JUST WONDERING......
On older Panasonics, there was a method of finding out how many hours a hard drive and/or laser was used via the remote. Is there a way of getting this info. on the newer models? I'm noticing that (due to lack of availability) people are buying demo units. Fine, if they were not used and just put out on display....but....this could be a disaster if they were used in the store! Some of these units (I've seen it with an EH55 in CC) are left in a demo mode for literally hundreds of hours (maybe thousands)!! I wouldn't pay $5.00 for one of these units, as it will self destruct at any given time!

Has anyone learned or found away to check the amount of use on a Panasonic or a Pioneer dvd recorder?

This would be a very valuable tool for questionable demo or e-bay purchases!

This is worth researching......

any ideas where to start? :confused:

YES there is a way to see amount of laser time used on this EH50S UNIT, WHEN IN SERVICE MODE PRESS 4 THEN 1 . BUT YOU CAN ALSO DELETE THe units laser time by pressing 9 then 5, I KNOW THIS BECAUSE I HAVE THE SERVICE MANUAL.

That is a great question, if your considering the purchase of a demo unit.

The amount of laser time on the optical drive is very important. If I'm remembering this correctly, it was thought by some members here at AVS, that the optical drives in most consumer DVD recorder models designed in Japan, are rated for around 5,000 hours.

However, at least one member, who had his recorder serviced at a factory authorized service center, (I forget the make/model), had only about 3,500 hours when his recorders optical drive died.

The service center considered that lower number the life of the machine and was going to charge a considerable amount to fix his recorder since it was out of warranty. I believe it was only about 2 years old and he was lamenting about his kids leaving discs in the machine, (although not in play mode), as this left the disc spinning and, he theorized, that this was the cause of the unusually high number of hours on the optical drive.

And it's the reason why a lot of members here use DVD players, not their recorders for playback, so they can preserve the life of their recorders.


nx211

Sometimes, you can get great deals on those demo units.

I picked up a couple of Sony non-HDD demo units myself from a place in Canada. I didn't have the luxury of finding out their total number of hours played, but at $40.00 each, I really didn't mind.

There not in mint condition cosmetically, but they both seem to record and playback well.


nx211