I just got this unit this week. Actually I got the DMR-EZ27K not the 17K. So far I love the box, the tuner has much better range/reception than the other two ATSC tuners in my house (an Accurian and an old Toshiba SIR-105). I'm a long time DVD-RAM devotee (http://www.ramprg.com/en/index.html) so I'm loving the DVD-RAM features! (I just ordered some more DVD-RAM discs) My software Sony Vegas Movie Studio + DVD imports the recordings using its camcorder import function. I haven't tried to author a DVD from recordings yet, but I'll try.

I'm running this TV into a 3/4 year old Philips 27" flat front 4:3 tube NTSC TV with component inputs. Unfortunately the TV does not have a 16:9 mode.

The Panasonic DVD-F87K 5 disc DVD changer that I got a couple years ago reads and plays the recorded DVD-RAM discs perfectly. However, my Technics DVD-A10 does not (it was a long shot), nor does my Sony SACD/DVD machine.

Likes:
* Great reception both analog and digital!
* Super convenient DVD-RAM recording functions!
* Nice user interface. There are a few quirks, but overall the look and feel of the machine is quite nice. I have other Panasonic DVD players so it's a little familiar.
* Remote control has just what is needed for our TV. Channel switching, volume, and TV/Video. This means that we no longer need to ever use the TV remote. Perfect!!!! Absolutely perfect!!

Dislikes:
* No zoom mode for 16:9 broadcasts.
* Records at viewing aspect ratio - the only way to get a 16:9 recording is to set the TV shape setting to 16:9. I guess I understand why they did this; they need to incorporate a scaler in order to change the HDTV/16:9 DVD content to a 4:3 TV. If they recorded 16:9, they would need two scalers, one to scale the 16:9 HDTV to 480i for DVD recording and another to scale the 480i DVD 16:9 to 4:3.
* It has trouble with my computer authored/burned DVDs. I make DVDs on my computer from camcorder and intend to make them from the files this box generates.

So far I'm very happy with this unit! Actually I think I'll probably not even bother bringing stuff into the computer and authoring DVDs. I don't care about slick menus and stuff, as long as I can watch the program that's really what I'm after. The MPEG compression is not as good as I can do with my computer, but my computer is not compressing on-the-fly! I'm very impressed with the on-the-fly compression quality!

Rgazzara-Correct machine will need to be powered up to change discs, the problem is if the disc swap is done the same day that the first disc is filled up. Usually after a disc is filled up I like to swap to a blank disc right away, so I don't forget to do it the next day. While your are correct if I did the swap the next day all would be fine. It's just that I usually like to finalize the first disc, then swap it with a new disc right after the first event. Then I watch the first event on my Sony Player, maybe that same night, maybe later. Does that make sense?

So the problem occurs only if the disc swap is made the same day that the filled disc is recorded. In other words, if you fill up (or does it have to be overfilled?) a disk with a recording that ends at 9:00 PM, and swap out the disc for a recording at 10:00 PM, the second recording will not start. However, if the disc swap is made after midnight for a recording that starts after midnight, then the second recording will start. Is that what you are saying?

I'll have to try this again on my EZ-17.

Thanks.

BTW, according to this report from Cnet (http://ces.cnet.com/8301-13855_1-9845560-67.html) some of the new 08 model Panasonic DVD-Recorder models including the EZ-18 will have no tuner at all.

Rgazzara-Yes I think you got it. The easiest test to see the bug is as follows(this is the exact events I mostly use)
First event 7pm-8:01pm today XP speed(this event must be setup as a weekly, or daily event, I always use weekly events)
Second event 6pm-7pm tomorrow.
Sometime after 8:01pm today(but before midnight) reformat the full RW disc(or RAM, or replace it with another blank one if you like)
Turn the machine off and do not turn on until you see that the second event is not recording.

What you should see is the first event will record just fine(missing the last 30 seconds or so since the disc totally filled up and there wasn't room for the last 30 seconds). Then when the second event should have started at 6pm the machine will do nothing. It will just sit there and nothing will be recording. If at this point you want to, you can turn the machine on, and then back off. When you turn the machine back off, it will instantly start to record the second event(assuming you are still in the time frame of the second event).

Note you don't have to overprogram the first event, you could just program in one hr in XP speed, 2hrs SP etc.. In this scenario sometimes the 2nd event will record and sometimes it will not. It all depends if the machine was able to record the whole event, or if it missed the last few seconds. FR also works this way, sometimes you will get your whole event time, sometimes it will miss the last few seconds due to a slight miscalculation the machine did about available space.

BTW, according to this report from Cnet (http://ces.cnet.com/8301-13855_1-9845560-67.html) some of the new 08 model Panasonic DVD-Recorder models including the EZ-18 will have no tuner at all.

Yes 2 have tuners and 2 do not. One DVDR/VHS and one DVDR only have the tuners. What I'd like to know is if they fixed the bugs of the current lineup, but I'm not too optimistic, since for the most part, they refuse to admit there are any problems with this years models:rolleyes:

While I seldom watch or record sporting events the Super Bowl was of special interest to a relative so I recorded the whole event with my Panasonic DMR-EZ17. The game was recorded at the LP speed on two discs.

This DMR-EZ17 is set up cable ready (without a cable box) on Comcast. I watched portions of the game on a LCD HDTV connected RF to the same cable feed through a splitter. This TV (with NTSC, ATSC, Clear QAM) produced stunning picture quality when watched live.

As the LP setting on my Panasonics always produces very good picture quality I was dissappointed when I sampled the LP recording through both the component and composite inputs to the same TV. I found the recorded images to be of only poor to fair picture quality. There were random digital artifacts and a generally fuzzy picture, even while the players were standing around between plays. Action scenes were even worse. The commercials seemed to be of much better picture quality.

Perhaps this is an example of DRM or aspects of copyright protection impact upon home-recording.

While I seldom watch or record sporting events the Super Bowl was of special interest to a relative so I recorded the whole event with my Panasonic DMR-EZ17. The game was recorded at the LP speed on two discs.

Doesn't LP have a 4 hour capacity on a disc? One disc seems like enough, unless you were recording the pregame and postgame show. If you actually meant to say SP speed and still saw all those artifacts, I'd be disappointed. I still haven't got my EZ17 hooked up...I discovered I couldn't daisychain it with my cable modem. I'll be using DVD-RAM discs. What type of discs were you using?

I was using the LP speed. I started recording at 2:45 p.m. Pacific Time. The game started about 3:18 p.m. At about 6:43 p.m. I swapped out the first disc during a commercial. The game ended around 7:08 p.m. I finalized the first disc and sampled the recording. The second disc will be filled up with other recordings.

These are TDK DVD-R discs that give very good results with all my other recordings. My DMR-EZ17 usually records a little more than 5.5 hours of programming per week at the EP speed (six hour option), mainly black and white Perry Mason episodes shown by our local Fox digital/HD station, channel 12.1. These EP recordings provide good picture quality.

I didn't actually record the SB, but in the past have had good results recording in LP from a HD channel. In fact when PQ is a concern I've mostly stopped recording LP on my analog Panny's, but I feel I get a much better PQ in LP recording from the HD channels on my EZ-17..
That said, Wajo, on the Philips 3575 also noted poor PQ recording the superbowl on his 3575. Maybe something was up with the broadcast. I know watching it live, it sure was not the PQ of the same 2 teams a month or so back, when they were on 1080i CBS and NFL network. IMO fox and there 720p broadcasts really pail compared to other 1080i channels. And I only have a 720p LCD TV, but sure prefer the PQ of 1080i channels.

Perhaps this is an example of DRM or aspects of copyright protection impact upon home-recording.My first reaction to this was, why would you record a football game on anything less than SP? I'm not surprised you got less than satisfactory results, you starved a high-motion recording for bitrate. It's not just the action on the field, but the constantly changing camera angles, panning and zooming. Football needs bitrate. I recorded the SB at SP on an E-85; signal = OTA out of Philly. The picture was as good as its ever been. I watched the first half live and the second half as chase-play off the E-85. No artifacts and clear picture that looked the same as the live broadcast.

That, of course, is the primary advantage of a HDD recorder making it mandatory for anyone who wants to record sports. I set the E-85 to record in SP mode from 6:00-11:00pm EST and never worried about changing a disk. A good friend at work is a Giants fan so I'll burn the game off to a couple RAMs, take it to my PC to cut out the commercials and half-time (Tom Petty . . . are you kidding me?). If the game is less than 2.5hr I'll use a 2-pass transcoder to shrink it down to fit on one DVD with no perceptible loss in visual quality.

I finally got around to hooking up my EZ17. I couldn't daisy chain my cable modem off of it, so I went to the other side of the line and daisychained the EZ17(it being first) with two VCRs.

1. EZ17 would not recognize a disc containing two TV shows recorded from an older Panasonic DVD recorder. Is this common? A cheap Norcent DVD player played the shows easily.

2. I have gotten a couple of messages that I'm not sure about. One was U61...it has happened twice. There had not been a power outage though. Another time after I deleted a test recording the display of the EZ17 read NV(or at least that's what it looked like). I tried pushing every button to get rid of it and the unit appeared frozen until powered down and back up.

3. I got an ERR message when I first placed a Panasonic DVD-RAM into the unit. Is this common?

4. When I schedule a recording, do I have to give the show a name?

5. On my first recording(on DVD-RAM in LP mode) there was a horizontal line about two inches from the top at the left edge of the screen. The line jerked or became longer/shorter(1-3 inches) for about 30 second before disappearing. It reminded me of a videotape that needed the tracking adjusted.

6. The display always says EP 6:00(at least as long as there is a DVD-RAM disc in the unit. Is there anyway to toggle this and get other information displayed, such as channel #, time, etc? In the setup menu I only see a mention of the front display for changing the brightness.

1. The disc should have played just fine, not sure why it didn't, but sometimes certain discs don't seem to like certain machines. If it's only that one disc I wouldn't worry about it. That's one of the reasons I have so many players, recorders. One is bound to read about anything.

2. U61 doesn't sound too good. There is a list in the back of the manual that explains most of the error codes, you could look it up. As long as you don't get the dreaded u99 error, I got that on the first 3 Panny EZ machines that I tried and they all had to be returned since they would not work at all. They even kept my discs!

3. Don't really use RAM's, but no you should not be getting errors inserting them. The few times I have used RAM's they worked just fine, no errors.

4. I never give a program a name on the EZ Panny's since they will automatically be put in there by the program, if you are recording off of a digital channel. I only record off digital channels, if you didn't, and wanted your program to have a title, then you could enter it now, or later after the recording was done. My father NEVER titles his recordings, that's a option too....

5. Never had that problem.

6. No, I really dislike the EZ display. IMO it's quite worthless. I much preferred the older Panny's display. This display reminds me of some cheap VCR's that would only display the word PLAY or PAUSE etc. on it's display. I really loathed those displays.

To me it sounds like you might have a defective unit, with the odd recording problems you are having. I would suggest playing with it for a while and see if things work themselves out, if not I would exchange it, or if you really don't like all it's quirks, return it and try something else. IMO the EZ Panny's are capable of some very good recordings, especially off of HD broadcasts, but they do have issues and quirks.

hokiewolf,

I typically use DVD-RAM discs & swap them all the time between my EZ17 & ES20 with no problem. I have swapped only a few DVD-R discs between units & they too have played normally.

I have no idea about the error messages. My 1st thought was to make sure your DVD-RAM was formatted for video use versus computer use. There is a difference. However since you got it to play I'm presuming it is properly formatted.

I believe the "NV" stands for Navigator. I'm guessing you might have somehow activated the Direct Navigator function. Check the manual & see what it says about this.

You do not need to give the program a name.

Did you ever get that horizontal line on any subsequent recordings?

If you change the recording mode to SP or LP, then that will display. Otherwise you're stuck with the minimal info Panny gives you.

Every so often there are postings where people have had to clean DVD-RAM discs in order to make them work. You might want to make sure your discs are clean & then reformat them which may help eliminate the disc as a source of any problems.

I recorded both Law & Orders last night and also got the last minute of Deal or No Deal as an unattended scheduled recording from 8:59pm to 11:01pm in LP mode. I'm using a EZ17 DVD recorder, recording off of basic Cox Cable on clear QAM at 10-1. During playback, the audio was fine during the last minute of Deal or No Deal. There was audio on most of the commercials over the next two hours...but not all of them. Both Law and Orders were almost completely mute. No dialogue could be heard. Background noises, bits of soundtrack music and the L&O theme all played...just no dialogue. I've tried every setting I can think of with the DVD recorder, but I don't know what I could have done wrong to get audio for the last minute of one show(Deal or No Deal), but then no audio for the next two shows. I'm wondering if the first show was SD and the last two shows were HD.[I've since done research and see that both L&Os are HD...no mention of Deal or No Deal, which might mean its SD.] After I discovered the problem, I made one minute recordings of CBS-HD and ABC-HD and I believe NBC-HD as well. All shows played back perfectly audio-wise. This is my first day of using the EZ17 and I don't know if I've set something up wrong or if I just had the misfortune to record two shows that had audio problems.

I don't believe there is a problem with my hook-up...for the moment I have it hooked to my Philips 32" LCD HDTV via the side composite jacks. During playback, I've tried pressing the audio button on the remote and cycling through Mono L, Mono R, and Stereo. I've tried changing most of the audio settings I could find except for those that mention PCM and bitstream. I'm not sure what they mean. I believe I've turned on and off dialogue enhancer and possibly virtual surround sound(I think the choices were normal, emphasis and off here) during playback, but do not know if how they were set before/while the show was recorded determines how the show is recorded or if they only come in to play during playback.

I posted this to a local HDTV reception forum on this site and someone seems to think the audio switcher at the local affiliate didn't work properly and somehow the center channel, where they say the dialogue resides, was lost.

For those of you who answered my questions about errors/quirks, I appreciate the input. I hope this problem is at the network/affiliate level. None of those previously mentioned errors have ever occurred again. I've done the one unattended recording and three live recordings without a hitch. The local NBC affiliates HD signal looks fantastic on my TV, btw...even after recording at LP mode. Now if I can figure out the deal with the audio.

hokiewolk,
The nice thing about recording to RAM on the Panasonic is you can employ chase-play to help track the problem. Set the EZ-17 to record some shows you'll be watching in real time. At sometime during the recording session, switch over to the EZ-17 and monitor what is coming out of it's tuner vs. what's coming out of your TV's tuner. Then go into chase-play and see what's getting recorded onto the RAM disk.

Check that VSS again, and make sure that it is off.

Good luck.

Check that VSS again, and make sure that it is off.
Thanks...I made sure of that BEFORE tonight's scheduled recording. I think Off was the default, but I can't be sure. Anyway, tonight, I recorded two HD shows(Lost and Eli Stone) off of my local ABC-HD affiliate. Everything came through fine. Looks like the problem is just with NBC-HD locally, but hopefully just for that one night. I'll do some more test recordings over the next few nights to find out for sure.

BTW, according to this report from Cnet (http://ces.cnet.com/8301-13855_1-9845560-67.html) some of the new 08 model Panasonic DVD-Recorder models including the EZ-18 will have no tuner at all.


Some 2007 models from several manufacturers do not have tuners. Check them out next time you go to Best Buy or Fry's. The manufacturers must be figuring a lot of people will be using them with cable boxes.

I recorded the Tom Petty Superbowl halftime show in XP mode on a DVD-RAM disc in 16:9, then viewed it on my X1 with 96" screen. Wow, I am very impressed with the results from this little box! Beautiful picture! I wish it recorded 5.1, and I would like to be able to record 16:9 on regular DVD-R/RW discs, but as I wrote before I've been a big believer in the DVD-RAM format for years, and the added flexibility of the format is really nice.

