Panasonic DVD recorders are riddled with quality problems. These have included:
Early age models (2002-2004):
- AC3 files that go out of sync when edited in many MPEG editors. (Not fully compliant?)
- Half D1 encodes are very blocky, for no reason other than the encoder chipset sucked. (Based on equally crappy Panasonic software encoder of the time?)
- Luma is off, sometimes giving you a muddy green-tinted images.
- The black level is not correct. The earliest models had awful over-brightness issues, in addition to IRE issues.
- Even in SP mode, the video quality is noisy, with mosquito noise (pre-blocking artifacts)
- XP mode bitrate spikes exceed DVD-Video specs, discs refuse to play in some players.
Mid age models (2005-2006):
- There is not enough bitrate past SP mode, models stupidly insist on 720x480 recording, giving you noisy and blocky encodes
- Even in SP mode, the video quality is noisy, with mosquito noise (pre-blocking artifacts)
Late age models (2007-2010):
- Same issues as mid-age models, plus some build quality issues.
All current DVD recorders use either CVBR or VBR -- mostly VBR.
Some early off-brand models (Centrios, Cyberhome) used CBR, but that was ages ago. Most of those machines have long since died and disappeared. I seem to recall a model of Pioneer being CBR, too -- but that was 5+ years ago. (It would have been discussed in a thread in this forum, if my memory is correct.)
