Sometimes it seems like the machine needs to stay powered down for almost 24 hours to complete the channel lineup. After that you can power it up a couple of times a day and it will still get enough downloads to keep the guide full. Cal
OK, here is an update on my Model DMR E95 I sent off to get fixed. They stated the following: DIAGNOSIS AND ESTIMATE TO REPAIR YOUR UNIT IS AS FOLLOWS: DIGITAL MODULE IS DEFECTIVE PARTS$ 325.00 LABOR. 100.00 They offered a one year warranty on parts. I will post when I get it back.
For those of you who have the auto channel setting and others greyed out, I have found a solution that worked for me. If this has already been posted my apologies but I searched for quite a while and couldn't find the answer and ended up finding a solution for me. Some background, I upgraded to the new firmware, then found my settings were greyed out. So after much trouble I did the following. 1. A ram reset To initialize ALL parameters to factory defaults: With the unit OFF, press "Skip Rev" ( |<< ) and "Time Slip" and "Open/Close" for 5 seconds. Let this run for a few minutes. After a while you will have a message that says (if i remember correctly) test *11 or something similar. Power down, wait till it says bye and shuts off. Then re-power. 2. When the screen came up to ask me to add my TV guide settings I hit the function button on my remote. A message came up telling me I needed to set up my TV guide. Don't. 3. Hit the function button again. Scroll down to Channel and the buttons should now be blue and capable of being programmed.
Thanks for posting that. A lot of folks just move on once they have solved their problem and never give back. Cal
Does anyone know what 'Next DL' means in the Setup Data pages? This doesn't tell you when the unit will be downloading data, does it?
Yes, that's the time that the next download should start. Note that the time is not local time (maybe it's GMT?). It's also a 24 hour format, but that's obvious. At the top of the page you will see the current time displayed. I take the difference between the current and next DL times to figure out how many hours in the future the next download is. Here, the downloads never seem to be more that 4 hours away. This winds up putting one in the middle of prime time, which sometimes keeps shows from being recorded. Once a download begins, it will not stop to record a show. I usually turn the machine on at about 7:00 PM on nights when I have show scheduled to keep it from downloading. Your machine needs to be turned off with the timer icon displayed for the download to occurr. If it is busy recording a show when the download starts, it will miss the entire download. Have you managed to get any guide data to download? Cal
Yes, it's downloading data. There seem to be so many shortcomings to this thing though. It seems that I'm stuck only being able to set recordings for shows I get on basic cable. I tried switching the Onscreen settings to 'Having a Cable Box' so I could set recordings in that setup, but then I end up losing all of my guide data. Including channel lineup. I'm going to try it again though. Maybe there is a limited way of doing it like you were saying if you avoid downloads. But I don't see how you can avoid the thing trying to remap the channels. Another thing I don't get is is the thing so stupid that it can't put the channels in the correct order, I.E. put them in order of channel number. Brother, but I guess they didn't foresee someone having to do it more than once. And my final beef is that it is only mapping two of my local channels. One CBS and one PBS. I have at least six more that I would like to have, but can't I at least have the basics of at least one of each major network? I don't get it.
Oh, and I can't forget the limited memory on this thing. If you put most of channels that you can get on digital cable, you only seem to get two days of data.
I remember reading that 50 active channels is about the max. Make sure you turn off the ones you never watch. Do your really watch more that 50 channels? Try changing your ZIP code to see if you can get a channel lineup that better matches what's available. Maybe the ZIP code of your cable provider would work. Try also some of the more populace areas served by your provider. You can also add channels that are not in the guide and it may be able to get guide data for them. Find a likely looking ABC station, for example, and change it to your local ABC station number. When you are editing the channel lineup, you can punch in a sequence number for the channel and it will jump to that spot in the list. I think you need to hit the blue key to be able to do that. In one mode entering a number changes the channel assigned to a station, in the other it changes the list position. Cal
The reason the channels are ordered the way they are is simply advertising. The channels the the TGOS people "think" we are most interested in come first by default. Yes it would be great if there was a "sort numerically" command, but you learn to live without it. One quick way tp find your channel is simply enter it on the numeric keypad and the listing will highlight that channel. When you tell the system you have a cable box, do you have the IR blaster setup to control the cable box? I don't think it can work without it since it needs to change channels to get guide data.
metal, Being a relatively new member to the thread, and not meaning to sound condescending in any way, I just want to make sure you recognize that you may auto scan the channels once (i.e. and thereby disable the TV Guide download - that is until the next power outage or reset). You may then set up a list of timer recordings manually (i.e. record once, weekly, daily) simply by using the remote's Prog button and navigating through the start day/time, stop day/time, record mode, ...etc settings. You can set up a timer recording manually in less than 1 minute, so you can set up 10 programs to record weekly in less than 10 minutes (if you already know the channel, day of the week, and start/stop times of the programs you'd like to record). Then you never have to worry about whether you're a night owl, or when you have the unit on or in standby, or when downloads occur, or when your cable provider will decide to block the EPG download or switch it to another channel, or moving channels around in some list, or trying different zip codes, yada yada yada, ..... and ..... yada. In my experience you also lower your odds of getting a U99 error dramatically. If you really want to see a TV Guide so badly occasionally, just go to www.tvguide.com Just a thought. --- and oh yeah - no ads ;-)
Repairman, thanks for your post on the E85s/95s and how sensitive they are with DVDs. I am perplexed right now. The Panasonic repair company here (actually a JVC repair company) called me to tell me that the day I took my E95 in, they ordered a new unit (where the disc goes in - forgot what they called it). That was 5/30. They got a reply that replacement part would be sent JULY 19 or so. It said they notified Panasonic that this date is TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE - too long. He told me that between the 2 of us, he has no idea what Panasonic will do as he is not sure that they can send a part or worse yet....definitely not replace the machine. I may be looking at a dead E95 soon. Although I did get an EH V75E recently, the hard drive is only 80GB and too small for my needs. Why are these dvd recorders with hard drives so hard to find right now? Are the companies going to make them high definition and charge a fortune when they release them. I don't keep up with this stuff but want to be able to go on-line/in a store and buy a machine I need. Kind of frustrating. BTW, the EH V75E also seems to prefer 8x discs. Have been making lots of coasters with this machine too. Tried using Sony 16x DVD+R and it had to format the disc first. Otherwise it does a disc recovery and usually says disc should be changed. Kind of give up already. Will go look for some Verbatim discs and see waht crazy messages I get. Does seem like the 16x is the problem I am having......
