YOU ARE THE BEST THIS WORKED PERFECTLY AND THE THING IS IT DIDNOT COST ME A THING MY WIFE DOES CIRCUIT BOARD REPAIR AND SHE HAD THE PARTS AND SHE ALSO DID THE SOLDERING.. I WAS ALMOST UPSET CAUSE IT TOOK ABOUT A MINUTE TO RESET AFTER I PLUGGED IT UP AND TURNED IT ON THEN IT SHOWED THE TIME AND STARTED WORKING LIKE NORMAL... THANKS AGAIN I THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO HAVE TO GO OUT AND BUY A NEW ONE...
I live in Hawaii and use a local JVC Repair Shop for Panasonic repairs under the warranty I have. This place hasnot acceptable been great. On the last repair (replace RAM DRIVE UNIT), Panasonic told them that it was going to take some ridiculous amount of time to get the part. They told Panasonic, the amount of time was not acceptable. I got the unit back within 2 weeks and it was working great. Hope they continue to do the service for Panasonic here.
Jgreaves, You're living a life the rest of we married men can only envy - a wife with replacement parts. Nice. ;-)
It is the best thing I look up the fix she fixes it.. We have done that with alot of our home equipment..
metal 321 The earlier Ram Drive units(all black plastic)are only available from Panasonic--I`ve searched at length to find a different supplier for thes units but to no avail.The later units with a metal top are similar to some other units I have seen but the problem with those are, that, you have to change the drive and the digital pcb as a unit because the drive alignment information is now stored on the digital pcb and not on the drive as with the plastic ones.Again only available from Panasonic Soju Your drive is not faulty. Just take the top off the drive and clean the felt ring in the middle of the unit where the disk sits with some spirit and allow it to dry. Once it dries put the unit back together and it should not grind.This is part of the disk clamp assembly and will make horrible noises when the disk spins up/down and makes you think the drive is about to pack up.This will occur on some disks at first then will progress to all of your media.If you send it for repair the agent will fit a drive when it is not needed. I have done this on many units and had 100% sucess rate and saved the customers a lot of money.Hope that this helps REPAIRMAN
I think I'm going to just tear into the unit and see if I can figure out who the manufacturer of the optical drive is. And there aren't any for sale on ebay. I wish.
Thanks for the info Repairman. I think I may just have a dirty laser diode. I guess that is my next plan of attack.
metal, Sorry, I didn't mean to imply e-Bay had just the DVD units posted, but there are two DMR-E85H units whose bids are presently in the $110 to $140 range - including shipping.
The unit was not that hard to work with just pay attention and you should be allright.. I only had one extra screw when I was done but it works so I ain't looking for a place for it to go.
I think my E85 is dying again, this time more serious. It lost all the TV GUIDE info yesterday, I have no idea why. I turned on the machine and all the data was gone, I'm presented with an initial setup screen. Seemed odd as it happened just when I finished copying something over to a DVD-RAM disc. And now today just when it seemed to recover some of the TV GUIDE info, we had a power failure in the early afternoon that lasted only a minute. Then when I went to turn on the machine it would come up and then be in a crashed state. None of the buttons work, can't even turn it off. Unplugged and plugged it in several times, finally it's reset again and has to pull in the TV GUIDE data all over again. But it's never crashed like this before. The hard drive sounds funny also, it's making a tick tick tick sound, not sure if did that before either.
METAL 321, regarding the failure to finalize ... I am afraid you are missing an obvious option. I have recorded probably 400 to 500 disks in the past five years. Only one would not finalize. However, just because it won't finalize, does not mean it will not PLAY on your dmr e85 or very probably other panasonic dvd players. So ... assuming you have already deleted the program from your HDD, why not just put the errant disk in your e-85, and then wire it out to either a vhs recorder or another dvd recorder of any kind, and make a new disk with the programming? Then, if needed, send it back into your dmr's hard drive from that vhs tape, and create a new file, burn a new disk or disks, and finalize to your heart's content? Wasting your life trying to "finalize" that one bubbled disk seems silly. For 20 cents you can make a new disk.
Metal 321, I even missed a more obvious option. Change the direction for dubbing, put your disk in the tray, record it back to the hard drive, then when you have a new file on the hard drive, change the dubbing direction again and make a new blank, and finalize. Gymmy ... Before you do all that work, why not stretch a power supply wire from another running computer, plug it in to your e85, bypassing your e-85's power supply board. If you can turn both machines on, I think the e-85 would run off the power supply of a computer. It worked for me. I just unplugged one of the cd drives on the old computer and stuck that wire into the e-85. In fact, sometime after I did that, the e85 returned to normal awaiting my instructions. If I can do it, you can too. (I actually bought an extension for the powerlines on the computer, just for this purpose in case the problem recurs.)
