jhaninger, Since I don't have your configuration I can't test it myself, so I could be a bit confused. If anyone knows different, please correct me. When you use L3 as an input, there is no channel to be changed on your DVR -- which is your Panasonic DMR-E85H. Some cable boxes are now DVRs as well, so I want to make sure when either of us write DVR, we mean the Panasonic DMR-E85H. I have not encountered a piece of audio/visual electronics which outputs more than a single "channel" to other than a coax RF cable (i.e. its antenna output). You have written you have your cable box connected to your DVR through a separate S-Video cable (and I presume separate audio cables) from the cable box to the L3 inputs on your DVR. If your DVR operates the way I expect it to when you specify in the initial configuration that you have your cable box connected to L3 of your DVR, when a timed program activates, I would expect the unit to fully power-on, select L3 as its input, AND USE THE IR BLASTER TO CHANGE THE CHANNEL ON YOUR CABLE BOX. The DVR itself would not "change channels". There are no channels on L3. The DVR does not "tune" to L3. It simply "selects" L3 as the recording source. The DVR's analog RF modulator that is used to tune to one of many possible transmit frequencies incoming on the RF antenna input is not being used in your configuration. Rather, the RF modulator on your cable box is being used to tune to a particular channel, mix (or down convert) the selected RF channel to an IF (intermediate frequency), separate the video and audio components of the selected channel, and output them discretely to the individual S-Video and Audio outputs you have connected to your DVR's L3 inputs. You can think of this process as similar to the one you might have used in the past when you had a cable box connected to your TV through the RF antenna output. Whatever channel you selected on the cable box was always transmitted out the cable box on channel 3 to the TV. You always kept the TV on channel 3. You never changed the TV's channel from 3. That is sort of how L3 works. The DVR does not "tune" to L3. It simply selects L3. All "tuning" is done on the part of the cable box. That is why it is critical that your DVR's IR Blaster commands the cable box to tune to the channel number you specified when you setup a manual timed program recording event on your DVR using the DVR remote's green PROG/CHK button. I apologize if all this was already clear to you. You have written that the DVR records the program you set it up to record. Then it must be using L3, since you have nothing connected to the DVR's RF antenna input. The only question remains: is the DVR commanding the cable box to tune to the correct channel appropriately using the IR Blaster? To test this, use your cable box remote to change the cable box to a different channel than one you want to record. Set up a timer program on the DVR to record your desired program. When the timer triggers, you should see the channel change on the cable box's display automatically to the one you wish to record. You might have already run this test except you wrote the DVR changes channels instead of something like: the DVR commanded the cable box to change channels using the DVR's IR blaster.
Vulcanusa, Everything in your last post is correct! Sorry about the confusion with identifying the DVRs in question. I have both the Panasonic DMR-E85H DVR and the Time Warner DVR made by Scientific Atlanta. The L3 connection is set as the input and everything goes through that input. Any channel changing is done by the Blaster before it gets to the Panasonic DVR. I emailed CE_Customer_Support@tvguide.com to ask if there is any way to download dhannels with Time Warner's digital broadcast. I doubt if there is a workaround, but it's worth a try. Thanks again.
Well it finally happened. I was actually looking at my E85 as it was recording something. The thing was turned off but still recording. All of a sudden it powered up and had the "PLEASE WAIT" message on the front panel. Then it dimmed and brightened and that was it. Just a solid PLEASE WAIT. Tried unplugging and plugging back in but always the PLEASE WAIT, nothing else works, no video out, TVGuide or anything. The thing was totally dead. So I did what I had hoped I'd never have to do and tear the thing apart and replace those 4 capacitors. I took off the cover, removed the hard drive and bracket, and there was the fault. C1260, C1270, and C1271 were all burst and leaking. C1261 looked ok but I replaced that also. All 4 caps are the same value of 680uF, just different voltages. But I replaced all of them with 35volt caps, so this shouldn't happen again. Put it all back together, hooked it up, plugged it in, turned it on, and crossed my fingers. IT'S ALIVE! Didn't even lose any data on the disk or the TVGuide. It's all back to normal. Wow!
