I have a D-R4SU and have problems playing back recorded disks. They start out fine but half way through they break up, skip, and freeze up and then if I stop it, open drawer and try again, they won't load. Why is this happening?
You're either using junk media, there's a lot more bad discs than good, the lens needs cleaned or the burner is dying. The recorders actually made by Toshiba were hands down the best ever made but the burners in them tend not to last a long time. That's pretty much the case with all standalone recorders, the burners just don't last as long as PC burners.
Long time no speak. I bought two DR4SUs on ebay a few years back based on your recommendation and have been very happy with them. I also got the DVDs you recommended and they also worked out great.
Now my question: Any idea why I can't get closed captioning to come thru on the DR4? It doesn't seem to record it and it also 'blocks' it when I run my video thru the recorder.
In other words, if I hook my video up directly from my tuner set top box to the TV, and turn captioning on (on the TV), I get the captioning displaying on the TV.
But if I run the video from the tuner to the DR4 and THEN to the TV, there's no captioning displaying.
And when I record a DVD on the DR4, I get no captioning when I activate it (turn it on) on my TV
The manual doesn't give much explanation that I can find, it just seems to give the three options: off, recorder, or TV
I have mine set on TV, but the 'recorder' option doesn't give any different result. I've only tried it with one of my DR4s so far, but I thought maybe you'd have some explanation?
I've never had that problem. CC works fine for me. What exactly are you recording from? Have you connected the jacks you have going to the Toshiba to the TV? I can get CC through the recorder by changing the setting to recorder or let the TV do the CC by setting to TV.
I am recording from a 'tuner box', either a VOOM or Samsung TS360, both receiving signals OTA. Let's call them 'set top boxes'
I have one set of cables running from the set top box to the input of the D-R4SU. I then run another set of cables from my TV to the output of the D-R4SU. Thus what I see on my TV is what's being output out of the D-R4SU (when it's turned on, of course). I have my TV set to display CC.
When I do that on a program that's broadcasting CC, I don't see any CC displayed on the TV
If I then hook my TV cables directly up to the set top box, I DO see the CC displayed.
So it appears that the D-R4SU is not passing the CC on to its output. It appears to be filtering out the CC signal
Similarly, when I record something on the D-R4SU -- from any source -- I can't get CC to display on my TV. It appears that the D-R4SU is simply not recording the CC signal, or isn't passing it to the output jacks if it IS recording it.
The source does have CC in it and it will display on my TV if I connect the TV directly to the source.
I do have another D-R4SU and I haven't tried it with this "test," but I guess I will do so because it could be that my primary D-R4SU is just dysfunctional in this regard.
According to what you say here, there's nothing else for me to do and I appear to have it set up properly. From what you say and from what I gathered from the owners manual, if I set it to 'recorder' rather than to 'TV', the CC will always be displayed. Is that right?
I wouldn't want that, but I do want the ability to display CC on any recording I make (assuming the source contained the CC signal)
I have "Progressive conversion" set to "Auto" (in "Picture/Audio Settings" in setup) and the progressive indicator is not lighted on playback (or ever). So my answer to your question must be "no."
BTW, I do not see any way to set the output to either 480i or 480p and do not find any occurance of those terms in the manual (I searched the online version in Adobe and got no hits)
Edit: Also BTW, I tried my other D-R4SU and I get the same result (no CC is being passed through the recorder but does display on the TV when the recorder is bypassed).
TV is an HDTV but I'm not seeing HD since I'm using RCA cables and not HDMI or component inputs. Or am I?
HD or no should not be an issue since I see the CC displayed on the TV when it's hooked directly to the set top box. Same with the cables I'm using.
Plus, the D-R4SU has no HDMI or component inputs, so I don't know how it can "do" HD, even tho' it does have a component output.
(I don't really understand that stuff all that much, I have to say)
The TV has several CC options (settings); namely, CC1, CC2, CC3, text1, text2, etc., but I've tried them all every which way and it's not that. CC1 is the only one that displays (as far as I've seen so far) and when it's displaying fine with the TV connected directly to the set top box, it does not display when I run thru the recorder (same channel, same program).
Only thing I can figure is that the recorder is not passing the CC signals along to the TV. Seems unlikely that both of my D-R4SUs would have that same problem. Perhaps CC does not come thru the RCA cable inputs on L1???? Seems unlikely to me.
The only thing I can think of that would stop the CC from going through is if you're using components and the Toshiba is on progressive. If you hit display on the TV remote it will usually bring up an info screen with the input resolution, If it's 480p, CC won't work. I know for sure that the CC works on every Toshiba recorder I've tried, through the recorder itself or on the TV.
Thanks for your help. I think I found the problem and it turns out to be pretty simple -- it's not the D-R4SU, as you suspected.
The problem is apparently my VOOM set top box (tuner). I thought the problem also existed with my other tuner box(es), the Samsung TS360, but I was wrong. I tried that box this morning and it passed the signals thru the D-R4SU just fine. I haven't yet tried a recording, but I'm confident that a recording from the Samsung box will also have the CC imbedded in it.
I use the VOOM as my primary box and particularly with a program that I record weekly (DaVinci's Inquest), and that's how I got hip to the fact that I wasn't getting CC in my recorded discs. Some of the dialog is difficult to decipher at times (Canadian accent) and when I tried CC to see exactly what was said, it wasn't there.
So it's just the VOOM. It's still strange because the VOOM displays the CC on the TV just fine. But apparently the Toshiba doesn't like what it's getting from the VOOM's CC signal, and it isn't processing it like it does from the Samsung box.
So that part remains a mystery, but at least I know that my D-R4's are working properly. And you were right on about that, as usual.
Thanks again for your help. Sorry to bother you with my bad -- I should have double-checked the Samsung box to make sure I wasn't getting CC through the Toshiba with it as well.
Those old Voom receivers were early generation and definitely had quirks. I had one of those at one time. The Samsung should have better PQ than the Voom. Early ATSC tuners weren't very good and got considerably better with each new generation.
I just noticed something with CC today. The stabilizer I use to record premium channels garbles the CC if it has the battery it uses connected, without the battery the CC works fine and I'm still able to record the channels. Go figure.