I would like to be able to record 16:9 on regular DVD-R/RW discs

It will record 16X9 just fine to any discs, it just won't set the flag, so if you give the disc to a friend with a 4x3 TV, the people will be tall and skinny. They will play back in all there 16X9 glory on a 16X9 TV. I do this all the time on regular R/RW discs. But yes, the machines is capable of some very fine recordings on XP and even SP.

The only thing I have to do when playing back a 16x9 DVD-R on my HDTV is manually change the TV's display from Normal to Full. The RAM discs change this automatically.

I tried recording a couple of shows, 2:02 worth, to a DVD-RAM disc that only had 1:56 of room left. Until now, I had been recording all my shows in LP mode and been exceedingly pleased with the quality. I thought that the bit rate would only drop a tiny bit to squeeze in that extra 6 minutes, but during Law & Order last night, on my local NBC-HD, the blocking, tiling, pixelation, whatever you want to call it would crop up for a second or two every 5-7 minutes. If you're familiar with the L&O format, the show often cuts between scenes with a black screen and some information in a white font, "District Attorney's Office March 13th, 12:30pm," for example. Just at the point where the show would cut from a live action scene to this black static image there would be a second or two of disturbance and then it would clear.

During last week's recording of L&O, the center track was completely absent for the entire show, so I only watched bits and pieces of that recording to see if the audio ever returned(it didn't) so I can't be 100% positive that this pixelation problem didn't occur in regular LP mode like it did in FR mode last night.

I'd appreciate hearing your comments about FR and how good the picture seems to you when you're only squeezing in an additional few minutes.

I don't know the exact numbers but I do know that at some point above LP the machine drops off from full resolution to something much less. What I like about Panny's is that they wait until LP. Many other DVDR's switch to lesser resolution on anything above 2hrs!.
Maybe someone with a PC, or who remembers the exact numbers knows what speed above LP it switches, but maybe it's anything above LP, even as you found out LP + 4 min(in FR) will put it over the edge.
If you're like me the more you use Panny's the more you will be tempted to not record over FR3, or maybe a slightly bit more. I find if I try to stay under the magic 3hrs/disc I get much less problems with blocking, but I know it's sure nice to get more time/disc, and it seems to me recording off of a HD channel I can push that LP speed with still good results.

I have tried to not go any lower than true LP mode; even with FR moding a few extra minutes. But I did test record an syndicated episode of FRIENDS in EP 6hr mode once and the difference in quality is noticable. Now that I have switched my recorder from letterboxing recording to recording squished anamorphic widescreen, I see noticeable macroblocking in fast motion in LP mode even on my 25" analog set. It is not horrible and only occurs in fast motion (LP looks just as good as SP still in static scenes) but in an effort to "future-proof" my recordings, I have heeded the advice offered here and try to stick as close to SP mode as possible. With the cheap cost of media, I am even recording each episode of Sarah Connor Chronicles to it's own disc in XP mode; unbelievable quality.

I tried recording a couple of shows, 2:02 worth, to a DVD-RAM disc that only had 1:56 of room left. Until now, I had been recording all my shows in LP mode and been exceedingly pleased with the quality. I thought that the bit rate would only drop a tiny bit to squeeze in that extra 6 minutes, but during Law & Order last night, on my local NBC-HD, the blocking, tiling, pixelation, whatever you want to call it would crop up for a second or two every 5-7 minutes. If you're familiar with the L&O format, the show often cuts between scenes with a black screen and some information in a white font, "District Attorney's Office March 13th, 12:30pm," for example. Just at the point where the show would cut from a live action scene to this black static image there would be a second or two of disturbance and then it would clear.

During last week's recording of L&O, the center track was completely absent for the entire show, so I only watched bits and pieces of that recording to see if the audio ever returned(it didn't) so I can't be 100% positive that this pixelation problem didn't occur in regular LP mode like it did in FR mode last night.

I'd appreciate hearing your comments about FR and how good the picture seems to you when you're only squeezing in an additional few minutes.


You mentioned you had 1:56 room left & I'm presuming that was at the LP 4 hr mode. So if you allowed 2:02, that means you have exceeded the full resolution available in LP mode. From my understanding, once you go past LP mode the resolution drops in half. The Panny seems to be the only machine out there that maintains full rez up to 4 hrs. So whether you are at 4 hr 1 min or at 6 hrs, you are at half rez with the Panny. Again, that's my understanding. Others brands drop to half rez when they exceed 2 hrs.

As jjeff mentioned, I too get good results if not exceeding 3 hrs in FR mode. Or exceeding this by only a few minutes just to make sure I don't get the end of a program cut short. I have used 4 hr LP on occasion when I'm not around to swap discs. It usually holds up pretty good unless there is a lot of motion in the picture content.

My DMR-EZ17 has now had a single instance of recording a scheduled program of one hour and two minutes duration with a playing time of one minute and twenty five seconds.

With my DMR-EZ17 I record black and white episodes of Perry Mason from our local Fox digital/HD channel 12.1 (cable ready) through Comcast with a dated recording set to record from 11:59 a.m. to 1:01 p.m. at EP (six hour setting). On 13 February 2008 the DMR-EZ17 recorded that program from 11:59 a.m. to 1:01 p.m.

After finalizing the disc I access each title through Direct Navigator to review each title to obtain the episode titles. When I selected the 13 February 2008 program and pressed Play the recording immediately started playing at a very fast speed. I had the Status screens displayed so I may see the elapsed time. The whole episode, beginning before the opening credits and ending after the closing credits, was present but took only one minute and twenty five seconds to play from beginning to end. During this fast speed play I could pause this recording. If I pressed fast forward or skip the next (normal) title would appear. This fast speed recording is the fifth of seven recordings on the disc. I placed the disc in a DMR-ES30V with the very same results. All the other recordings on the disc appear normal.

And the bugs go on . . .

Weird......I sure hope the new EZ-x8's have some of the bugs worked out that are prevalent in the x7 series machines. Too bad with these EZ series machines, I had virtually no problems with my ES-30's, ES'15's and ES-25, which is more than I can say for the current lineup, and I cant put all the blame on the first gen digital tuners. Lots of the bugs seem to be more machine related, rather than tuner related.

A little over a month ago I gave a DMR-EZ17 to a relative for OTA use. I set it up and positioned their amplified Radio Shack antenna for optimal reception and scanned their analog and digital channels. Everything seemed fine--for a while.

I received several calls reporting various problems, mostly related to tuning. (They are located on the valley floor only 2.5 from 18 broadcast stations but partly obscured from line-of-sight of some of the transmission towers.) They once lost their clock setting. On the phone I walked them through a manual setting. They recorded just a few programs.

Early this week they called me, thanking me once again for the DMR-EZ17, but asked if I wanted it back as they didn't care to use it. Two days ago I went by to apartment sit for them as they had Comcast digital cable installed. I now have that DMR-EZ17 back.

Did they get the Comcast HD DVDR? Otherwise the EZ-17 should work ok for them for recording QAM digital channels in the clear. Maybe they would have better luck using the EZ-17 recording from a more stable cable signal, or else it should work good to back up there DVDR if they went that route.

My relative got a special Comcast digital but non-HD package (around $30 per month for one year) with one of the larger (older model) digital cable boxes for main viewing and cable ready in one bedroom. There was no DVR in their package.

I watched as the installer enabled or disabled various cable box settings through the standard Comcast remote. That is a very interesting process but I didn't see how these settings were accessed. I believe that the installer disabled various cable box outputs.

It was not my place to speak up as to various settings in their service package. By that time my relatives had arrived home so I didn't stay around to see what channel line-up they got.

They were so weary of their Panasonic experience that I didn't want to attempt to be too assertive with more technology than they could endure at that moment.

Perhaps I will find out what they may or may not be receiving in the near future and give them more advice at that time.

I use my first DMR-EZ17 cable ready so I do receive the HD channels in the clear and record them in SD. For the time being I may set up this second DMR-EZ17 and set aside an older machine for standby use.

Yes I think it takes a certain person to be able to put up with these EZ Panny's:D although I believe if you can, you'll be rewarded with about the best quality recordings possible in a SD machine.

This morning at 10:11 a.m. I noticed that my #2 DMR-EZ17 (the one that had gone to my relative and then came back after a few weeks) was showing the time as 11:57 a.m. I watched for several minutes. The other two Panasonics set up in the same stack both read 10:11 a.m. at the outset and continued to advance the time. These other Panasonics, my #1 DMR-EZ17 and a DMR-ES35V, are connected cable-ready to Comcast. The #2 DMR-EZ17 is set up OTA. The display time did not advance. The remote did not power on the unit and pressing the open/close tray or power on buttons on the unit did not work. I should add that there were no programs set in the SCHEDULE but there was a blank disc in the tray. I pressed the manual reset, the small recessed button at the right behind the door. That reset the machine and restored the correct time to the display.

and the bugs go on . . .

I noticed in your earlier post your relatives also had the problem with lost time....They wouldn't happen to be on the same OTA PBS station that you might be on?
Just hope you don't get the U99 error. It locked up my first 3 EZ's and I could never clear them. Just had to exchange them.

I am located at the crest of a foothill on the north side of Portland Oregon, around four miles from downtown Vancouver Washington. We are line of sight somewhat less than five miles from the main Portland Oregon TV broadcast towers along the Skyline ridge to the north and west of downtown Portland. My relatives are located on the southwest side of Portland on the other side of the Skyline ridge less than three miles from those broadcast towers. They are located on the valley floor with some hilltops partially obscuring line of sight from some of the towers. When I set up the DMR-EZ17 for them there was no problem with reception from any of those towers probably due to the short distance from the towers. We receive the same stations.

This DMR-EZ17 does not tune an anolog America One CA station in Camas Washington, line of sight about 16 miles distant. I am using a Philips SDV270/17 non-amplified antenna that has fully adjustable 43" VHF dipoles and a multi-position UHF loop and separate gain controls for these bands. The frustration is that with the VHF dipoles and UHF loop set for best analog and digital reception of the Portland stations in the one direction that the dipoles and loop are also pointing in the exact opposite direction that sould allow for reception of the Camas station in that other direction. In my bedroom I have the cheapest RCA antenna (ANT111) with the dipoles and loop aimed the same way as the more expensive Philips in my home office in the next room. My little RCA 13" CRT tunes the Camas station but there is a bit of snow in the picture. This tells me that the DMR-EZ17 analog tuner section is not as good as that found in a four year old bottom of the line RCA CRT TV. Of course, how many people would notice a weak analog tuner with a useful life (now) less than a year to go?

With my ez17 and Comcast, I can get the local HD channels and HD USA, History, Discovery and some others. Fios is now in my area, would I be able to get the local and other HD's with Fios and the ez17?

LeroyBrown,

I would assume that you would have to contact Fios for that informaton.

Well woke up this morning to my 4th dead EZ Panny. U99 error which would not clear.
The display just said u99 instead of the time. When I hit the power button it did it's startup thing which consists of about 30 seconds of 00000's advancing across the display(this is normal) then when it got to the part where it started reading the disc, it read it for about 15 seconds, followed by u99.
Note nothing clears this u99. Tried CH up/CH down but that only works if the machine is ON which it never quite gets to. Tried little reset button, which acted like power button button. It would get the 00000's and 30 seconds later u99. Tried STOP EJECT to get the disc out, but nothing.
IT'S TOAST!
I did get the 5yr extended warranty and bought it at a B&M store, but what a PIA. I have to disconnect everything, I'll loose my disc that's stuck in the machine, and I'll probably be without a digital machine for a month, not to mention I'll have to reprogram setup the replacement.
4 dead U99 error Panny's in less than a year, this last one lasted more than the 1 month that the previous 3 did, but I expect more than 5? months out of a $200 DVDR. IMO I cannot in good conscious recommend this machine anymore. It may be capable of some fantastic recordings off digital HD channels, but the reliability is @#$*.
Buyer beware.
Note I maybe have 150 hrs recording to -RW Maxell/Verbatium's and 50 hrs recording to misc. -R's. I have probably 10? total playback hours on this machine. Don't know why other people are getting more than 1-5 months out of there's, I think luck dropped out of the equation about 2 machines ago....

You appear to be the great Panasonic Slayer. I've not read anyone else having this kind of grief with a Panasonic.

Could bad media be the cause of this? Is there any way to get the disk out and try fresh media. I once had the experience with my E-85 where a "dirty" RAM disk locked up the unit in a never-ending cycle of trying to mount the disk and displaying error messages. I could not get the disk out by normal means, but when I finally did I could see the debris on the surface. After washing the disk clean, I could put it back in the E-85 and all was well. So, I am wondering if the problem is some bad media in the tray coupled with the EZ-17's inability to handle this particular error condition.

Jeff,

The only consolation is that you may open up the DVD drive (as if to clean it) to remove your disc.

If perhaps Kelson is correct about a bad disc it's worth it to remove the disc, replace the lid, close it up, and then power it back on to see if you might, just might, recover from this latest trouble.

I keep thinking that I'm going to turn one DMR-ES35V parts machine into a functional unit. That machine will initially respond to the front panel power button or the power button on a remote, but soon thereafter gives the U61 error, after which the machine refuses to respond to any front panel buttons or the remote. I have swapped a number of parts, including front panel circuit boards, a VHS mechanism that I rebuilt/realigned, and the right chassis motherboard from the other parts machine. The outcome is nearly always the same. My most recent assessment is that the there is some unknown problem with the left chassis motherboard (that carries the tuner, other I/O jacks, remote sensor and some of the "logic" components). At first the only screen this machine could display was pink but at some point I got it to display a blue screen--at that moment I thought this a great stride forward, LOL! The other DMR-ES35V parted (disassembled) machine has a defective tuner on the left chassis motherboard, also displaying a pink screen with fine dark blue/black lines running top to bottom, so a swap of that left chassis motherboard has not been undertaken. These displays were viewed from the RF output. Upon further reflection I can not remember if I attempted to view the display from the composite output. Perhaps that will be the next experiment. Of course these two parts machines have been picked clean of most of the best parts, including their funtional DVD drives that now reside in two DMR-ES15 models, one purchased with a bad DVD drive and the other with a DVD drive that sometimes (almost) works. The parts machine that I have been trying to bring back to functionality now has the almost working DVD drive. Why do I continue tinkering with this machine?

In reciting this history I am trying to say, in a small way, that I share your pain and frustration.

Thanks guys, "the great Panny slayer" eh? I kinda like the sound of that....
Truthfully don't believe it's media since I use the same -RW discs between all my other 5 Panny DVDR's and have never had this type of problem on any of the other ones. But I suppose it could be some type of incompatibility problem with the -RW's in general. This could explain why not everybody is having the same luck, or lack of it, that I'm having. This U99 has always happened with using -RW's, but only 1%? of the time. I'm also very careful about my discs and always have them in a sleeve when not in the machine.

Kelson I think you may be right that if I could get the disc out, the machine could possibly be ok. The problem is, without tearing the machine apart, it's not easy to get the disc out. There is no little hole on the bottom of the unit to remove stuck discs, like some players used to have. I also have my machine in a glass cabinet which is hard to get at and it's really not very convent to be pulling the machine out every month, or even every 4 months. I'd like Panasonic to really fix this problem. Maybe UE will get tired of me coming in every few months to get my unit repaired, and let me get a new EZ-28 when they come out. I hope???? the 28 will have all the bugs worked out that the EZ-17 and 27 have.