This may have been answered before but I didn't see it - sorry if it already has. I recently fixed my dmre85 by replacing the 2 big capacitors on the power supply board. I replaced then with 1000 uf 35V. What if any, are the long term consequences of replacing 680uf capacitors with 1000uf? (I am no electronics expert). Everything works fine now, just wondering if this can create future problems.
mccartybr: None. These are filter capacitors for a +12vdc power--the bigger the better--but not necessary. The only thing to watch is the voltage rating of the capacitor. Panasonic used +16v--which is too small of a margin for a +12vdc power. +25v or greater would ensure a longer life on the capacitors. You used +35v--so you're OK. If the capacitors are somewhat larger physically, however, you could conceivably upset the airflow around them and cause overheating of other components. yankee10
Help. I have been having some trouble recording lately. I put in a disk, the machine asks me to put in another disk, I open the tray, close it again with the same disk. After two or three turns, it seems to realize there is a good disk in there. Now it has choked, it has a disk in there, is locked in a please wait cycle, where it cycles around, won't turn off even without unplugging. I figure if I can get that disk out, things might improve. I am guessing I need to at least clean the dvd drive eye, wherever that is. Thanks. KK
Kassell, I had my machine do the same thing, several times. The following may not help get the disc unlodged but it worked for me: I would put a blank disc in and the machine would sit there forever-- then finally, it would "freeze". So I unplugged the unit, waited 20 seconds, plugged it back in and just kept continuously pressing down the "Open/Close" button. The machine kept flashing "Please Wait" but eventually popped out the disc. It happened again a few days later. I went through the same process and the machine eventually popped the disc out. I finally realized that the machine was no longer "willfully" accepting any of my BLANK media. (Don't know why-- these particular blank discs had always worked before.) I did not fully cure this problem (sometimes the machine would seize up using my old media, sometimes it wouldn't) until I SWITCHED media to: Verbatim (94971) White DV-001-1133 Inkjet Printable 8X DVD-R Media. (I had to go through several manufacturers before this media worked. I found them at supermediastore.com at a good price.) I know the above sounds crazy and is hardly "scientific"-- but it did what worked for me! All the best!
Thanks Magnum. I noticed another blogger here gave some keystrokes that should force an ejection of the disk, but that only works from the off position. This machine actually will never go off while it is plugged in. It is locked into a cycle of please wait - self check - bye - please wait -self check - bye etc. The only way to power it off seems to be to unplug it at present. However, I did open her up today and pulled the hard drive. None of the capacitors are at risk. I don't actually know how to pull the dvd drive, but could probably figure it out if needed. I am going to power it back up again, since I had had it all apart. Maybe that makes a difference. Otherwise, I will try to power it up by wiring the hard drive to a separate computer's power supply, to see if that computer's power supply will once again clear the brains of this unit. I will try your long push on the eject button again. I did that earlier, it just kept cycling throught the system check ... please wait junk, with no action on the disk at all. K
OK you guys. I tried multiple times to get that disk to pop out, it refuses. The system will NOT power off no matter what I do. I did bypass the main power supply and hooked up to a computer's hard drive again, which is what healed my U99 shutdown a couple of years ago, but this time got no result. The system will not shut off, and it will not eject the bad disk. This means the hard drive etc is all nonaccessible. The control panel shows the HDD has been selected rather than the dvd drive, but again, no action. The number for channel 7 shows on the front after it runs through a few please waits and self checks. Any suggestions are appreciated. That cheap plastic tape-like info belt that hooks under the dvd drive came out again, I popped it back in too. No result. Gee whiz.
Found a software that will do low level formatting on the drives for the E85H if you think it needs it. http://hddguru.com/content/en/software/2006.04.12-HDD-Low-Level-Format-Tool/ I did use it on an old E85H I bought on Ebay that was "broken". The drive wouldn't detect so I ran the low level format and now the drive is now usable. I also have found that if you have old motherboards or have friends who have them, especially for the Pentium 4's or AMD equivalent, there are many of them that have capacitors that will suffice to replace the ones that are talked about throughout this thread. I pulled 8 of them that are 16V 1500uF 1W 105ºC. All were in good shape and I have use them on broken models I have picked up in various places and they are all working perfectly.
More than once - I've had DVD's that cause my 85 to sieze: DVD refuses to eject, usually ending with a U99 or stuck in "Please Wait". Most recently I found that this was due to DVD's recorded in "VR" mode by other DVD recorders. For some reason - the recorder does not know what to do with this type of DVD and the machine hangs up. I've seen some $29 DVD players that simply eject when they have discs that they can't recognize - since the 85 isn't in production anymore, I doubt there will be a fix from Panasonic. With my machine - none of the posted keystroke sequences can fix the problem - I've had to open up the unit, pull the cover on the DVD drive, extract the disc - and then the unit works fine when re-assembled.
Just a note. The +12v that feeds the hard disk drive also feeds the DVD drive. If the +12v is out or flaky, plugging the hard disk drive into an external power will not affect the DVD player. You say that the capacitors are OK. Visual check only? Have you tested the +12v? It is easy to do. On the 4-pin power connector that plugs into the hard disk drive poke a voltmeter probe into the back of pin 1 (the red one) and put the voltmeter ground lead on pin 2 or 3 (the black leads). It should read about +12v. [for completeness, pin 4 (yellow) is +5v.] If the voltage on these pins are solid, then the capacitors (C1270 and C1271) are OK. When my +12v was bad due to the capacitors, the DVD drive would not open or close and I also could not power off the unit. See my post on page 62.