Since postage is as much--or more--than the caps, I'd like to buy replacements for my 3 Pannys and a full set of spares. That's a dozen of the 25v 1000uf 105 degree radials. Let me know how much the total is, including postage and I'll either send you a check or pay by paypal--your call. Thanks, bob <VideoBob@bobfaw.com>
Bob, I saw your message and sent you an email. If you don't get it let, me know. My email address is mr.bill@thegrid.net If anybody else needs/want caps, let me know. I will probably swing buy hsc on tuesday. You never know what you will find at HSC, when I was there about a month ago, I found: 16v 680uf 105 degree radial(slightly taller than what was oem on the pcb) 25v 1000uf 105 degree radial(the next size up slightly taller and larger in diamater) Someone followed up with a post that hsc had some 35v 680uf 105 degree caps. If you have a preference, let me know. Maybe rank your choices. I have no problem picking them up. Price will be cost plus shipping. I think th caps are $.50 each or less. figure shipping will be about $2 or $3 per order. payment by paypal is fine just email me before you send funds.
I think you meant that it becomes "DVD-Video" like. It does, in fact become a DVD-Video. I've been searching since I first bought one of these for a driver that would read the Panny HDD format. Still no luck. If anyone ever hears of one, let me know. Unfinalized disks are risky, as they are subject to transient writing simply because they are not write-protected. Also, they can only be read in the system that wrote them (or one just like it with drive in a similar state of alignment). I look at unfinalized DVDs as about as reliable as an old floppy disk. What software do you use to extract them? When browsing my DVD-Ram using the operating system (XP Explorer) all of the shows are bundled into a single file. Amen on the UPS! Also, when blowing dust off disks beware little sprays of spittle. I use canned air to be safe. Another major nemesis of these units is heat. Don't stack them or place them in enclosed cabinets unless those cabinets are well ventilated. As stated log ago, I eliminated regular failures by simply using Vienna sausage cans as spacers above and below every DVR in the stack (except the top one). This gives nearly 2 inches of air circulation--which really is necessary for long term reliability. Nowadays, my system only fails if I crash a recording or leave an unfinalized DVD-ROM in the drive for a few days--or if I let the hard disk fill up. I also make sure that the Play light isn't flashing before turning the unit off. It's a known bug in Pannys that when the disk gets over half full, the unit starts losing reliability. The closer to full you get, the more likely that it will start acting hinky and crash. Running at 90% or more of capacity, as one of you has mentioned doing regularly, is courting disaster. bob
VideoBob, Thanks for your feedback. Just to note, I used the term "Video RAM" -like- because that's what the Panasonic says after you finalize a disk. Of course, it's really a "DVD-Video". As for the non-finalized disks: well if your particular DVD disk drive is not aligned well, finalizing won't fix it. That procedure will not cause the alignment to change! And in fact, I have played the same non-finalized disk in seven different machines with no problems. I do finalize disks that I am loaning out to friends, and sometimes their machines are dirty or not aligned well, and they have trouble playing them. As for using a DVD-RAM in a computer - I can only remember doing it with a single entry on the disk. I have also found that writing to the DVD-RAM using the computer might make the DVD-RAM work funny in the Panasonic. So, I just use it to transfer one entry at a time from the Panasonic to the computer. I'll have to play with that stuff some more... Oh, one more thought. Kassel mentioned copying a troubled DVD back to the hard drive. Well, you can't. Copyright issues made Panasonic not allow that (dumb - if it's your own disk...) - anyway, the way I have solved this is to use two machines - output to input. Use S-Video of course. Then start the hard drive recording, and hit play on the other. Then when done copying, edit the hard drive entry's start & stop points, then cut a new disk. Unlike using a VHS recorder, you can hardly tell the difference. Have Fun! Roger.
Don't know if I'm confused as to exactly what copy process you're referring to - but I've always been able to copy from DVD to HDD (not in high speed mode) - without using any external devices. One of the ongoing issues I've had is the inability of the 85 to deal with DVD's recorded in "VR" mode. The few times I've tried to play back these discs (even finalized ones) the Panasonic simply hangs up and I have to take the DVD drive apart to extract the disc. I did send a e-mail to Panasonic Customer support asking if they were aware of the problem, and if they planned to address it. No response.
Weird. I have never had any trouble moving unprotected content from a dvd to the hard drive. Several times I've had discs recorded in SP mode and wanted to give them to friends but didn't have enough discs to just copy them on my computer. So I changed my recording mode to LP, copied them back to the hard drive, and quickly(sic) burned them to discs (2 movies on each). Have also not had any trouble copying friends' discs in the same manner. Maybe it has something to do with the disc in question not being finalized because I finalize my discs right away - except for the rare occasion when I am going to later add more content, in which case I finalize as soon as I am finished recording to it. Have never tried to play a VR disc. Not sure exactly what one is, lol. If, OtOH, you meant one recorded in FR mode, then I've done that a couple of times. But since there really is a VR format I imagine what you wrote is what you meant.
VR mode is one format of DVD - usually made by the cheaper DVD recorders - and it's sort of ironic that these discs play just fine in my $29 DVD player - but not the 85....
videobob said: What software do you use to extract them? When browsing my DVD-Ram using the operating system (XP Explorer) all of the shows are bundled into a single file. NeroVision Express: menu item: "Make DVD", then "Import" The program will read whats on the disk and give your your choice of which files to import. Bud
