The only times I had a scheduled entry disappear is when other entries are greyed out, i.e. no show information. The missing entry appears to be random, no pattern. And it's not completely gone. I'll go back to the schedule, hit the green button to schedule that show and instead of going green as a one time program, it goes red (schedule entry disabled). I have to hit green a few more times to cycle to a weekly status.
I do get similar odd behavior when I go to reschedule the shows. And I do have a couple of greyed-out items in the list (shows I've been waiting to come back from hiatus, etc.). Maybe I should get rid of those and see if the problem clears up. Thanks.
First of all I would like to thank the contributors to this forum. I have had a DMRE 85h for about four years. I have had to replace capacitors three different times using the advice I found here. Each time I was successful!! I have also had a lot of trouble with TVGOS after Comcast went all digital. The Comcast customer support people are singularly ignorant about this issue. Finally I saw, in this forum, that only certain cable boxes will work with TVGOS and the DMRE 85h. I now use a Motorola DCT-2000 with the IR blaster. Everything is happy, the typical DMRE 85h glitches not withstanding. It still has to re-acquire the listings occasionally, and sometimes doesn't record a scheduled porgram. Here's the address to see a list of which cable boxes should work with the DMRE 85h: http://www.rovicorp.com/dtv/10065.htm You definitely need to use one of the listed cable boxes with this machine since it has an analog tuner and Comcast is all digital now.
I'm outside Phila PA with Comcast, also. I didn't want to mess with the IR blaster, so I currently put the signal thru a splitter before the cable box. One line goes to the box, the other to the recorder. I have some TV-Guide listings, but they are getting spotty and I may be losing them altogether as Comcast continues to go digital. I was surprised, and pleased when some of the guide initially came through. I guess I'll have to wait and see if I lose them all.
How can you control your cable box without the IR blaster to set channels? BTW, I was assured by someone at Comcast who actually knew about this issue that they were going to continue to support the analog host channel for TVGOS into the foreseeable future. (This guy actually uses the service on his own set. He assured me he felt my pain when it went out.)
You can't control the cable box w/o the IR blaster, use it. I had received the same reassurance from Comcast people, same "I feel you pain". It was BS. In my area (Seattle) the analog host channnel for TVGOS reamined viable for about a month after the total dtv transition date...then gone. Get a compatible cable box, use the IR blaster, it's the only way.
I tried splitting the signal too. It didnt work. I had to use the compatible cable box and the IR blaster.
Well, it might not have been BS. I had an interruption after the digital changeover, too. My host channel went away, vanished. It took a while to get people who knew what they were doing working on it, but they did in the end restore it. They didn't know it was broken in my neighborhood until I told them. It was working in neighboring towns. These systems are very complex, with a lot of different head-ends and points of possible failure. Even after they knew about the problem, it took them a while to find it and fix it. So I don't know that Comcast is monolithic--maybe it really is gone for good where you are. But it might also just be that the people who *can* fix it don't know about the problem.
My experience was similar to starrig, you just have to find the people who know what's going on. FFoldwomen, a few things that might help getting your guide data is to turn off all the channels you don't want or can't receive. For example anything over 99 can't be received with the analog tuner. Also move your host channel to the top of the channel list might help.
Well, I have just been living without tv guide for a long time ... I do have the blue boxes, but no data, so I can just check a box to record, but mostly I use the timer for recording now. I have never had a cable box on here, and I am not even sure I could find the ir blaster, let alone use it. But ... I have been having trouble with the remote. I have to really hold down the enter button hard, for great lengths of time to delete stuff etc. The erase button, too, must be held down deeply and longer. Pause etc., all work with a tap. I am guessing I need a new remote. Has anyone else had this problem?
BG98012: Just out of curiosity - - Have you had to replace the same caps three times? Which ones went bad?
Yes, I had to buy a replacement remote about a year ago. I just googled the model and found a number of places selling them. I bought the one that cost the least (but was Panasonic, not generic). It works fine.
