Ascoyne D'Ascoyne

Although I find that Channels 4 & 5 are generally very reliable with their PDC signals broadcasts, I haven't used PDC for BBC broadcasts for years as I found that, not only did it often fail to work but, when it did fail, it prevented me from making any recording at all. Has anybody had positive results from the BBC regarding this feature lately?

mysteriesofedgarwallace

I always keep PDC disabled on my recorders. It never seems to work reliably.
Mind you, it may just be Panny recorders; there are loads of comments on avforum.com about 'wrong times' etc. on Panny recorders.

You have obviously had better luck than me; and presumably than others; (no other replies) -what equipment do you use?

smudge

In the days of VHS I too found CH4 reliable for PDC, but had the same problem with BBC. Don't use it at all for DVD though.

SMUDGE

[img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/devil.gif[/img]

Welcome to my house. Enter freely, and of your own will...

sanndevil

A couple of years ago I tried it with Sky - i.e. my BBC signal coming through the Sky service. That didn't work at all. [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/thumbdown.gif[/img]

Ascoyne D'Ascoyne

I chanced it again with the two boris Karloff films broadcast over the weekend (on my Hitachi combi in dvd mode) and got perfect results. Encouraged, I set it to record "The Damned" last night. Result - a blank disc!
PDC would be a really useful tool if it worked reliably as late-night programmes often don't run to time due to sports broadcasts etc. over-running. I th ink the best solution might be to record on video giving an half-hour leeway and then to re-record on to disc. Thanks for the replies.

mysteriesofedgarwallace

Funny you should say that; I was away over the week-end, so I set 'GRIP OF THE STRANGLER' to record on both machines; just incase!
As it was on the Beeb, I set the times 'tight' onto machine1 (DVD-R) and with loads of leeway onto machine2 (DVD-RAM)
I wanted to have the best chance I could get. As it turned out, I didn't need the RAM version.
But usually, I allow a good ten minutes before and twenty or so after onto DVD-RAM using FR to get the best PQ I can.
My experience, if (poxy) sport over-runs a lot; you're stuffed anyway.