Note I don't believe heat is the issue either, since the room I have the unit in was ~55' last night, and the program I was recording was only 1hr long, so it would not have built heat up that fast. I've also felt the machine after 2hr recordings and it has never really been that warm.

I'll take it back to Ultimate Electronics today, and they will disassemble the machine to get the disc out. They do this free, Best Buy, where I bought my second EZ-17 was going to charge me $20 to get my disc out! I said for that you can keep the 50 cent -RW. I just returned that unit since it was only a few days past the 30 days and I they had since stopped carrying the EZ-17 in favor of the more expensive(bigger profit margin) EZ-27.

Maybe this time after they get the disc out I'll see if they want to re-insert the disc to see what happens. Note on the discs they had previously removed I was able to record and use them fine on my other Panny's, even on the new EZ-17 I had got. I just had to reformat the disc, and my recording was lost.

I think the bug with the EZ units is they must read the disc, before they can be ejected, and reading the disc locks up the unit. On my other ES Panny's I can eject the disc, without it first trying to read the disc.
I'll keep you posted.

Update-Took the dead EZ-17 into Ultimate Electronics. After the manager took apart the machine, which involved 3 screws to loosen the drive, then turn it over, there was a slot to put a screwdriver in, to eject a stuck disc.
Now why they didn't just have another slot in the bottom of the unit, so you wouldn't have to tear the machine apart......I know, makes too much sense.
After he put the machine back together he powered it up. This time it just kept trying to read the disc, which there was none inserted. After 30 seconds of this it went back to u99,
Note I tried the stuck disc in my ES-15, and other than having to reformat it, it recorded to just fine.

Note one last thing about warranties, don't but them! Even though this was my 3rd unit apparently all the previous exchanges were just that, exchanges. In order for the lemon policy to take effect the machine must have been sent for repair 3 times, not exchanged!!!! Plus when I told the manager that I really have no confidence in the EZ-17/27's he said they with the lemon policy they would just exchange the unit for the same type. When I asked what would happen next year when the EZ-17/27 was not made anymore would they exchange for a EZ-28 he said no, they would probably exchange it for a refurbished EZ-17!

This unit has been a $250 waste of money/time. Next time(yes I truly believe there will be a next time) it gets the U99 I will have all I can do to not go out in the garage and get my sledge hammer and let it meet it's maker. Basically chalk the whole thing up to experience gained and time and money lost. IMO Panasonic has truly produced a lemon, or lemons.

Man, that is messed up! Sorry to hear about your troubles with this model. I hope I haven't jinxed my own ez17 by posting here. ;) It's been under fairly moderate to heavy use since November (about 5+ hrs of recording per day, 5 days a week, every week, mostly dvd+rw with the occasional dvd-ram). Additional to that, it is typically on at around 4-5 hours per day, not recording anything, but just passing-on the signal from one of its inputs or the hd tuner.

Were you doing any kind of chase-play operation during your time with it? I'm not saying that is a good reason for it to fail, at all, just that it could be a source of higher than normal duty load on the head actuator.

No actually the circumstances that led up to the U99 were as follows.
Had a 1hr SP event scheduled to record to a empty Verbatium -RW disc. The event was scheduled to record from 9-10pm(Lipstick Jungle, I know guilty pleasure). I was near the machine at 9pm and noticed it start to record. Since most of my missed schedules involve the machine never starting to record I like to watch it start the recording, if I'm around. Left the room and the next time I returned 6am this morning it had the U99 on the display. I tried clearing it with all the normal resets, but as has been the case on my U99's nothing clears the problem.
I don't know what to suggest to avoid this problem, this time the scheduled event was a one shot affair and was the only one in the schedule list. Not much on I record lately since most everything is repeats.
Note my last machine was a Sept build date, and the one they exchange for me was a store display with Jan '07 date. Maybe the older ones are better? Note I didn't note the build date on my previous units, since I wasn't using forums then and didn't realize maybe it make a difference. Good luck with yours, I'm envious. Note I think?? Homevideo guy is also using his with no problems last I heard, not sure what discs he uses. Maybe?? it's related to the -RW's in general, but this has never been an issue with any of my other Panny DVDR's.

I'd try +RW's but they do not visible search well at all. As I've reported before they have like a 4x and then jump to 5 seconds for a whole 1hr show(or some ridiculous thing). I'd use RAMS but I really prefer playing back my discs on my Sony DVD players. They have all the features I like in a player, and the Panny has basically none of the features I like. I just use it for a recorder.

If you're using 16x discs, stop - those things suck. Even the Verbatims.

I have lots of problems with them on all my burners - even my computer's.

Ramm, on my EZ machines I use -RW's almost exclusivley, and they are mostly 2x, with a few 4X Office Depot discs.
You guys are going to think I'm making this stuff up, no one can be so unlucky with a particular model as me, but I've got another problem.
I setup the new(OK floor model) EZ-17 I got last night. Did the normal setup, including channel scan, and what do you know, NO DIGITAL CHANNELS?? All the analog ones, but not a one digital.
I tried 4 rescans all to no avail, not a one digital. I tried all the normal things I would have someone else try(which I do remember a few people saying they got no digitals) all to no avail. I tried resetting the unit to factory defaults, unplugging, I even tried my firmware CD from Panasonic thinking since this unit was so old(Jan '07) maybe a firmware update would fix it, no luck.
I even tried changing the setup to CABLE(Even thought I'm OTA) and after 30!! minutes it came back with NO digital channels.
No I didn't get out the sledge hammer, I was in such shock I just boxed the unit back up, and will visit UE for the 5th!!!! time for a non working EZ-17/27.
When I left UE yesterday I told the manager(who I have seen all 4 times with my previous bad units) I have NO confidence the one he gave me will work more than a few months, I had no idea it wouldn't even work 1 minute......
How many other bugs can I find in these units.....stay tuned, and beware.

No I didn't get out the sledge hammer, I was in such shock I just boxed the unit back up, and will visit UE for the 5th!!!! time for a non working EZ-17/27 . . .
When I left UE yesterday I told the manager(who I have seen all 4 times with my previous bad units) I have NO confidence the one he gave me will work . . .jjeff, If I understand correctly you have now had 5 bad EZ units all from the same retailer and replacements have been from his retail stock. Is that correct?

Dude, if it is you may want to use that sledge hammer on yourself. After #3 I wouldn't be suspecting Panasonic but wondering what kind of crap this guy is putting on the shelves. Sounds like a B&M version of an Ebay shyster.

Actually (#3 I think) was the EZ-27 from Best Buy, which I returned under the 30 day return period after it also got u99, and up until this last unit that was a floor model, they have been brand new in a sealed box. Also not sure if you are familiar with Ultimate Electronics (UE) but they are regarded around here as a more high end B&M retailer carrying more top of the line series, as well as value line like pretty much any DVDR manufactured currently. If I could just get my $250 back, or turn back time and never get the unit in the first place, I would in a New York minute. Other than some great burns, the whole fiasco has been something I may laugh at in 10 years....
If they sold any decent DVDR's w/digital tuner I might really push for exchanging it for another model/mfg. but for the most part I think every DVDR they carry/is currently made, is a sub standard POC. Nope they don't carry the 3575. If they did I'd gladly give them $50 to boot and they could keep the EZ-17.

They don't have anything else in the store you could use that they'd let you exchange it for, do they? Like a small LCD or something like that?

Are you sure you're not having any power fluctuations in your home that could be damaging the circuitry? They could even be so small you wouldn't even normally notice them otherwise.

Yes they have lots of stuff I would like, like I said they kind of tend to have higher end stuff(except in there measly DVDR section where there is nothing high end about anything currently made)problem is I'm not sure they would be willing to credit me at this point. My original receipt dates back to August? I think, and they have a 30 day money back policy. They seem happy to keep giving me a new, or in this last case a floor model replacement, thinking all will be well.
Well it's not. Like I told the manager this last time(2 days ago) I have ZERO confidence in this model lasting more that a few months, if that. I kind of feel trapped in this revolving door thing, and it it weren't for the $200 tied up in the unit + the $50 for the (4) year warranty:D:D I wouldn't feel so bad with just chucking the thing in the trash. If it was one of my $99 ES-15's I would have done that a few returns ago.
As far as the power, plugged into the same surge suppressor that I have the EZ-17 plugged I also have a ES-25, ES-30 and My Panasonic LCD, none of which has any problems. Oh, and that surge suppressor is plugged into a Triplite 1200w UPS. I don't believe it's power related. I believe it's just the EZ-17's and the one EZ-27 I had are VERY buggy and problematic if you use them for timer operation. I say the last caveat "timer operation" since every instance of a dead u99 was during a timer recording. I think? people that even use there DVDR's tend to mostly use them for backing up there DVR and probably not timer operation. I don't know, just a thought. I know timer operation is basically the only way I use mine, oh and again using -RW discs.
As most all of us know the current state of DVDR in the US is lacking, to say the least. Not a whole lot of choices, especially for someone like me that really wants a digital tuner, otherwise I'd go Canadian.

I believe it's just the EZ-17's and the one EZ-27 I had are VERY buggy and problematic if you use them for timer operation. I say the last caveat "timer operation" since every instance of a dead u99 was during a timer recording. Jeff, I never would have bought/bid on my EZ17 if I had read about all your problems. Not to be sacrilegious, but it's as though you're Jesus taking on all the sins of ALL the EZ17s. :)

I'm using my EZ17 for timeshifting 99% of the time. Once the impact of the writer's strike has diminished, I should be using my recorder for 1-2 hours each night for 5-6 nights a week. I'm using DVD-RAM though. If my recorder lasts any length of time(only been a month so far), we should be able to rule out scheduled recordings as a cause. I have used a few tips I've learned here which may extend the life of my recorder and reduce the number of glitches. I have turned off the auto clock and auto DST. I have also turned off the quick start feature after reading about the leaking capacitor, but man do I miss that feature...the EZ17 takes longer to power up than it takes for me to get out of bed...and that's saying something at my age. So far I'm 30-plus recordings without a single misfire. Oh, not sure if this is a factor, but also almost all of my recordings are in LP mode. I have only used FR mode once or twice when an overly long "Lost" episode left me needing an extra minute or two. Why I didn't use the divide feature to "edit out" the commercials, I'll never figure out....so what if I can't recombine...as long as they are in order.

:D:Dfirst "Panny slayer" now "Jesus":D:D I don't know what to say:)
Seriously I don't know why everyone who is actually using there machine for scheduled recordings are not having the same problems I am......if this was my first DVDR I can say that I would probably never think of buying one again thats for sure. Note there is NO warning when the machine is going to u99. It's working great one day, and the next u99.
I feel somewhat bad that I may have recommended you to buy a EZ-17, although I've always tried to post my problems and up until maybe unit #3 I thought possibly I could be getting defective units. That thought is out of my mind now(I think it's the design).
I've never had a issue of recording PQ, in fact that's the reason I'm still using it. Recording a W.S. HD program looks so much better than any of my other Panny's. Note it's not that the EZ records better, it's the source. I'm hoping to get the same great PQ using a digital converter box hooked up to one of my old "reliable" ES series Panasonics.
I truly wish you luck with yours, and if my problems keeps someone else from having a problem, well at least not everything was lost. Wake me up when the nightmare is over:D
Oh and if misery loves company it looks like at least one other poor guy is having almost as much problem with his EZ as I am. DrBrousters is on his 4th EZ!
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=13267223#post13267223
Reading that post made feel a little better anyway;) but probably not you:( sounds like he uses RAM's...

So what are you using right now in it's place - the 3575?

Actually no, that I gave to my father who is really enjoying it. I currently do not have a digital tuner DVDR and am really missing it. Oh sure I've got analog ones up the wazoo, but once I got used to the WS and almost HD like PQ of the EZ-17's it's really hard to go back to SD. I don't think I'll even waste time recording guilty pleasures like "Lipstick Jungle" since in SD it just doesn't have the WOW factor of being in WS and HD. For me sometimes just the PQ of the show will carry it through, when maybe the content alone would not.
I'm sure waiting with baited breath for the TR-50, if and when it becomes reality. That or maybe when a good converter box becomes available and hopefully I'll get similar PQ hooking it up to one of my older, more reliable ES series machines.
Wish me luck today. I can't imagine what the look on the mgr's face will be when he sees me back so soon.....and he actually had the balls to say, "maybe this one will last".........;)

I do all my TCM recording/viewing in my bedroom with two DMR-ES15 models enslaved to a Comcast digital cable box. One DMR-ES15 feeds component outputs to a Westinghouse 27" widescreen LCD HDTV. The other DMR-ES15 feeds composite outputs to a RCA 13" CRT TV. This TV is also set up with an antenna for OTA use.

In my home office (in the next room) I have a Dynex 19" widescreen LCD HDTV. This TV is on most of the time I am in this room. The Dynex is set up cable-ready (without a STB) on Comcast through the RF input. The Dynex is also enslaved through the Component inputs to the #1 DMR-EZ17 DVD recorder set cable-ready. The Dynex is also connected, through its composite input (through a Pelican System Selector PL970) to the #2 DMR-EZ17 set up OTA, a Panasonic analog DMR-ES35V set up cable-ready, and to the #1 DMR-EZ17 as well.

I expect my converter box coupons to arrive any time now. I hope that the product comparisons (found on other threads) will identify the best pass-through models that appear in the marketplace before my coupons expire.

Jeff, Not to be sacrilegious, but it's as though you're Jesus taking on all the sins of ALL the EZ17s. :)

Well it didn't have to go to 6 EZ units. After my tuner problems with unit #5 the store manager asked what I wanted to do. After we walked over to the pathetic display of current DVDR's, and he said they would not even be getting any more new EZ-17's in, I asked if a store credit would be possible? He agreed.
Yahoooooo! Christ has risen....the savior is alive.
Now, what to use my $250 credit for??? I was hoping to score a TR-50, but he said they are probably not going to carry it. He did say they will be carrying the TR-40, which I was happy about, except I hope to get mine free, with coupons.
I asked about "real" HD converter boxes and he said they hadn't carried any for probably a year, that all new TV's come with the tuner.
I suppose........I could wait for the EZ-28 from Panasonic. He said they will be carrying those. What do you think guys, should I give Panasonic another try? Do you think the EZ-28 will be radically different than the EZ-17,27. Or will it be just the same wolf, in different clothing?
If any of you are familiar with "good" "real" converter boxes that might have a programmable timer please post your responses to my thread in the HDTV Reception Hardware forum. I really want to get back to recording WS HD(lite) DVD's.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1002952
Thanks a lot guys, it's been a real trip..........glad to be off this boat!

I expect my converter box coupons to arrive any time now. I hope that the product comparisons (found on other threads) will identify the best pass-through models that appear in the marketplace before my coupons expire.

DigaDo, I'm not positive about this, but according to someone on another thread the "coupon" converter boxes may not have WS output. If you were planning like me to tie one to one of your old analog Panny's and record glorious WS material, you and I may be mistaken.
Not sure how important WS is to you, but to me it's the whole purpose of the conversion. That and the better clarity of the recordings.

Jeff,

Widescreen is very important to me. Whenever I see "narrowscreen" pan-and-scan movies I can hardly stand to watch. I prefer to watch in a format as close to the original as possible.

Well, not always. Don't let this out, but I like to watch some of my early talkies through film noir era movies in the widescreen format on our widescreen TVs. Of course folks look as though they've gained a little weight but I can always slim them down with the TV's remote if need be.

Watching TV programming and news in HD or even recorded "down rezzed" to SD is fine with me. Of course, the prospect of DRM is lurking wherever digital transmission and tuning is in use. I am also confident that my analog Panasonics will continue to provide outstanding picture quality when recording from digital sources.