I just finished my first spindle of TDK 16X DVD-Rs. Not a single bad disk. The first 4 disks out of a new spindle also worked flawlessly on my E85H. However, the first two disks from the new spindle that I used on my computer (HP DVD writer) had compare errors after burning. They seem to read OK. I did a file compare on the first on and it had no errors. I get my DVD-Rs at CostCo. Cal
I think I got some sort of weird message like that with the first Verbatim disk that I stuck in my E85. Needless to say I wasn't too happy to see that. With the second disk I put in I had no problems though. Didn't try burning the disk at high speed. I've had so many problems with burners dying on me that I'm afraid that might be too hard on it. Considering how long it took make the disk though ( I think it took two hours to burn a two hour long show), the trade-off might be useless. It might be easier on it mechanically, but it might be harder on the laser. Hard to say I guess.
I put a note to the repair folks that "All old parts are to be returned if not covered under warranty. It is a state law in Maryland if the customer request them. Otherwise the repair is free. Does anyone even know if the "DIGITAL MODULE" is repaired or just replaced? I'll wait to call the shop to check status if anyone has the answer.
WRE 46 The digital module is an exchange unit and has to be repaired at a specialist repair centre. All prices quoted for repair of the digital board and the drive should be at the exchange price and not the full purchase price. Repairman
RE: TEST L1 I am delighted to say that my E95 just got out of Test L1 loop. On another site (archive2.avsforum.com) I happened to read that someone had pulled the plug while the unit was on and quickly put it back in to get out of the Test L1 loop. The first time it didn't work as I evidently waited too long (about 3 secs). However, I tried it a second time with only an interval of just under one second and got the TV Guide setup, went through that procedure, and then saw all working with my recorded HDD programs just as I left them! I should mention what got me to Test L1 a week or so ago ... I had only about 5 hours of program material on my drive. I was in the Playlist mode doing a lot of editing, perhaps 80-90 things cut out and/or rearranged within the Playlist program, all taking about two hours and whittling it down to 40 minutes. I had been editing for at least 5 hours straight, so I thought maybe it had overheated. It shut down and took about 5-7 minutes to go through a weird power up that resulted in it eventually stalling. I let it sit unplugged for an hour, then overnight, but each time it powered up, it continued to stall. I performed the factory reset, which then got it only to the Test L1. I was about to give up and take it to repair. Google led me to the archive2.avsforum for the pull-the-plug trick that worked. Reluctantly, I checked the Playlist and it appears that's intact where I left off, too. I wonder if I will run into the problem again if I try to continue. I should probably dump anything I don't want to lose on to disks. As soon as I have the opportunity, I will reformat. I have had major problems 4 times (including U99), 3 resulted in taking it to the shop and losing HDD program materials. Each time I've had a problem, it appeared to be editing related--either title split or chopping things up another way. What was different this time was that I had a pretty good amount of space on my HDD ... more than 80% open/free. I do have the firmware update, too.
Patrick, Good information! Thanks for posting that. Out of curiosity, have you tried a power down and unplug for 30 seconds (as suggested elsewhere by VideoBob)? You might try that after and hour of so of editing, as a preventative measure. Cal
Hi all- hope you all don't mind if I join this board to try to get some advice.... I am not as advanced as many of you and do not think that I would be able to install new drives in my machine....... My problem- I have a Pana DMRe85H..... noticed that the screen was completely black the other day-- it was plugged in, no power surge had occurred. I unplugged it and let it sit over night. The next day- it powered up-- but had a "please wait" message that would not go away..... Left machine on 2 hours-- still said "Please Wait".... I called Panasonic-- rep had me hold in power-- this changed nothing.... I then was told to do the power, stop, channel up thing..... no change. The rep felt that there was a bad disc in the machine.... There was a disc-- but it was a store bought one that had worked fine in the past (a kid show).... The rep told me that the disc could be causing the problem, and if I could not get it out-- then there was no way to remedy... I looked on these boards---- read a post that told how to get disc to eject-- this did not work. I managed to get disc out by opening machine and unscrewing disc compartment while machine unplugged..... (there were radiation warnings)-- but I did it anyway........ figured if machine not on-- could not get exposure..... Machine now is back together-- but still gets "please wait message" that will not go away. I will try the plug in and unplug technique mentioned..... Any other advice would be appreciated..... I also read a post and followed a link to "Roger's" advice-- I tried some of the things he mentioned--- was able to have screen change back and forth from lock to unlock--- but screen always reverts back to "please wait"......... I will try anything !!!! I really do not want to spend the $$ for repair-- our darn basement flooded 2 days after this problem started-- we have enough $$ to spend on other repairs now!!! Thanks all........
