta detail combined with motion).

The Panasonic handles this relatively very well in the

1-hour mode in hardware...