Widescreen is part of the government-approved converter box specification as the intent was to be able to watch the digital broadcast transmissions on analog TVs. Of course, 16X9 is the native method used in digital broadcast transmissions.

Here are the basic specifications for government-approved converter boxes:

http://www.ntia.doc.gov/dtvcoupon/DTVmanufacturers.pdf

Here are the final rules, and the criteria and reasoning behind the final rules, for the government approved-converter boxes:

http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/frnotices/2007/DTVFinalRule_2e.htm

Yes but I'm thinking the WS they are talking about would be black bars on the top and bottom of the screen, not "full screen" 16x9.
It would make sense that the boxes not have true 16x9 output, since most everyone using the boxes will be displaying them on a 4x3 tv, and they would not want the sides being cropped off. I would prefer the "full screen" 16x9 output, but the more I think about it I doubt the boxes will have that feature.:(

Jeff,

Somewhere in converter box discussions (on this or another forum) I have read some comments concerning different implementations broadcast stations (and perhaps cable networks as well) have made or failed to make as they get "up-to-speed" with various technology. As I gather from the discussions 16x9 transmissions that natively feature boxes all around a widescreen image are transitional problems that occur when a broadcaster has not properly aligned their equipment or the source material does not contain or embed the correct signals to cause automated equipment to recognize the proper formatting. Once the dust settles and corrections are made the native format will fill the entire width of the screen with bars at the top and bottom.

Briefly, the government-approved converter box specifications call for:

"Equipment shall support 4:3 center cut-out of 16:9 transmitted image, letterbox output of 16:9 letterbox transmitted image, and a full or partially zoomed output of unknown transmitted image."

What this tells me is that these variations may be user chosen with the converter box remote, just as we may modify the screen display with the TV remote, or choose these preferences in the setup menu with a Panasonic DVD recorder or combo recorder.

and a full or partially zoomed output of unknown transmitted image."

Yes this was the part I keep looking at. I don't really know what it means.
What I "want" it to mean would be a "full 16x9 output" not a 4x3 output with black bars on top and bottom, but again since I would think 98% of the people using these boxes will be displaying them on a 4x3 screen, I can't really believe they care much about the 2% that would want to display the boxes on a 16x9 tv, or record the full image to a DVD recorder. But only time will tell. Note on your second link(the one with the tiny print:D) it looked like Funia had a lot to do with the design of these new CECB's........that's not a good sign......if you know what I mean.:eek:

"a full or partially zoomed output of unknown transmitted image."

What I believe this means goes back to the "transitional problems" with broadcast station automated equipment. This would be analogous to the TV stations of old that had to be ready to put up a screen that read "We are experiencing technical difficulties, please stand by" for a local problem or "We are experiencing technical difficulties beyond our control, please stand by" for a network feed problem.

Yes but I'm thinking the WS they are talking about would be black bars on the top and bottom of the screen, not "full screen" 16x9.
It would make sense that the boxes not have true 16x9 output, since most everyone using the boxes will be displaying them on a 4x3 tv, and they would not want the sides being cropped off. I would prefer the "full screen" 16x9 output, but the more I think about it I doubt the boxes will have that feature.:(I believe you have the correct interpretation here. These converter boxes are designed for 4:3 analog sets not widescreen HDTV's that do not have digital tuners (HDTV-ready boondoggle). The highest output allowed is S-video. I have read other articles on this that all seem to indicate the output will be either clipped 4:3 pan&scan or letterbox (user selectable) -- similar to the options a good DVD player gives you when you have it configured to output to a 4:3 TV. Similarly it may allow you other zoom options, but I think it safe to say it will not output an anamorphic frame. The intent of the coupon program is not to supply HD tuners for HD-ready TV's.

I believe the phrase "a full or partially zoomed output of unknown transmitted image" is to cover when a station broadasts a wide screen movie (i.e. LOTR) on full 2.3 aspect ratio. The converter box wil give you the option of how much you want to zoom in.

What do you think guys, should I give Panasonic another try? Yes, but you should not buy it from that store. El Diablo lives under the floorboards of their DVDR section.

Jeff,

Many will purchase the new 2008 Panasonics. Then, as they start submitting customer reviews on Circuit City, Best Buys, Amazon, or post on this and other forums, we will find out "is it safe (yet)?" (TCM recently ran Marathon Man. I recorded it from their showing but I have not watched this movie in many years.)

I probably wouldn't buy it from that store, just in case you do have to return it again. They're really gonna look at you cross-eyed then.

Maybe if you could find it at another store with a good, "not having to deal with a saleperson" return policy.

Unless you really can't think of anything else there you'd ever want to use that credit on.

In my home office (in the next room) I have a Dynex 19" widescreen LCD HDTV.Yeah, I got me one of those little buggers too, from BB last year for just over 2 bills. Couldn't pass it up for that.

I just wanted it to hook my two unused recorders to in another room. I use them mainly for copying, although there's still a ton of stuff on their hard drives I'd like to burn if I ever get the ambition.

I don't have any service connected to it, but I might wirelessly run my satellite signal to it. The PQ is very good and the ATSC tuner is very sensitive.

I probably wouldn't buy it from that store, just in case you do have to return it again. They're really gonna look at you cross-eyed then.

Maybe if you could find it at another store with a good, "not having to deal with a saleperson" return policy.

Unless you really can't think of anything else there you'd ever want to use that credit on.

Well it keeps getting better. Looking over all the receipts from this experience I noticed not only had I been credited for the unit+warranty but also for a $5.00 S-cable I had bought at the same time, that I did not return. I thought of not saying anything about it, but figured since they gave me credit of everything incl. warranty I should tell them about it. Well he was so surprised I had done this he actually took the gift card back and credited the whole $250 to my Visa. Now I don't have to worry how to spend the money just at that store.:)
You're right, I think I'll try my next Panny(maybe a EZ-28) at another store.
When I asked the kid running the credit the first time if I should give Panasonic another try with the new model, he said NO. I don't think he wanted me back again:D (although this is the same store that I bought my 2 ES-15's at, and I have never had issues with those).
In the mean time I picked up a Sammy H260f HD digital tuner yesterday at CC. I thought it was kinda spendy at $179(the going price) but so far after my tests last night recording American Idol(great pq), I am very impressed with the PQ. It's WS and I would say even better PQ than the EZ-17. I'm recording it via S-vid into my ES-25. I'll report back after more tests.
I couldnt stand being without a digital tuner DVDR. The PQ is vastly better than analog, when recording WS HD source. Not as good as your Sony DVR I'm sure, but Sooo much better than SD. I really like the term HD lite. Describes it well.

In the mean time I picked up a Sammy H260f HD digital tuner yesterday at CC. I thought it was kinda spendy at $179(the going price) but so far after my tests last night recording American Idol(great pq), I am very impressed with the PQ. It's WS and I would say even better PQ than the EZ-17. I'm recording it via S-vid into my ES-25. I'll report back after more tests.
I couldnt stand being without a digital tuner DVDR. The PQ is vastly better than analog, when recording WS HD source. Not as good as your Sony DVR I'm sure, but Sooo much better than SD. I really like the term HD lite. Describes it well.See? Told 'ya! Convincing certain "others" may be impossible at this point, though. ;):)

Have you tried the "event timer"-like thingy yet, and did it work?

Actually I have one too, and it's only a fraction of a hair less with PQ than the Sony when recording from it to my DVD recorders. Barely even noticable, really.

Anyway, you should march right back to that store and have them look up the DTB-H260F on their website. It's $10.00 cheaper and they WILL refund you that difference! They did it for me and many others here (might even have a couple of bucks left after you've paid for the gas to and from the store!).

The event timer is a bit of a joke, and mainly why I may return the Sammy. I believe it is probably something like your Sony, or even TVGOS programming. The title HAS to be on the PCIP list, or you cannot setup the event. Also there is no way to manually program the event timer or even manually set the clock. It must go off the PCIP? time, which is scary if it gets off. Didn't they learn any thing from the whole Sony thing?? Include a manual time option!! The unit also HAS to be left on to change channels. It will NOT wake up and change if it was turned off.
Take last night for instance. The PCIP schedule only went to midnight for most of my local channels. That sure would not be too handy for going out of town and trying to record many different events on different channels. I sure hope the TR-40 does the schedule different, although I'm upset it will not have a S-out(or so it sounds like). I did notice slightly better pq recording to my DVDR via S-out of Sammy vs composite.
I'll check out the CC site, but like I said I'm probably.... not going to keep it and hope for a CECB with a better scheduler, and hopefully S-out. My local Best Buy actually wanted even $10 more than CC, so I thought I was actually getting a good deal. Sounds like I still paid $10 to much!

Do you get more time on your Sammy guide? I suppose it would vary by market and some stations might be better than others in keeping it up to date. In my area, I've noticed the guide on my Vizio TV(which is exactly the same as the Sammy's guide) is VERY inconsistent. Some times it will go out several days, other times only a few hours. I don't know who to complain to. Would it be CBS, I think?? someone said CBS is sending the guide, or would it be each separate station? I just don't know. All I know is, I would like the option to manually program the scheduler, like a VCR timer. I would think it would be so simple. That and I would like a front panel display, which the Sammy does not have, but I guess I could live without.

The amount of guide data, and the length of time it extends to, can vary greatly. I never tried using the timer myself, I just wondered if you had and what your results were. I know that people in the Sammy thread said it was virtually useless.

You mentioned manual timing and the Sony - actually, you can set manual timers on it - with no problem. I do it all the time. It's just that no one's sure if we'll even be able to get the time after the cutoff.

Don't equate setting through the Sammy's (PSIP) guide with TVGOS - TVGOS is thoroughly dependable as long as you're getting data. The time is always spot on - and I mean 100%, always EXACT, and there are never any "overlapping" problems with recordings, a la the PSIP guides. The guide data is very comprehensive, and always there, also. (Also, you can set a guide recording even if the grid says "no listing" - unlike the Sammy.)

I'm waiting for that TR-40, too, not just for the manual timing (as a dependable backup to the TVGOS or whatever), but hopefully for the passing of the TVGOS data, too. I'll possibly be using it with OTA with one of my spare DVD recorders (which all have TVGOS) on my 32" analog set in another room - unless the Sony still works after 02/'09 - in which case I might just end up using the TR-50 on the main TV, and the Sony on the other one.

If the TR-40 has any kind of version of TVGOS (like I've been hearing), you will love it - trust me. Setting manual timers with a DVD recorder is not all that much of a hassle, especially if it's for daily or weekly recordings - but if you've never been spoiled by TiVo, and your needs are basic, you're gonna get spoiled by TVGOS (or anything else that dependable) really quick.

I think a lot of people that have never had or seen it just assume that since it's free, it really can't be all that much. But if that's what you're thinking, you'll be very pleasantly surprised. You can search categories of shows up till 8 days in advance, and all you have to do is press down the recording button on the remote 1,2, or 3 times, depending on the frequency you want to record a show. It's not that different from TiVo really, except it doesn't give you more advanced features like "Season Pass" (which I personally never would use anyway). Just more basic, which is what it sounds like you would only need anyway.

Honestly, if I were you, I wouldn't even bother buying another DVD recorder until those two Echostar units come out. You won't have any use for it, not when you've already got all those working, older, better models (as long as you're able to still record in widescreen, that is). Or maybe you can just find a Panny at Target or somewhere with a no-restocking fee, 90-day return policy and return it when the TR-40 comes out. Just tell them it didn't pick up all the QAM digital locals or something like that. Target actually asks me less questions than Walmart does, if you can believe that. You've got 30 days to ride out the Sammy at least, so 120 days should give you enough time 'till the Echostar's release.

Sorry for the confusion, I did know(previously from you I believe) that the Sony could indeed be manually programmed, and the only correlation I was trying to make between TVGOS and PCIP was they were just both Guides, I'm sure TVGOS is MUCH better than PCIP, it would have to be at least in my area. I think again you set me straight on this some time earlier that my Vizio was NOT TVGOS:D
Even though I probably referred to it at the time as TV guide feature.
Yes I can see how a person could get spoiled by the guide feature. Even the PCIP is nice to be able to just arrow over to the program and hit enter, the only problem with PCIP is the short time frame.
Maybe you're right about another DVDR, once I get the TR-50 I will probably only need one to make DVD's off of it. I guess I won't need the digital tuner, or else use the TR-40.
I'll be waiting for early reviews of the EZ-28. I'll particularly paying attention to missed programs and u99's:D:D

Well, if you're planning on really getting the TR-50, then you most likely won't even be using any recorder's digital SD tuner from then on. At least not on your HD Panny LCD.

My one major reservation about the TR-50, that no one seems to currently know, is if the HDD is married to the unit. If this is the case, HDD cannot be played on another TR-50 that I might own, or if my unit dies and I need to replace it I'd like to be guaranteed my HDD's would play on another unit. If not I would probably not be interested.
I really like that feature about DVDR's, and would not want to build a library of HDD's only to have them die, with the unit. I also like to occasionally borrow a DVD to my father to watch. If he also had a TR-50 I would want him to be able to easily watch the HDD on his machine. Currently with DVDR's it's no problem.
HDD's are a totally different concept for me. I know for users of your Sony, or cable co's DVR's it's just a way of life. I'll be trying to use my TR-50 just like a big DVD, which may not work. Time will tell. I'm not giving up on DVDR's just yet. Maybe the best would be to just timeshift with the TR-50 and still archive to DVD. It would just be nice though to archive HD instead of SD.:confused:

Has anybody done much exploring on how well dual-layer dvd's record on this machine? I just tried it for the first time, boy did it disappoint! It was about 8 min to the end of a 2 hr-ish recording, when it just up and decides to stop recording, pause a brief moment, and then shutdown. :mad: Wtf?! So I power it up again, and see what made it onto the disc (dvd+r dl)...and nothing, nada in the title menu. I remove the disc and then put it back in, and it then returns a message that the disc is incompatible. :mad: :mad: So it seems it has succeeded to make a coaster. What a pain! That's a $5 disc gone to waste. :mad: :mad: :mad:

I know it was recording something for almost 2 hrs. I can see the write pattern on the disc. It was not even close to a layer change. It just up and decided to pull the plug on the disc while recording.

So, anybody else pull off successful dl recordings on this thing? Was I just unlucky? This is the first time it has ever crashed right in the midst of a recording session. :( If it were just a standard dvd-r, I would not be so miffed, but ruining a $5 disc?...that's some grievous BS!

Sorry to hear that. I purchased a spindle of 10 Windata +R DL discs from Microcenter for $10 but still I'm reluctant to use them considering what I pay for -R's.
The one and only time I recorded a DL disc to my EZ-17 it did work but I think first it wanted to format the disc. That went OK but it did stop at the layer change and need to be post finalized before the second layer could be recorded to. I've read that the EZ-28 does not need the first layer to be post finalized before you can record to the second, but I haven't tried yet.
It sounds like you must have gotten a "self check" error? When I get that error when writing to a disc many times it totally wipes out the disc and I get the same error you get. "This disc is incompatible". If it's a RW disc then it usually just wants to reformat it, which again wipes out everything.
Maybe someone else who uses DL's more might chime in, but if you want to try some more testing I'd suggest Microcenter if you have one near you. $1/disc is sure easier to take than $5. Problem with most DL spindles are they are so big. I don't want to buy 30 discs to do testing, that's why I liked the small 10 spindle.

