EVERYTHING YOU NEED IS IN MY LETTER BELOW.

I haven't been able to use my Emerson EWR20V4 for a long time, but as I recall, the easiest way is to cue the tape to your desired starting point, pause, then hit the record button on the panel's DVD side, let it spool up & start recording, then unpause the tape. If desired, I think you can hit the DVD record button again to set 1/2-hr. increments before the recording will stop.

Repeating my previous answer:
I haven't been able to use my Emerson EWR20V4 for a long time, but as I recall, the easiest way is to cue the tape to your desired starting point, pause, then hit the record button on the panel's DVD side, let it spool up & start recording, then unpause the tape. If desired, I think you can hit the DVD record button again to set 1/2-hr. increments before the recording will stop.

Did it EVER work as expected with VCR audio through the HDMI or are we working through that right now assuming it can?

I don't have a detailed manual, but the rear panel clearly shows some analog-only outputs (and NO digital ones) for the section called DVD/VCR. Internally, I'm sure there are proper analog-digital-converters for recording VHS to the native DVD-R, but VHS VCR's are NOT inherently digital audio devices so I'm pretty sure you need to run an analog RCA pair for the VHS video.

Depending on the procedure you may be pressing the record button instead of the D.Dubbing or Dubbing button. When recording from VHS to DVD you must first, load the blank DVD and VHS home movies, then play the VHS movies, then PAUSE the VHS movie when you want to START recording... then the only the you have to do is pressing the D.Dubbing button or the Dubbing button. If your VHS tapes starts to play after the Dubbing button is pressed you have been successful in Dubbing.

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1. Press SETUP,
2. Toggle with the left/right arrow to the RECORDING OPTIONS (icon has a dot and the letters REC below it in the icon menus at the top of the set up screen.)
3. While RECORDING options is selected, press the DOWN arrow to select VCR RECORD QUALITY.
4. Press ENTER to go to the submenu.
5. Use the ARROW UP/DOWN buttons to select the desired quality.
6. Press ENTER to confirm selection.
7. Press SETUP to exit the menu.

This is the same procedure for selecting the quality for the DVR recording speeds.

VHS speeds are:
SLP is 3x the recording time of SP.

DVR recording options are:

HQ=1 hour
SP=2 hours
EP=4 hours
SLP=6 hours

per disc.

Put it on VHS mode put the DVD in still on VHS then on the remote push DUBBING.

Dont use xp mode. Here are the definitions:
SP is short for Standard Play. Standard play allows you to record information onto the tape the way it was intended, with no quality loss. By default, VCRs and camcorders will record your footage as standard play. On a standard VHS tape, recording footage in SP mode will yield 2 hours of video.
LP is short for Long Play. Long play allows you to record much more information at the expense of quality. It accomplishes this by reducing the speed the tape is run through the VCR. As the tape speed decreases, the quality will also decrease. You’ll notice this effect when comparing a tape recorded at LP versus one recorded at SP, especially after years of storage. The LP tape will appear more blurred, have more tracking and color issues than tapes recorded at SP. A VHS tape recorded at LP can hold roughly 4 hours of video.
EP/SLP is short for extended play. Extended play is similar to LP, but actually provides you even more recording time. EP was primarily used to document long, continuous events without the need to change video tapes every 2 hours. Due to the fact that the video is not of optimal quality, many times this setting was not used in order to preserve the quality of your footage. Tapes recorded at EP usually are the most problematic after years of storage, displaying a wide variety of tape damage symptoms including color loss, audio loss, frame skipping, and tracking issues.

Try using DVD/RW disks with pausing the recording when you change VHS tapes.

I do not think you would have to worry about a way to disable the copy protection that is on the vhs tapes. you are not going to record over them. You are just going to transfer information to the dvd side. jh