Thanks Scan10 and Yankee. Based on your experience, it seems my new order of operations should be to A) check that connector going into the hard drive to see if the power is getting past the suspect capacitors. As I have said the capacitors looked fine, but I am not opposed to changing them since they have caused so much trouble for others. B) If the capacitors appear to be functional, then I must figure out how to open up the top of my dvd drive to pull out the errant disk. The disk is just a blank, so it has nothing to do with VR designations. Instead, it seems to be the machine was born with a brainfart that makes it hard to handle a variety of blank disk types. K
Yankee, at the time of my test, the system should be plugged in, turned on, with the wire connector removed from the hard drive, correct? 12. October 2008 @ 17:46 Link to this message Just a note. The +12v that feeds the hard disk drive also feeds the DVD drive. If the +12v is out or flaky, plugging the hard disk drive into an external power will not affect the DVD player. You say that the capacitors are OK. Visual check only? Have you tested the +12v? It is easy to do. On the 4-pin power connector that plugs into the hard disk drive poke a voltmeter probe into the back of pin 1 (the red one) and put the voltmeter ground lead on pin 2 or 3 (the black leads). It should read about +12v. [for completeness, pin 4 (yellow) is +5v.] If the voltage on these pins are solid, then the capacitors (C1270 and C1271) are OK.
Yankee, I am hoping to test the wires tomorrow. Should the system be plugged in and on, or turned off at the time the probe is applied? Should the wire module be plugged into the hard drive at that time, or unplugged? Meanwhile, I did open up the dvd drive and removed the errant disk today. No change, system is still locked up in a please wait/bye mode that ends with the digital window showing channel 7, but nothing coming through. No ability to change back from hdd to dvd etc. I am still concerned that running the hard drive off an external power source should have bypassed the power supply board and the suspect capacitors. But I will just overrule my suspicions if the capacitors come up as suspect based on the probe check. If I recall from you guys, I can go as high as 35v on the new capacitors. K
It's not too tough to get a DVD out of the drive (at least on my machine). Once the top of the DVD drive is exposed - there are a few small screws that let you pull the top cover. If memory serves me correctly - there is a small plastic slider in the top cover of the drive that needs to be somewhere in the middle of the slot that it rides in - if it isn't there - the drive makes a few nasty grinding noises until you pull the cover and get the slider where it needs to be. I've only seen this jamming behavior on "VR" mode discs - not with any other type DVD or CD (as in when upgrading the firmware).
Saved by a Toothpick, no kidding! Hi all. I tinkered with the machine some more tonight. I got the errant dvd out by opening the top of the dvd drive. Four screws come out. Then I just pushed on the top in various directions til it popped up enough to allow me to remove the disk. That did not bring the system back however, so I decided to expose the suspect capacitors again. When I did so I also again examined the plastic web belt that carried data from the hard drive into a slot under the dvd drive. That belt has come out a few times over the past few years, including just a few weeks ago. Well, when I examined the belt under a magnifying glass, I determined that about ten of the fine thread-like wire pins at the end of the belt that slides under the dvd were bent all over the place. I carefully realligned them with a toothpick under the magnifier. I pressed down on them by sliding my fingers from the plastic over the metal and off the end. When it looked pretty straight and separated, I carefully reinserted the wire belt into the slot under the dvd. I now see the machine wants to show me the tv guide, the dvd drawer opens under button command at last, and the clock is again showing. So I believe I am up and running. I will be afraid to put a blank dvd in there again as that started this whole nightmare, but my expectation is I will have access to my hard drive again and will again be able to record off cable. The machine won't be set up with cable for another hour or so, but I am amused that a toothpick could help such a technical piece of equipment. [/img][/img] PS ... can I buy a replacement web belt somewhere, perhaps a computer club shop of some kind? Now if I can just figure out how to stop the water from puddling up inside my refrigerator!
Had my laptop hooked up to my DMR-E85H's front S-Video port the other day so we could view content on my television. Later that evening I turned it on to view my local news via OTA antenna. The picture had extreme interference (many parallel diagonal lines slowly moving across the screen). I at first thought it was due to local interference. But then I switched to the input my satellite receiver is on - and had the same extreme interference! It is so bad I cannot make out any details or even read the receiver's EPG. So I went into a panic. This dvd recorder has never let me down and I use it every day. At one point I thought (hoped) that since this condition was being exhibited on all inputs that it might just be a bad video cable between the Panny and my television - but I ruled THAT out when I learned that all the stuff that I have previously recorded on the Panny's hard drive is perfectly clear and readily viewable on my television. Ideas anyone? I can't afford to replace this thing or even to pay someone to fix it. Thanks in advance!