Ah, maybe that is where I went wrong, if I was supposed to "format" it before recording to it. I just put the disc in there right out of the pack. I didn't get any pop-up menu to do anything to it, so I just started recording.

The strange thing of it all, is that it seems to have triggered continued misbehavior in the player since then (hope this isn't an irreversible trend for it, now). The scheduled program that goes off nightly recorded just over an hour and then just inexplicably dropped the rest of the recording time. It defies all reason, since I changed back to the rw discs I have been using just fine for the past 6 mos, and the player has been power cycled numerous times since that dvd+r dl misbehavior. Maybe it is all a coincidence that these seemingly unrelated problems should all crop up at once. Prior to that, it has been a trooper w no instances of buggy behavior (given that my usage has gravitated to a specific pattern that ensures the known bug scenarios are avoided).

I agree about the buying a small batch of dl discs. It sucks that you either pay a lot for a few discs (if you don't plan to use that kind very often) or you pay a whole lot for a spindle full of discs.

That finalize one side before going to the other could be a real bear, if what you describe is true. These dl discs seem to have so many caveats (or maybe Panasonic's implementation of it is really bobo), as to reinforce the notion of them being a prohibitive way to go. [the rest of this stuff is just me venting] I understand from the manual that you cannot divide titles prior to finalizing, either (in the event I would like to dump 6 hrs of stuff on there in one shot, and then logically divide them later). So if you have to put each title down one by one as separate steps, it's just that many more times you can screw up the disc, if your setup happens to be wrong one time. I cannot imagine the frustration (or the pressure to get it consistently right over the span of 8.5 GB of material) of filling up close to the end of the 2nd layer and then screwing something up and making your 2-layer disc compilation a dud. Given that this is a dvd-recorder only, it all has to be in realtime (no hi-speed dub, naturally). So if you have "invested" 6-hrs of realtime recording into a disc (as my particular project dictates), and then bone it towards the end, that really sucks!

I guess the take home points I get from this are:

-A dvd-only recorder is hard enough to manage (as opposed to the "proper" hdd/dvd recorder), but a dvd-only recorder with dl capability is damn-near futile to take advantage of.

-If I am ever shopping for a new recorder that can do dl, it has got to be an hdd/dvd recorder (not dvd only)...which of course becomes a many-fold more difficult proposition given how few hdd/dvd recorders are out there these days, let alone one that isn't priced to the moon.

-I really have a bad impression for Panasonic recorders, after all of my experiences with this ez17. The ATSC tuner in it seems to be the only part in there that hasn't burned me, in one way or other.

...and to top off this wonderful F'ing Friday, MacDonalds has to nerve to charge me $6.45 for a Mushroom & Swiss and then screws up the order with a GD BigMac in my to-go order!...ArrrrrRAAAARRRRR!!! :mad: Someone's got to die, today!...Plain And Simple!

No I don't think you made a mistake. On my EZ-17 it would not let me proceed without the formatting thing as much as I tried to avoid it. I couldn't figure out why I would need to format a +R disc, but I did and it seemed to go OK.
Maybe the next time I want to record something to a permanent disc I'll try one of the DL discs in my EZ-28. Like I said it's only a dollar but it's more psychological than anything else. I should really try so I'm not so ignorant about them.

edit:I just tried one of my discs in my EZ-28 and it did not require formatting. After some amount of spinning and grinding it said I had 1:55 min XP, 3:40 SP. Note both of these figures are more than the manual says should be on a DL disc and 1:55 XP should be 3:50 SP, so I'm not sure what to believe. The manual does say recoding times can vary especially with DL discs.
So I may have miss spoke about the EZ-17 requiring formatting. I did try a new one in my ES-25(which says it's supposed to record to DL) and it promptly got stuck in the formatting loop, I think when I called Panasonic on this they sent me out a firmware disc which did nothing to fix this, although I'm not too worried since I really don't use them. I agree with you, without a HDD they are really more bother than they are worth.

Man, has the Panasonic brand gone to crap, lately? I mean, it's not like they are new to the electronics and dvd scene. All of these Panasonic idiosyncrasies are just inexcusable, imo.

Maybe they've been bought out by......FIAT....... talk about idiosyncrasies:D

Aiyeeee!!! That context does put the character of the ez17 into perspective. ;)

But the EZ17 sure records a nice picture.

Doing some further investigation on this bobo'd disc, I discover the ez17 shows some menu screens I had never seen before. If I drop the disc into the tray, it will attempt to read it and fail, and then declare the disc is "incompatible". However, if I start the machine with disc left in, it will take a slightly different route. It will boot-up, and then try to read the disc, as usual. It will fail reading it, but instead of pronouncing it deceased, it will first go to a screen that describes that if I press the Enter key, it will perform a self-test, power-off, power back on, and attempt to make the disc usable again. That's right...the ancient Vulcan ritual where Katra is reunited with the physical shell. :p So I press Enter to see where this leads. It does all sorts of flashy stuff on the front display, shuts off, and then powers itself back on. I hear all kinds of disc access sounds, and then it shows another screen saying to wait for it to power-off and then manually power it on. After I do this, it attempts to read the disc...and fails. :( It then loops back to the earlier screen about doing a self-test and such.

Oh well, I guess this disc is officially dead. It's a damn shame.

Actually I have had that routine save a disc or 2. I think it's something new to the EZ line. I'd say of 5? discs I got the self check on 2? were saved by that routine. Prior to that on my ES machines Self Check meant either a coaster or a R disc that would play, but could not be finalized. Destine to be playable only on Panny DVDR's.
So far........almost a month and my EZ-28 has been working fine. No self checks etc. I'm hoping they got the major bugs worked out of the EZ-x7 line. Here's hoping anyway:)

Well, looks like I am now 0-2 for successfully recorded dl discs on this thing. :( This time, it cited a problem with the disc at about the 2.5 hrs in (about 30 mins short of the first layer change). I did go through the disc recovery process this time, which appears to have saved the disc, but a disc that is now nearly 50% full. The 2nd program I attempted is nowhere in site in the directory, of course.

This is pretty lame! So does anyone think it is worth it for me to try another disc brand (in the event the ones I currently have plus my particular player are simply a bad match) or should I just give up on dl discs, altogether?

What a bummer! What speed were you using, was it a FR speed?
I also suspected my Windata DL discs when they would not record in my ES-25 but didn't want to spend more money on more of a name brand disc, only to have that maybe also not work.
I haven't had a occasion to actually use them in my EZ-28 but the next time I want to record something longer than 3hrs to a permanent disc I'm going to give them a try. I suppose it shouldn't be a "once in a lifetime" event though, considering it may not work. Probably best to use on a copy of a long DVD, that way I'd have the option to copy it again should it fail.
I too am thinking DL's are best for computer users and not standalone devices.

Yes, I was using FR speed in both cases. On the 1st attempt it was on a fresh disc, set for 6 hr 40 min, and only made it just around 2 hr before aborting the record mode. The 2nd attempt was on a different disc, with 1 completed recording already present (2 hr 10 min), and FR set for 4 hr 30 min. That recording only made it to about 30 min before getting aborted.

I have always read that the Verbatim +DL were the only ones worth buying. But, they are rarely under $2/disk in bulk. DL just has not caught on despite the obvious, obvious advantage they would have for the non-HDD DVDR's which seem to be the future of the name players. The prices haven't moved downward for the Verbatims in over a year. I have equipment that will burn +DL also and I would love to give them a whirl, but not at that price.

I'm tempted to try some TDK dl dvd+r and dvd-r, I saw at Fry's this weekend. The price for a small starter pack wasn't great, but not exactly prohibitive for experimenting, either. I'm still just trying to decide if it is still a worthwhile experiment, or is using dl discs just a waste of time/money, altogether.

I deleted a test recording the display of the EZ17 read NV(or at least that's what it looked like). I tried pushing every button to get rid of it and the unit appeared frozen until powered down and back up.

Usually when I go to the Navigator Screen to see the list of recordings on my DVD-RAM discs, I will see the letters NV appear momentarily on the unit's display. Six blocks appear with each block containing the first frame, if any, of each show I have recorded and below each block the date/time/or title of the recording. I was expecting to see two blocks with images since I only had two recordings stored on the disc. The NV appeared on the unit's display but none of the six blocks contained an image or text/date beneath them. Pressing the remote's power button didn't help...neither did pressing the navigator or schedule keys. I finally got the unit to shut off by pulling the plug. When I plugged it back in, it seemed the zeros scrolled across the unit's display for four to five cycles(usually it's two cycles at most) and then cut off...no friendly BYE at all. I turned the unit back on with the remote and got the friendly HELLO and everything seems back to normal.

Has anyone had their unit hang on the Navigator screen before? I'm wondering if this is a warning sign that a U99 error is in my future.

There was a firmware update dated 2/20/08 that I read about but have yet to install. Has anyone successfully installed the update? I read where one person tried and got a message he wasn't expecting and he wasn't sure if the firmware update took or not.

I'm reluctant to make any changes since the recorder has recorded over 150 shows for me without the first missed recording.

Danny in Yorktown, VA

I finally got a complete burn on a dl disc...by switching to a different brand (and using dvd-r dl, which is the type I originally wanted for my project, but was not available at the CC I was at, at the time). I picked up a jvc brand dvd-r dl at Fry's for a single pack @ $4, and it was utterly troublefree! (Although I mentioned tdk, in my previous post, I should have typed jvc- my mistake) I got to give props to the jvc brand, they have been my go-to for my regular dvd-r supply, and have never given me problems (I have no idea how they do on burn quality or longevity, though). The trend continues as I try out dvd-r dl. Beyond that, they had every other imaginable dvd style media on the shelf, if I wanted it (except dvd-ram, but Panasonic brand seems quite available in my area, so it's no big deal)). Pricing is pretty much down the middle- not sky high premium and not bargain floor (to suggest I am buying the worst quality media). So it seems to jive with my "dvd-sense" as a reasonable choice in media.

Anyways, I have to reveal that the media I originally bought that gave me problems was Memorex. Yeah, I know- no one trusts that brand, and I was foolhardy to even try it and except a good result. It was either that or a strange brand I had never even heard of, so I took it on as an experiment. I figure for $7/disc, even Memorex has got to be able to offer a decent disc media. CC graciously processed a full refund, so I dodged the cost penalty for my little experiment. :D

I was very curious how the ez17 would handle the disc layer transition, and it turned out to be an utter non-issue. :) I was watching it right around the time, and there was no indication whatsoever that a layer change occurred other than the time indicator rolling over back to 0:00. No layer finalization screen, no hiccup. Upon playback, maybe it lost a split second of material? It was really not noticeable, unless a very specific moment you are looking for happens to occur right at that transition. So I was pleased with that result. A program that crosses a layer change will be split into 2 separate titles, of course.

After finalization, I wanted to try it in a few different machines to see how the compatibility goes for a dvd-r dl. The answer, surprisingly, seems to be hit'n'miss. I had thought the dvd-r'ness of the disc should make for optimal compatibility, but it might as well be just another disc style, altogether. My older Toshiba hdd/dvd recorder would not even mount the disc, while my ps3 was able to read the entire disc just like as if it was a regular dvd-r. I didn't get a chance to test it on any of my computers.

The ez17 pq wasn't as good as I thought it would be for 6.5 hrs on a dl disc, though. I wasn't expecting it to be great, but it did seem to break up into macroblocks more readily than my original capture at 2.8 Mb/s. This wasn't particularly demanding material, either. It was considerably gimped movie content from SpikeTV over dig satellite.

So that's my wrap-up for my dvd-r dl adventure!

Has anyone had their unit hang on the Navigator screen before? I'm wondering if this is a warning sign that a U99 error is in my future.

I see the NV message on the display (regular behavior, afaik), when I go to the Navigator screen, but I never got a freeze in that screen like you describe. If the content is disposable, perhaps it is time to fresh format that dvd-ram disc? I had to fresh-format a dvd-ram disc, myself this weekend, because it was acting-up. Basically, the disc was stuck in some strange read-only mode.

I picked up an EZ17 back on Jan 25 for its ATSC & QAM tuners. I've had a ES15 for about a year and my satisfaction with it was key in my choice of the EZ17. I wanted a 2nd recorder to pick up the local OTA HD channels as, unlike the analog OTA signals, reception on all the major channels is perfect. The ES15 has always used cable source, but the PQ on a few of local channels is sub par. Using the EZ17, I quickly confirmed the observations of others that the QAM versions of the HD local channels carried on Cox does not match the quality of the OTA ATSC signals. Because of that, my EZ17 has spent most of its life connected to a UHF antenna mounted up in my attic.

Like the ES15, the purpose for the EZ17 was for time-shifting and recording some of my favorite serialized shows. For time-shifting I primarily use RAM disks and for saved shows -RW disks. Except for 2 failed scheduled recordings, it has worked beautifully. And, the PQ in LP mode is impressive.

All was good until this last Sunday (4/27). I scheduled the EZ17 to record a 2 hour show on PBS. When I came home, I noticed the DVR was running. Before that show ended, I selected the input for the EZ17 on my TV, it was on the correct channel and recording. On Monday evening I was going to watch the show, but when I selected the input for the EZ17, I had no video or audio and the EZ17 had U99 on its display. None of the troubleshooting steps in the manual did any good. The unit was locked up and the disk couldn't be ejected.

So, I pulled the EZ17 from the rack and powered it up. Nothing changed. U99 was still displayed and none of the steps to eject the disk worked. I also noticed the fan wasn't running. That got me thinking about the possibility of some type of power supply failure. I found this thread and became a bit disappointed. Called Panasonic the next morning and was told they would have to send me a replacement unit.

So, it sat on my desk until last night. I was looking at the bottom of the chassis and noticed a small slot under the drive that appeared to be there for a reason. With a help of small flashlight, I could see white plastic part on the drive what appeared to be a component tray release. With a thin bladed screwdriver I carefully pushed the part towards the outside of the chassis. The drive unlocked and the tray slightly opened. I had to pull the cover, but it was then easy to fully extend the tray and remove the disk. I put the disk in my ES15 which recognized it, but the recorded show wasn't there. Put the cover back on the EZ17 and connected power. It started the normal walking oooo's thing then started flashing 12:00AM. I hit the power switch and it came alive with the "no disk" message. The U99 error had cleared!

Tossed it back in the equipment rack, and powered it up. It still had all the OTA channel settings, so I let it automatically set the time. Put in a pre-recorded DVD and it played fine. I then tried the same -RW disk in use when the U99 error occured. The EZ17 was able to read the disk name and it indicated 4 hours of LP record time. So I started it recording and left it run for about 15 minutes. When I hit Stop, the normal finishing session percentage display appeared, and then, the screen went black. I looked over at the EZ17 and the U99 error had returned!

Now that I knew the drill, I had the disk out in less than 15 minutes. Once again, the U99 error cleared when powered up. Back in the equipment rack, I loaded a known good RAM disk and performed several recordings without experiencing a single problem. To test a theory, I put back the -RW disk involved with the U99 errors. But, this time I formatted the disk before I tried any recording sessions. I did several short recordings and all was good. I kept that disk in and scheduled a 2 hour recording of the 2AM rebroadcast of Carrier. Checked this morning and the unit powered up correctly and the session had been recorded.

Additional info:
I had used that particular -RW disk more like I typically use DVD-RAMs. It was used for well over a hundred recording sessions in the ES15. It was recently formatted in the ES15 when I noticed the remaining record time indication was about 15 minutes longer than it should have been. Formatting it cleared up that discrepancy.
The EZ17 was a Aug 2007 build.
The cooling fan started running again once the U99 error was cleared

Wiggin,

Thanks for the detailed information. Hopefully I'll never need it, but if I do I'm thanking you in advance.