Greetings everyone, So many of you have offered great advise for problems encountered with the Panasonic DMR-E85H. It's been a real sanity-saver to be able to scan through the messages here and find information to keep these units running. Thank you. I have two E85 units that have been embarrassingly reliable. One that is used only ocassionally for field recordings of switched video has given no problems. (If you can keep sports announcers from bumping the power button during football games.) The other is used for home recordings and DVD archiving. It was manufactured on 23 March 2005, still has firmware 0850DL installed, original capacitors, and a "D" as the fourth letter of its serial number. Oddly, it hasn't given any major problems, just gets a little quirky sometimes. I live in the country and don't have cable, so I get my programming off of satellite. Since the switch to digital over-the-air programming, I haven't had any program guide info available through the roof-top antenna. During the belated switch to back to standard time yesterday, the panel and screen clocks stayed one hour ahead while the timer clock went back like it was supposed to. Today both clocks were one hour ahead. When I tried to use set-up to enter the time manually, the clock and channel guide blocks were greyed out. My solution was to break out the 3x5 cards, copy down the timer program information, then do a three-button front panel system reset. That gave me access to the clock setting blocks after going through the system set-up. I was finally able to enter the correct local time. The down side to this method was that I had to reenter all my timer programs manually, since I don't have the program guide available to my unit. Once or twice when I've turned the unit on, the hard drive appeared to be totally blank. All the program names were missing. As I recall, I powered down the unit, then unplugged it for an hour or two. After plugging it back in and powering it back up, everything was fine. Another time I somehow managed to envoke the "lock" command so that the DVD tray wouldn't open. Thanks to this forum, I was able to use [POWER]/[STOP] key combination to toggle the lock function off. (I suspect there is a playful intelligence inhabiting the machine and that it gets bored from time-to-time.) I rely on my two E85s quite a bit and was hoping to purchase similar units as back-ups to my aging original units. For quite a while after Panasonic stopped production of the E85, there didn't seem to be any equivilant machines available. That seems to have changed now. B&H Photo and Video has a number of Panasonic and Pioneer units: • Pioneer DVR-560HS with 160 GB, USB port, and HDMI. ($399.95) • Pioneer DVR-660HS with 250 GB ($449.95) • Panasonic DMR-E58 with 250 GB ($395) • Panasonic DMR-EH68 with 320 GB, USB port, HDMI. ($499.95) (These are U.S. prices out of New York. There will be shipping on top of these prices.) I just wonder if any of these units experiences the same kind of problems as our E85 workhorse units? (Guess I'll check for other topics in this forum.) Given the amount of information available in this forum and the fact that the substandard capacitors used in earlier units are easily replaced (the circuit boards use easily soldered discreet components), there is no reason these machines cannot be maintained for several more years. The only part I worry about is the DVD drive and if a computer bay DVD drive could be phisically fitted in its place. (I had mine completely disassembled when I had the "Lock" problem, but managed to get all the fiddly bits back in the right places.) And if replaced, would a different be compatable with the system software? (Since the hard drive is swapable, I suspect the DVD drive would be as well.) Thank you one and all for the great support in this forum, -- Tron Troll 02Nov2009
OK Starrig, where did you buy the panny remote? I see them on ebay for about 28 bucks plus shipping. Does that price compare? Tron Troll, my clock won't reset either. I figured I would just lie to the machine about the time to record certain shows if I can't get it reset. K
I'm sorry, I don't remember the dealer's name. As I said, I just did a search on remotes for a Panasonic DMR-E85H, and a handful of dealers popped up. There are various online retailers that specialize in selling replacement remote controls. I wanted a new one, because why buy one on ebay that's already half worn out? I seem to recall that it was around $40-50 for a new one. If searching on that model doesn't get you results, try searching on "DVD remotes" and see if that gets you anywhere.
i followed the instructions below regarding the replacement of the capacitors, i used 1000ug capacitors rated at 35v that i picked up from radio shack for a couple of bucks. Works perfect now. Posted video to youtube.com http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMGkOf6umt0
I don't think I have ever successfully updated the firmware. This is probably running on the original stuff still. I did order a new remote from an ebay dealer, however, for about 35 bucks including shipping. I am eager to have that, for sure.
Scan10-- Its always a different location. c1260, c1261, c1413, c1270, c1271 have gone bad. Once I had "Please wait..." Once no display, once spontaneous "off". Always OK after I replaced the blown cap. Has anyone heard of a way to retrofit a digital tuner to these machines? It seems that it could be as simple as replacing the tuner module? I also replaced the remote once. As I recall, through remotes.com for $54. including shipping. I thought I killed mine by using it in the hot tub, but I guess its a common problem. I wish I could solve the issue of scheduled shows sometimes not recording. It does seem to work better if there are no "grayed" entries on the sched, but it still happens. Now I have had a couple instances that sound has gone silent during a recording. It seems random, the sound returns later in the recording. Anybody have a similar situation? It could be comcast too.
I've had the "don't record a scheduled show" and narrowed it down to recordings on the host channel. It appears that if a data download is in progress, the machine forgets to start recording. You can verify this if you notice the recording hasn't started, turn on the machine, and it starts recording like it should have when it was on standbye. My workaround was to record another show an hour or so before the show you really want. This will prevent the data transfer from starting and your recording will work correctly.
Unfortunately that theory doesn't fit my experience. I've had a fair number of shows that failed to record from time to time, and they have been on a variety of channels. Also, it doesn't seem to matter whether I have greyed out listings or not. Many of them have been prime-time shows, and I don't think there's a data download during prime-time. I've never experienced the sound dropping out, as someone else mentioned. So that might be a cable problem.