Nice post, I sure wish I had known about the slot on the bottom of the unit. The store I had bought my EZ-17's sure didn't know about the slot. They usually had to spend 15-20 min. tearing apart the unit and drive to get my stuck -RW disc out.
I too was able to reformat my -RW disc and use it in my ES machines, although the store always kept the guilty EZ machine and gave me a new one. Keep us posted if the U99 comes back. So far on my EZ-28 NO U99 errors:)
Let us know if you ever get a U99 error with a RAM disc. I read once from someone who just used RAM's on his EZ-37(I think) and he said he was on something like his 3rd or 4th unit. That was the last I heard from him though so I couldn't narrow down his exact problem, that is if it was because of U99's or not.

My EZ 17 finally decided to miss a recording this past Sunday evening. It has since recorded almost a dozen shows flawlessly. As a precaution, I did reformat the RAMdisc in case that had been part of the problem.

One oddity I did notice about the missed recording was that when I turned the EZ17 on, it was tuned to the channel I had been trying to record. Previously it had been on another channel so I know the EZ17 came on and at least tried to start recording.

I think I may have done something different in the programming of the EZ17 for that particular evening. I'm thinking maybe I programmed it on Saturday evening to record on Sunday evening and Monday morning. Generally I program the recorder the day of the show and I think I may have varied from that routine this time. I also don't usually, if ever, program more than one day at a time.

I still haven't built up the nerve to try installing the firmware dated 2/20/08(if memory serves) after reading about other peoples' problems getting it to install. If this problem with not recording and/or the hanging NV Navigator icon occurs again, I may have to give it a try.

My EZ 17 finally decided to miss a recording this past Sunday evening.

I think I may have done something different in the programming of the EZ17 for that particular evening. I'm thinking maybe I programmed it on Saturday evening to record on Sunday evening and Monday morning. Generally I program the recorder the day of the show and I think I may have varied from that routine this time. I also don't usually, if ever, program more than one day at a time.

In my experience with the EZ-17 if you program the timer the actual day of the event it will record very reliably. Actually you don't have to program it the day of the event, just turning it on and then back off will also enable the days event to record.

My DMR-EZ17 models have continued in daily use. One DMR-EZ17 is connected "cable ready" to the Comcast coax; the other is enslaved to the RF output of a Philips DVDR3575H/37B that may be switched between the Comcast coax or a pass through RF feed from a DMR-ES15 enslaved to the Comcast converter box in the next room.

Avoid scheduling recordings with the daily or weekly method. Scheduling events with actual dates on a DMR-EZ17 is usually effective. For reliable recording of early a.m. programming use a brief dummy recording, 11:59 p.m. to 12:01 a.m. ahead of the early a.m. recording to break the midnight bug. Be sure to have a recordable disc in the tray whenever there is a scheduled recording programmed, especially if the scheduled recording is set for the next day or several days into the future. I usually program a week or two in advance and verify/modify scheduling a day or two in advance.

There are still a few random lockups requiring opening the DVD tray or pressing the reset button (behind the fold down door) to regain control of the machine.

These DMR-EZ17 models continue to provide great picture quality.

Have the DMR-EZ17 models been relegated to antiquity? I still have two of this model in use.

I'm attaching two photos, front and rear views. The rear view shows how simple it is to connect a DVD recorder:

I think I finally "wore-out" a dvd+rw disc early this week on my ez17. I hope that is the case, and not the recorder itself on its first step to the great beyond. I've been using 3 discs in continuous rotation for 5 hrs/day, 5 days/week for just about a year, now. This one disc seemed to cause the recorder to abort the recording at right about the 1 hr mark. The 2nd time it happened right about that time, I suspected that maybe this disc was just down for the count. The recorder seemed to work fine, so far, when I swapped in the other 2 discs (and also worked fine on dvd-ram). It's possible they will go out soon, as well, if this is to be a trend. So I will replace the set, I guess, and start anew.

So I guess that works out to about 86 rewriting cycles for each disc, over about 1 yr. Does that sound about right for dvd+rw?

Supposed to be over 1000 rewrite cycles...guess not.

If you're using Format to clear the discs, try just deleting titles. People on other forums have complained about RWs going "bad" in short time and have taken to deleting titles instead with better longevity. ???

I do full disk burns on DVD-RW to make temporary copies of movies. I generally get no more than 20 burns before the verify cycle starts to report an error. Once that happens I have learned the disk is a gonner and now I just toss it to the trash.

Oh, I do delete all titles (there's only 1 on there, at any time, anyway), before reuse. It's my standard practice. I don't do regular reformats (because I don't have all day to wait on it, if I had to do this for 3 discs/week). ;)

Maybe I should try an actual reformat, but I am leery of risking further scheduled recordings, if the disk continues to misbehave (the ez17 was not kind, once calamity was introduced into its world). My original thought was more along the line of Kelson's suggestion- if it's acting up, don't waste time on it, toss it.

Maybe I will subject it to some "less critical" scenarios for testing...

Also, I should note the disc surface does look pretty beat over the course of 86 use cycles (can't imagine what 1000 would look like). It's not so much abused, but it definitely has its share of surface marks. I try to take good care of my discs in use, but I would say that maintaining a nearly flawless mirror finish is really not going to be possible over 50 cycles, I would imagine. I don't know if this contributes, at all, to disc misbehavior, but it sure seems like an anti-scratch coat would be useful just on appearance's sake.

My Pana dvd-ram's still look sparkling new, but they have undergone far less use, as well.

Some of my more well used -RWs (yellow Maxells from ~'05-'06) even seem to have small pin holes in the shiny layer. If I shin a bright flashlight on one side it seems I can see pin holes of light through the other side. Not all the discs with pin holes act up, but one that has larger holes always skips at certain points. I'd guess I've used them 30? times and some have minor surface scuffs but no deep gouges. I also try and keep them in a paper sleeve when not in the recorder although since getting my DVDR w/hdd my RW usage has basically come to a stop:cool:
I suppose if the HDD gets near full this winter I may be forced to use RWs again. It sure will be nice to get something like the TR-50 that will have the option for USB HDDs, especially since 1TB USB drives are now below $200.

Man, don't let your hdd get near full! Offload and archive! If it gets close to full to the point where "something" happens, it will not be pretty.

I think I have some of those yellow Maxwell, too! Are you sure they aren't Memorex, though? That's what I thought I had until you mentioned the yellow.

Nope never used Memorexs, even before I read the warnings here on AVS. For RWs I've used Maxells, Verbs, Office Depot and a few Philips +RWs.
Ya I'll try and keep at least 10% open on my HDD and most of that is just timeshifing stuff that I will just watch once, then delete. It's just so easy to record and so hard to find the time to actually watch what's been recorded:D
I don't archive nearly as much to DVD as I once did to VHS. I've probably got VHS tapes I haven't watched in 20 years:o The Armageddon never came;)

Well, 10% left is pretty darn full. :eek: I'd suggest shooting closer to no less than 30% left. ;)

Here are three interior views of a DMR-EZ17 of January 2007 manufacture:

DigaDo,

Thanks for the photos.

Oh, I do delete all titles (there's only 1 on there, at any time, anyway), before reuse. It's my standard practice. I don't do regular reformats (because I don't have all day to wait on it, if I had to do this for 3 discs/week). ;)

Maybe I should try an actual reformat, but I am leery of risking further scheduled recordings, if the disk continues to misbehave (the ez17 was not kind, once calamity was introduced into its world). My original thought was more along the line of Kelson's suggestion- if it's acting up, don't waste time on it, toss it.

Maybe I will subject it to some "less critical" scenarios for testing...


I just got my first DVD-RW discs. I tried one in my ES20 and got a message that it needed formatting, which I did. I have a thread on "Formatting DVD-RW", but I also have an EZ17 and saw your comment implying it takes a long time to format these. However mine formatted reasonably quick in the ES20, but I'll try the EZ17 later. I didn't time it, but perhaps like formatting a DVD-RAM.

I realize quick is a relative term, but do DVD-RWs take longer to format if they contain a lot of data?

I'm not sure what Mr. Hanky was talking about, but I always reformatted -RWs in my EZ-17 and rarely took more than 20? seconds, and it seemed to take the same time whether the disc was full or nearly empty. It's the finalizing that takes longer if the disc is only partly filled.

Here are two more interior views of the same DMR-EZ17, first a top view showing the chassis circuit board and digital circuit board, second showing the underside of the DVD drive:

DigaDo,

Are you taking the EZ17 apart because there is a problem, such as a leaky capacitor?

DigaDo,

Are you taking the EZ17 apart because there is a problem, such as a leaky capacitor?

The pictured EZ17 arrived 9/26/08. While this machine was purchased as a spare and/or for parts the machine appears functional following setup, configuration and testing despite an early error reported during rapid "channel surfing." The machine exterior is normal excepting the case top has several scratches or scuffs, the front panel has minor scratches and the right foot pad is gouged. No remote or AC cord was provided with the machine. (For setup and testing purposes a EUR7659T50 remote from EZ17 #1 and a Panasonic/Technics KDK-F AC cord was utilized.)

The EZ17 was opened for DVD drive hub/spindle cleaning. No interior irregularities were observed. The DVD drive hub/spindle appeared clean but residue was found in the cleaning process, seen in the first group of reference photos. Following cleaning the EZ17 was set up with the Philips SDV2270/17 indoor antenna. The machine was connected by composite outputs to a RCA CRT TV. Upon power-up the machine was found to be set for operating code #1. Channels were auto-scanned followed by clock setting. Other options were configured in the Setup menus. Some channel surfing followed and test recordings were made. No operational or recording problems were observed.

A few hours later there was more channel surfing, this time somewhat more rapidly, returning a U99 error while moving between an analog and digital channel. Pressing the Power button on the unit powered the machine off, and soon thereafter pressing the Power button brought the EZ17 back up with no U99 error. The machine was powered off but left connected to AC power overnight.

On 9/27/08 the EZ17 was disconnected from AC power and reopened in order to take additional reference photos, including those showing the DVD drive model/serial number and another of the underside of the DVD drive itself. Following reassembly an unfolded paperclip was substituted for the Philips indoor antenna and more channel surfing demonstrated very nearly the same tuner performance between the two antennas.

I expect to change this machine's operating code to #3 and teach a Philips PMDVD6 "learning" remote #3 functionality. This Philips remote includes disc tray open/close functionality native to the #1 operational code selected through code 0340 but this feature may be lost with programming the Philips for operational code #3 functionality.

If you want to "stress test" your machine, try recording "Dancing with the Stars" both Monday and Tuesday nights, using weekly events. I missed more of the results shows that I actually got:mad:
Between U99 errors which killed my machines or downright skipped events(which were later traced to the timer bug effecting all EZs) I resorted to doing a backup schedule on one of my reliable ES machines. May not have been as clear or in 16:9 but at least I got it:cool:
I used mostly -RWs but did get a deadly U99 once with a RAM disc and usually recorded in XP for 1hr1min or SP for 2hrs1min. If you do get this type of U99 I'd be very interested if physically removing the stuck disc would clear the error. Nothing else I tried worked.

I realize quick is a relative term, but do DVD-RWs take longer to format if they contain a lot of data?

I guess it is "quick" in the scope of the Big Picture of things you have to wait for in life. ;) As far as me holding the remote and waiting for it to do whatever it does before I can exit out of the screen or hit the eject button, it is longer than I care to wait (especially if I have to do 3 discs in a row, per more usual routine). Plus there are a bit more steps involved, if you are doing it "blind". That's why I like to do the straight title delete. It just works out better for my particular use patterns.

Mind you, my remarks were more in the context of using dvd+rw's, though. So going through the format process is more an inevitability for -rw than +rw. If -rw is what you have decided to use, then spending some time at the format screen is simply part of the deal.

Mind you, my remarks were more in the context of using dvd+rw's, though. So going through the format process is more an inevitability for -rw than +rw. If -rw is what you have decided to use, then spending some time at the format screen is simply part of the deal.

I typically time shift & use DVD-RAM. Once in a while DVD-R. But I started playing around with a slideshow program on my PC and it does not output in a RAM format. Since I'm still experimenting I'm going through a few DVD-Rs. So I figured why not use RW discs. I went with -RW because if I wanted to I could also record with them on the Panny ES20, which can only read +RWs. Of course the computer software finalizes the disc, which means I cannot delete a title and forces me to re-format in order to re-write.

As an update to my little misbehaving +rw disc earlier, it seems to have simply gone bad. I tried the reformat, but it would simply not behave on subsequent recordings. So I dumped it.

The machine seems to have been trouble free using other discs since then. So I am glad it wasn't the machine going bad. It seems to have been just that one disc that died prematurely. The other discs in the same collection seem to be working reliably. It will still be interesting to see if they drop dead soon, though.

If you want to "stress test" your machine, try . . . which killed my machines . . . If you do get this type of U99 I'd be very interested if physically removing the stuck disc would clear the error. Nothing else I tried worked.

If I recall all your EZ series machines had been removed from service before someone else reported clearing a persistent U99 error by manually removing the disc.

I really appreciate the much practical advice you've given. But my goal is to keep my Pannys functional and reliable rather than to stress test them.

After my large dubbing project put huge demands upon several of my ES30 and ES35 Pannys, each of them ranging from around 3,000 to 4,300 recording hours, these machines are now semi-retired (but they are still fully functional and may be put back into daily service, if necessary, in a matter of minutes).

Several of my "lower mileage" Pannys are in daily service, and there are other "lower mileage" ES and EZ models currently set aside for rotation into daily service. With this arrangement I may equalize recording hours and service intervals.

In addition to three ES series models I've been using two EZ models in a limited duty role, one for a year and the other since February or so. From time to time the bugs and design flaws are very much of an annoyance but, for the most part they have met my minimum expectations.

After extensive experience with the "bulletproof" ES series Pannys it was a difficult adjustment to have to lower one's expectations for the new EZ series Pannys. These newer Pannys are like the results of "outcome-based education," dumbed-down and ill-prepared for the real world.

With the recent addition of a third EZ17 model and an EZ28 model I expect that I shall soon transition all four EZ models into daily service--with ES series machines ready to go back into service if it's too much for EZ machines to handle.

In August and September TCM programmed several blocks that demanded 24 hour (or longer) recordings each week on consecutive days. The primary machines, all ES series models, were scheduled and recorded in tandem without any problems. One of the secondary EZ17 models was also scheduled and recorded a few of the blocks. The Philips 3575 was also scheduled and recorded round-the-clock to hard drive as backups followed by HS dubbing of this material to DVD. The primary sets were recorded to Maxell DVD-R discs and the hard drive backups were dubbed to Verbatim DVD-R discs.

I totally understand your desire to not kill your EZ machines. It wasn't my desire either. I just wanted to record a few programs the way I normally do, and on that point they failed me many times. Luckily mine were all under warranty, but in your case I'd be tempted to baby them instead of stress testing them:D
I truly wish you the best of luck and if something does go wrong I believe you've got a good chance of getting them back in service with your Panasonic knowledge:cool:

Here are three photos of a very dirty hub/spindle on a DMR-EZ17, a January 2007 example with a low serial number in the AA series. There was dust and debris including fibers lodged on the rubber hub. The cleaning took two cotton swabs just for the hub itself. The third photo was taken before all the dust was removed from the disc tray.

My EZ17 did something new and unusual this week. I got home from work and turned it on to watch some shows I had recorded. When it powered up, it went through the entire setup cycle as if the unit were brand new. I had to let it scan for channels, select TV type, video source(cable/antenna), set the time, etc etc. I was then able to press the navigator button and view the shows I had recorded.

The next morning when I went to schedule a recording for later that night, every time I pressed the schedule button, I would see an orange block that said SET THE CLOCK on the normal schedule screen. I tried setting the clock manually and automatically over a half dozen times each. Afterwards, I would go back to schedule and it would say SET THE CLOCK. I tried several more times, turning the unit off(from the remote) after each clock setting.

This was when I noticed it was really acting strangely. When I powered down the EZ17, the correct current time would be on display. Power it up, go to schedule, and there's that annoying SET THE CLOCK block on the screen.

I talk to my electronics as though they are humans(or at least pets :)) and I began cursing at the unit and telling it the clock was set. For whatever reason part of its memory was not functioning properly and even though the time was on display when the unit was powered down, the schedule part of the program could not find the correct time. The remote has a status button which I had never had any cause to use, but when I tried it I could see(after the second press of the status button) that instead of the current time on display, it showed dashes and colons as placeholders as if it truly didn't know what time it was.

I finally pulled the plug on the back of the unit and let it set for 3 minutes before plugging it back in. The display on the front of the unit flashed 12:00 for about thirty seconds and then switched to the current time. I turn the unit on, go to schedule and SET THE CLOCK message was still there. My GF changed out the batteries in the remote, not sure what her thinking was, but I figured anything was worth a try at that point. Still get the SET THE CLOCK message on the schedule screen.

At this point I was about to give up and trash can the unit, but I decided to try one last thing.(Actually I would have probably tried a couple of hundred other things first...repeating each one a dozen or more times....yes, I know this is a sign of insanity...and I'm okay with that.) After pressing the setup button, I clicked on restore default settings. I then went through and changed everything back to the way I had it before. Instead of six hour delay for power down, I turned that feature off. I turned off DST. I turned off the Quick Start feature and a couple of other things that I have heard may contribute to the "missed recording" flaw this model seems to have. I can't remember if I set the clock manually(which I prefer...I like to have the EZ17 start 30 seconds early...a carryover from my slow-starting VCR days) or set it to find the time automatically. I think it was automatic, but anyway, when I went to the schedule screen, the SET CLOCK message was finally gone. I don't think I turned the unit off between "restoring the default settings" and discovering the problem was solved, but I may have. Anyway, it seems that the key(in my case anyway) to getting the machine to remember the current time has something to do with the default settings. Also, when I press the status button twice I see a block on the screen with the current time displayed(even shows the seconds changing).

I recorded three shows last night and all came through fine. The unit was even nice enough to remember the current time when I first started it up after getting home.

I think I have read almost every message in this thread, but I don't recall seeing this problem before. Has anyone ever had a problem similar to mine?

Thanks for listening to me rant. I can tell my EZ17 ignores me so I need an outlet to vent. LOL

Danny in Yorktown, VA

Keep DST OFF.

Also a better reset would be to, when the machine is turned on, hold both the channel up and channel down buttons on the main unit for at least 10 seconds. This will basically do a NIB reset. A few things such as the remote code are retained but everything else is factory default.

I know...I know...programmer error is more likely, but I'm positive that is not the case here. I programmed my EZ17 to record "Life on Mars"(an ABC show) last night. When I got home, I turned on the EZ17 and the station that it was currently tuned to was the local ABC's station, which is always what happens when I record several shows in one night...the station of the last show recorded is the show that the tuner goes to when the DVD is first powered up.

That right there makes me feel confident that I did program the EZ-17 to record the ABC broadcast. Another factor that makes me think I recorded the proper channel is that in the Navigator Menu, the channel listed for this particular recording was the local ABC affiliate. But oddly, the name of the show(just below the station ID) was "Eleventh Hour" which comes on CBS. The initial freeze frame for this recording and the recording itself were both of CBS's "Eleventh Hour" even though the Navigator reported that it had recorded the show from the local ABC affiliate.

I know the cable company has the ability to put any channel's feed on top of another....they do it when required by network exclusivity rules, but if this did occur this time, I'm sure it was an accident, as I see no reason why the cable company would override the local ABC affiliate's programming and replace it with CBS programming.

Anyway, I'm curious if anyone has ever recorded a show and got another show in its place and the Navigator menu confirms that you recorded the corrected channel, but the results indicate otherwise.

That is definitely a strange one!

I, too, discovered a new oddity whilst playing around with the model tonight. I don't know if this is repeatable or if it was mere coincidence, but I blindly keyed in a channel on the tuner. Evidently, this number was a blank station, and before I knew it, the ez-17 locked up solid! No response to any buttons, until I did a forced reset by holding down the power button. It's the first time I ever encountered this scenario.

As someone at AVS would say, "And the bugs continue".........:D

I know...I know...programmer error is more likely, but I'm positive that is not the case here. I programmed my EZ17 to record "Life on Mars"(an ABC show) last night. When I got home, I turned on the EZ17 and the station that it was currently tuned to was the local ABC's station, which is always what happens when I record several shows in one night...the station of the last show recorded is the show that the tuner goes to when the DVD is first powered up.

That right there makes me feel confident that I did program the EZ-17 to record the ABC broadcast. Another factor that makes me think I recorded the proper channel is that in the Navigator Menu, the channel listed for this particular recording was the local ABC affiliate. But oddly, the name of the show(just below the station ID) was "Eleventh Hour" which comes on CBS. The initial freeze frame for this recording and the recording itself were both of CBS's "Eleventh Hour" even though the Navigator reported that it had recorded the show from the local ABC affiliate.

I know the cable company has the ability to put any channel's feed on top of another....they do it when required by network exclusivity rules, but if this did occur this time, I'm sure it was an accident, as I see no reason why the cable company would override the local ABC affiliate's programming and replace it with CBS programming.

Anyway, I'm curious if anyone has ever recorded a show and got another show in its place and the Navigator menu confirms that you recorded the corrected channel, but the results indicate otherwise.

Hokiewolf,

My most frequent scheduled recording bug occurs when the recording power-up/pause appears to transition to record but freezes with the recording counter at 00:00. Nothing is recorded to disc and the machine sometimes stays frozen at 00:00. Sometimes this requires a manual reset but other times the machine resets itself with no indication that the scheduled recording failed to begin. Of course, once the machine powers-up and goes into the pause mode the channel becomes that of the scheduled recording. If the machine resets itself it will appear normal upon the next power-up with the failed recording channel as the currently tuned channel. Checking the disc will not find any evidence of the failed scheduled recording but the schedule menu may show the failed recording as "F" (failed). I believe that I've sometimes observed that the (failed) scheduled recording is gone from the schedule menu as is normal when a scheduled recording has recorded as normal.

Jeff,

I believe I coined the phrase "And the bugs go on . . ." not that it makes me feel good to point out bugs and design flaws in some products from a manufacturer that has (otherwise) served me so well.

I believe I coined the phrase "And the bugs go on . . ." not that it makes me feel good to point out bugs and design flaws in some products from a manufacturer that has (otherwise) served me so well.

The most recently added DMR-EZ17 (the one with the very dirty hub pictured above) was set up OTA and performed well. Following that it was set up cable-ready where it performed well. Last weekend it was scheduled it to record SNL on our local NBC channel 8.1. I was watching as the EZ17 recorded. At the end of SNL I manually stopped recording only to get a "disc problem" window. After the EZ17 recovered, the disc returned an "unsupported" message on that EZ17 and an ES model. Following this incident this EZ17 would no longer tune the digital channels, just the analog channels. I rescanned the channels with the same result. I pulled the EZ off cable and set it up OTA and rescanned the channels, finding all the local OTA analog and digital channels. I disconnected the EZ17 from ac power for a couple of days. Yesterday I set the EZ17 up cable-ready, ran the latest firmware and rescanned the channels. This EZ17 is now tuning all the Comcast cable-ready analog and digital channels.

And the bugs go on . . .

Too bad about your EZ-17, that SNL was a great program. That's the reason I decided to abandon the EZ line. Many of the things I record are one time shots. If the recorder malfunctions all is lost. My ES machine recorded it just fine, thank you very much:D

Too bad about your EZ-17, that SNL was a great program. That's the reason I decided to abandon the EZ line. Many of the things I record are one time shots. If the recorder malfunctions all is lost. My ES machine recorded it just fine, thank you very much:D

Actually I had also scheduled another EZ17 to record SNL last Saturday. (That other EZ17 was the one originally given to a relative--but she gave it back a month or so later.) When I checked that EZ17's SNL recording I found that it must have had one of it's pause/no-record/freeze incidents, but it had recovered on its own by the next morning. The correctly scheduled SNL recording was still found in that EZ17's schedule menu with a "F" (failed recording) notation.

And the bugs go on . . .

Are you saying you had the event scheduled on 2 different recorders and they both failed? Man that's bad luck! I'd almost suspect some type of CP problem but it's probably more related to the flakiness of the EZ-17s. It recorded just fine on my ES-30 hooked up to a CM-7000 CECB.
I guess in your case if your really care about an event you should make sure your backup machine is an ES one and not another EZ-17:D

Are you saying you had the event scheduled on 2 different recorders and they both failed?

. . . I guess in your case if your really care about an event you should make sure your backup machine is an ES one and not another EZ-17:D

That's just what happened. At least I watched the SNL episode, er, rather dozed off during some of it.

There is a Zenith DTT901 about two feet from a cable-ready EZ17. Perhaps I'll connect the 901 to a line in and do some experimental recordings, say, record some hour long shows in back-to-back ten minute segments alternating between cable ready digital, cable ready analog and OTA digital feeds of the same program. Perhaps I'll see what might have CP or not with that arrangement.

DigaDo, the perfect chance maybe to get someone to test a theory first posted on another forum... that the rash of CP occurring on a wide variety of shows and DVDRs is coming from the AUDIO in COMMERCIALS (RIAA CP protection, which has recently been beefed up with U.S> legislation signed by Bush in Aug or Sep)???

I never get CP in any of my recordings so can't test myself.

It would be great for someone to do some test recs with one or more machines that have been seeing CP connected directly to the source (antenna or cable) thru line inputs, and leave the audio cables disconnected? (No CECBs or other upstream boxes.)

You may try a different brand of disc, as well. I encountered a spat of failed recording behavior whilst trying out some Memorex dl dvd+r discs. The recording would fail and abort somewhere after the 1 hr mark, leave the disc unrecoverable, and lose the program.

You may try a different brand of disc, as well. I encountered a spat of failed recording behavior whilst trying out some Memorex dl dvd+r discs. The recording would fail and abort somewhere after the 1 hr mark, leave the disc unrecoverable, and lose the program.

The failed disc was the second to last Verbatim DVD-R disc left on hand.

Some months back I had encountered some problem discs in the same Verbatim spindle. Following that I pulled the remainder of that spindle, around 55 discs, out of service. At that time I had observed a visible irregularity with at least one of that spindle's discs.

Recently I decided to "use up" the rest of that spindle with non-essential recordings or backup recordings. In recent weeks there had been no problems from the remainder of that Verbatim spindle.

All these Verbatim discs had performed well until last weekend's recording failure on the most recently added EZ17. There is no visible defect with the recently failed Verbatim disc.

The other EZ17, the one with the pause/lockup/record failure had a Sony DVD-R disc in place. That EZ17 was pulled from service, had a DVD drive hub/spindle/lens cleaning and was set aside for future rotation back into service. Another EZ17 was swapped into its place. The Sony disc was placed into another machine, recordings were made and the disc has been finalized and archived.

DigaDo, the perfect chance maybe to get someone to test a theory first posted on another forum... that the rash of CP occurring on a wide variety of shows and DVDRs is coming from the AUDIO in COMMERCIALS (RIAA CP protection, which has recently been beefed up with U.S> legislation signed by Bush in Aug or Sep)???

I never get CP in any of my recordings so can't test myself.

It would be great for someone to do some test recs with one or more machines that have been seeing CP connected directly to the source (antenna or cable) thru line inputs, and leave the audio cables disconnected? (No CECBs or other upstream boxes.)

Wajo,

I do follow the Philips/Magnavox threads, somewhat belatedly at times, so I am aware of the Copy Protection discussion. I have yet to experience any recording failures that I may attribute directly to CP.

My 3575 is enslaved to a Comcast Motoroloa DTC700 that's dedicated to TCM so I am unable to utilize the 3575 for any other purpose. In the same room with the 3575 are two Panasonic ES models receiving composite feeds from the Motorola STB. These three machines are TCM workhorses pre-scheduled out a week or two or more. There is also one DMR-EZ17 setup cable-ready in this room. This EZ17 is the machine that is open for some CP experimentation. This EZ17's present cable-ready signal source is a RF pass through from another EZ17 setup cable-ready in the next room.

In that next room there are a variety of connections to four Panasonic models, three of which have digital/analog tuners. One of those EZ Panasonics is usually dedicated to TCM from the 3575 RF passed through from the next room. (That EZ17 may also be switched to a direct cable-ready feed but that switch is seldom used.) That leaves two other Panasonic digital/analog tuner EZ models for more general use. One DMR-EZ28 is setup OTA; one DMR-EZ17 is setup cable-ready directly to a Comcast coax feed. These machines, except the EZ28, have very specific current recording strategies, the EZ17 TCM slave and the cable-ready EZ17 are scheduled out one or two weeks in advance; and the EZ28 currently set OTA will be rotated into service as a TCM slave within two weeks.

My complex configuration may not lend itself to the type of experiment you suggest.

My complex configuration may not lend itself to the type of experiment you suggest.

:eek: I'd say!
I got dizzy just reading about your setup:D And I thought my setup was complicated;)

When I checked that EZ17's SNL recording I found that it must have had one of it's pause/no-record/freeze incidents, but it had recovered on its own by the next morning. The correctly scheduled SNL recording was still found in that EZ17's schedule menu with a "F" (failed recording) notation.

And the bugs go on . . .

My most recent failed recording was discovered when I got home from a brief trip out of town. It took me a while to discover that the recording of a Monday night show had failed because the EZ17 would not power up. I even changed the remote batteries thinking that was the problem, but still no go. After unplugging the unit for 3 minutes and then plugging it back in, I was able to power up the machine normally from the remote. I knew there was going to be a problem when the machine displayed the amount of time remaining and it was identical to the amount of time remaining before the supposed recording should have taken place. I went to the schedule menu and the two recordings for Tuesday night's show were still scheduled and at the top of the list and the failed Monday night show was still in the schedule below the Tuesday night programs with an exclamation point in the last column. Anyone know what the difference is between an F and an exclamation point when it comes to a failed recording?

I was betting that I was going to have problems this time because I programmed the Monday night show on Sunday before leaving town and did not have a chance to power up and power down the machine on the day of the recording. I know from all of Jeff's problems that failing to power up/power down on the day of a scheduled recording is a recipe for disaster. I have scheduled far in advance a couple of times before and gotten lucky with the recording actually occurring, but not this time. In the future, I know to use my VCR when away for longer trips.

Speaking of VCRs, does anyone know if it's possible to still purchase one without a DVD player built in. I've already got two DVD players and the EZ17and really don't need another DVD player sitting around. With this most recent failure to record, I guess I've successfully recorded around 396 out of 400 shows. That's only a 1% failure rate, but when I compare that to my VCR where I probably had 4 failures in 10 years of recording shows, it's way too much.

Danny

Anyone know what the difference is between an F and an exclamation point when it comes to a failed recording?


A (F) means it failed to record the event. A (!) means their is not enough disc space to fully record that event to the disc.
You will get a F after a failed event and the ! before the event telling you to either change the disc or select a slower speed.
AFA powering up the machine the day of your event, I think(it's been a while:D) but I think that was only necessary if you used weekly or daily events. I don't think I needed to do that for one shot events.
AFA VCRs I know Canada Future Shops still had some last month, but I don't think any US retailers just sell VCRs only(those Canadians get everything:D)
Not sure if used would be OK but in my area anyway Pawn Shops and even places like the Goodwill stores always seem to have a large supply of older decent looking VCRs and their usually priced at a song, ~$10. If you went the used route and they didn't have a good return/exchange policy I'd bring a non critical tape with and plug it in at the store. Even without a TV if it looks like the counter is advancing and it's not eating or creasing your tape it's probably OK. The store might even have some tapes they'll let you use.

Might as well bring a piece of coax cable too, in case they have any TV's laying around.

That's true, might even be easier to bring a composite video and audio cable pair to run to the front A/V input of a display TV. Most stores that have used electronics usually have a wall full of running TVs and it would be easier to plug into the front than trying to turn the TV around to get the the RF input. Of course not all TVs have front inputs but I think many do.

Is there any way to make this system play PAL discs?
Thanks

The most recently added DMR-EZ17 (the one with the very dirty hub pictured above) was set up OTA and performed well. Following that it was set up cable-ready where it performed well. Last weekend it was scheduled it to record SNL on our local NBC channel 8.1. I was watching as the EZ17 recorded. At the end of SNL I manually stopped recording only to get a "disc problem" window. After the EZ17 recovered, the disc returned an "unsupported" message on that EZ17 and an ES model. Following this incident this EZ17 would no longer tune the digital channels, just the analog channels. I rescanned the channels with the same result. I pulled the EZ off cable and set it up OTA and rescanned the channels, finding all the local OTA analog and digital channels. I disconnected the EZ17 from ac power for a couple of days. Yesterday I set the EZ17 up cable-ready, ran the latest firmware and rescanned the channels. This EZ17 is now tuning all the Comcast cable-ready analog and digital channels.

And the bugs go on . . .

An update concerning this DMR-EZ17: A couple of days after the above post the Comcast digital channels were no longer tuning in. This EZ17 receives its RF signal passed through from another cable-ready EZ17 in the next room. (So far that other EZ17 has not lost its digital channels. Its occasional problem is the scheduled recording pause/record/freeze syndrome.) The EZ17 that loses its digital channels still had the channel numbers from the last channel scan but the channels would not appear when selected. Last night I rescanned the channels with the same result, no digital channels but the digital channel numbers were now gone. I disconnected the power cord overnight. This morning I set up this EZ17 in the next room connected with a RF pass through from a DMR-ES35V (a little-used cable-ready machine). Then I ran the EZ17 auto channel scan. Following that scan the EZ17 went into the automatic clock set. Soon the clock scan arrow froze. I waited a few minutes and pressed ENTER and then RETURN. The Comcast analog and digital channels are again present (as is the correct time). How long will the digital channels remain present this time?

So far I have not noticed the loss of digital channels with other EZ17 models.

And the bugs go on . . .

Is it possible there is some sort of "digital channel sync flag" that is not passed on the pass-through on the first ez17? So the 2nd ez17 is "blind" to this (as opposed to if the signal was coming right off the antenna/wall cable), if there has been a change in the state of the broadcasting channels?

I suppose it still does not explain how you were able to scan the channels in the 2nd ez17, originally, but were not able to this time (presumably while connected to the pass-through on the 1st ez17 the whole time).

Not sure if you remember but one of my 6 bad EZ-17s, I think it was #5, had the problem of no digital channels. Originally they were their but I did another channel scan to try and add one that did not show up originally and from that point on it got no digitals. Analogs were fine but no matter how I set it up or how many times I did a rescan I couldn't get any OTA digital channels.
I guess what I'm trying to say is analog but no digital seems to be a valid problem with the EZ-17 and personally I don't know if anything can be easily done about it.

Is it possible there is some sort of "digital channel sync flag" that is not passed on the pass-through on the first ez17? So the 2nd ez17 is "blind" to this (as opposed to if the signal was coming right off the antenna/wall cable), if there has been a change in the state of the broadcasting channels?

I suppose it still does not explain how you were able to scan the channels in the 2nd ez17, originally, but were not able to this time (presumably while connected to the pass-through on the 1st ez17 the whole time).

To your first question I would observe that I have been running RF pass throughs back and forth between several machines in two rooms, several of which have been EZ17 models. The unchanged arrangement has a Philips 3575 in another room originating a pass through of the RF signal from a Comcast Motorola DTC700 (always tuned to TCM) to my EZ17 #7653 in this room.

My EZ17 #5107 was the first RF pass through originator of the cable-ready signal to EZ17 #9779 in the next room. EZ17 #5107 was recently swapped out of daily use for service and is now set up on the receiving end of the cable ready RF pass through for evening viewing. EZ17 #5107 is having no difficulty with receiving cable-ready digital channels. EZ17 #9779 is now the originator of the RF pass through signal. EZ17 #1105 has twice been set up on the receiving end of the RF pass through and has twice so far lost its cable-ready digital channels. After EZ17 #1105 had its first loss of digital channels EZ28 #4720 was swapped into place for a brief time with no difficulty. EZ28 #4720 is currently set up for OTA reception.

Only EZ17 #1105 has been found to lose its cable-ready digital channels, twice so far.

I mention the loss of cable-ready digital reception here in order to hear if this is merely a sample defect or a widely observed defect.

The OTA scans specified "antenna" and the cable-ready scans specified "cable" with no subsequent interruption of signal sources.

In my city there are three main antenna farms, all within 10* of each other line-of-sight and less than 5 miles distant. There has been recent tower work that has caused recent local broadcast station OTA outages. I believe that these stations provide direct feeds to Comcast Cable so this does not cause broadcast channel outages of cable-ready digital signals.

I mention the loss of cable-ready digital reception here in order to hear if this is merely a sample defect or a widely observed defect.

It is now somewhat more than three hours since my earlier post. This morning EZ17 #1105 was set up in my home office. Since that time it has been on the receiving end of a DMR-ES35V cable-ready RF pass through. At the beginning of this test EZ17 #1105 was receiving all the cable-ready digital channels I expected to receive including local "in the clear channels" at their normal channel assignments and the 73.x subchannels Comcast duplicates the locals channels for an unknown reason, and a few strays--such as the main PBS 10.1 channel is also found at 109-12.

What am I seeing or not seeing at the moment? ABC at 2.1 is gone. CBS at 6.1 is present. NBC on 8.1 and NBC Weather on 8.2 are gone. (At the moment I am watching and recording NBC at 8.1 through EZ17 #5107, viewing on another TV in the home office.) PBS at 10.1 and 10.3 are present but the signals flash on and off at a rapid rate. (Comcast does not provide 10.2.) PBS at 10.4 is present without flashing. Fox at 12.1 is gone, but it's sister station at 49.1 is present. Another local station at 32.1 is gone. As I've been typing another local station (showing Wheel of Fortune) at 73.1 is just now starting to flash on and off. The same for another local station (showing Inside Edition) at 73.2. 73.3 is flashing as well. ION at 73.4 is flashing. TBN at 73-5 is flashing. 73.6 and higher are gone. PBS at 109.12 is present.

A quick return to 10.1 and 10.3 now finds somewhat better stability but the others are as reported.

I'm thinking that EZ17 #1105 may be satisfactory for enslaving to a cable box where the recording channel will be analog channel 3 or a line input.

And the bugs go on . . .

Yesterday my EZ17 just froze up on pause before starting a scheduled timer recording. Had to manually power it off. This is the second time in about a month. Never had a problem before then. And of course I missed both recordings. Good thing they are network shows that show up a day or so later on Comcast OnDemand.

Then I thought maybe I should upgrade the firmware. I’ve never upgraded on this unit & figured it might help with something. I d/l the firmware & burned a CD. But my Panny display indicated unsupported, which means it does not need an upgrade. I bought it Oct 2007. I can’t believe it would not take an upgrade after a year.

My TV displayed that the CD disc is incompatible. Also previously two or three times I’ve loaded a DVD-RAM and the unit displayed no disc, so who knows. Maybe I didn’t burn the CD correctly or maybe it’s time for a new recorder, but I’d like to upgrade on my time schedule. Anyway I’ll call Panny & ask them to send me a disc.

Yesterday my EZ17 just froze up on pause before starting a scheduled timer recording. Had to manually power it off. This is the second time in about a month. Never had a problem before then. And of course I missed both recordings. Good thing they are network shows that show up a day or so later on Comcast OnDemand.

On my EZ17 models the display shows this freeze up occurs at the REC 00:00 display, not in the PAUSE mode. When you inquire about the firmware CD be sure to ask about the Scheduled Recording Pause/Record/Freeze Up. Is the most recent firmware update supposed to correct this? Ha! Ha! Ha!

And the bugs go on . . .

This must be a concerted effort amongst the ez-17 army (like some bad I, Robot storyline). Mine, as well, has decided to be utterly unreliable just this week, after a loooooong stint of trouble free operation. It recorded Mon fine, but Tue- nothing, and then a repeat of nothing on Wed. Wtf?! :mad:

This evening, I will have to remember to power-cycle it once, with no disc in the tray (something I did not do, yesterday). Maybe that has something to do with resetting the timer gremlins, once they emerge (since if you shut it down w/o a disc, it will cancel any timer operations, thereof, so when you power-on, the timer awakes once again anew?).

I just happened to notice when the unit powered up & went into the Rec/Pause mode because I saw the 2nd red indicator came on & the 00:00 on the display. So I thought everything was going to be OK. I didn’t look at the Panny again till later on and still saw 2 red indicators and 00:00 and instantly knew there was a problem.

Till now the EZ17 has been reliable. But it is noisier & less responsive than my ES20. I do like the EZ17 QAM tuner - usually.

Initially there was a problem only with my PBS station. If there is motion, usually a slow zoom in or out, the picture blurs and then snaps back into focus, and keeps repeating as long as the motion continues. This happens if the recorder is used just as a tuner or when recording. So it has nothing to do with the recording itself.

I called the TV station and spoke with a VP in their engineering department. He said it might be due to the fact they have 3 subchannels and may be borrowing too many bits from the main channel. And that the Panasonic’s conversion to 480i might be causing the problem. He said he’d look into it & maybe tweak some settings. I don’t know if he did, but the problem persists.

However a couple weeks ago I recorded “The Tonight Show” on NBC HD and I noticed a similar problem. This time the brightness seemed to fluctuate in addition to the picture going in and out of focus. I watched the program again a couple days later and had the same problem. It does not happen during the NBC news preceding Jay Leno. And it does not happen during the commercials. I do not know if NBC is reducing the bit rate of the transmission during Jay Leno, but everything looks OK if using my TV’s tuner or the Comcast HD set top box.

I wrote a letter to Panasonic, explained the situation & that a few others on this forum have experienced the same focus problem. (If you search you will find this). I also asked if there was a firmware upgrade that may perhaps correct this. They replied they have not had any reports about my issues and there was no firmware addressing it. They recommended taking my recorder to an authorized service station. I was hoping they would send a firmware DVD anyway, but no such luck.

If you're seeing the same out of focus I saw with my EZ-17s (noticeable mostly on 1080i broadcasts) you'll be happy to know they fixed that with the x8 series Pannys. I kind of attributed it more to the way the tuner handled the downconversion from HD to SD than anything else. Once you realize it's their it will really bug you, if you have a screen capable of showing it. I didn't notice it on my SD Sony but on my HD Panny TV it really stood out.

I've seen this effect (if we are talking about the same thing) on digital broadcasts from sources other than what my ez17 has had its hands on. So I am not inclined to believe this is a behavior of the dvd recorder, itself, rather some funky encoder settings being tweaked with on the broadcaster end. It probably has something to do with using a longer series of difference frames in order to eek out a bit more "compression efficiency" in the encoding (would you put it past them to play around with this?...it's exactly the kind of stuff they would toy around with). ;)

The broadcaster I spoke with acknowledged they were spreading bits among the main & subchannels. So they may not be completely innocent. OTOH, the EZ17 is the only tuner I have this problem with. The TV QAM tuner and HD STB do not exhibit these artifacts. So Panny may not be completely innocent either. It may be a combination of both, each one operating at the extreme end of an acceptable range of parameters.

I called Panasonic today to get a firmware upgrade disc. The rep I spoke with seemed more helpful than most so I brought up the timer/freeze and focus issues & he gave me a case number.

I also asked if an engineer could possibly call me. That may sound unusual, but when I wrote to Panny about an ES20 timer problem an engineer did call me. What a surprise & almost knocked me off my feet. After several discussions over several weeks a new firmware version was issued. Needless to say I was most impressed that someone took the time to investigate & correct a problem. So I'm hoping that someone will contact me. If not I will contact them again to follow up.

I received & installed the CD firmware that Panasonic sent me, version U7-426, dated May 21, 2008. And it took. This is the same version I d/l from their website & burned a CD which did not work. I’ve done this before with my ES20, but perhaps this time I did something wrong.

I did not d/l the RRT Firmware Update or Patch, nor does it appear to be on the Panny disc.

Anyway the unit still works, which is good. I’ll have to see if corrects the timer/freeze problem. It did not affect the focus issue, but I did not expect it to.

I had a problematic RAM disc which I washed (see thread on washing RAM). It seemed to work afterwards.

But I tried a timer recording this evening with this disc. I was home & started the recording 10 minutes early. That way I had time to change discs if it did not work. And it did not. The recorder came on & displayed 0000 and stayed that way for a couple minutes. So am not sure if it's the disc or the timer/freeze problem, which I just started experiencing about a month ago. I checked the scheduler & there was a red dot all the way to the left side which supposed to mean Currently Recording. I don't know why I'm getting the timer/freeze problem all of a sudden. I never had it for almost a year, but this makes the 3rd time in about a month.

I had a problematic RAM disc which I washed (see thread on washing RAM). It seemed to work afterwards.

But I tried a timer recording this evening with this disc. I was home & started the recording 10 minutes early. That way I had time to change discs if it did not work. And it did not. The recorder came on & displayed 0000 and stayed that way for a couple minutes. So am not sure if it's the disc or the timer/freeze problem, which I just started experiencing about a month ago. I checked the scheduler & there was a red dot all the way to the left side which supposed to mean Currently Recording. I don't know why I'm getting the timer/freeze problem all of a sudden. I never had it for almost a year, but this makes the 3rd time in about a month.

If your EZ17 is still under warranty call Panasonic. Since you have already contacted Panasonic concerning the Pause/Record/Freeze situation (and tell Panasonic that this AVS Forum thread is verification that this as a common experience among other EZ17 owners) you need not settle for a Panasonic representative's feigned ignorance of a common problem. You know and Panasonic knows that this is a common problem so you need not "jump through a hoop" to get satisfaction. It is not your problem that Panasonic finds it necessary to "reinvent the wheel" whenever hundreds or thousands of EZ series owners report the same problem. Your expectation is that Panasonic will make good on the warranty. It's as simple as that. Your should insist that Panasonic provides you with RMA information for warranty service at the Panasonic Service Center in Elk Grove Village Illinois; or replace your EZ17 with known good product (not another one "just like it").

See this post for more information:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1056657

None of my EZ17 models are covered under the original warranty. I've learned to live with the bugs and design flaws. I wish you well.

Well how long did you really wait? ;) Aren't the 0000's "normal" upon the lengthy startup of an ez17? It can seem like an eternity when mounting a disc from a cold start, too right?

I'll tell you what, if there is any startup display on an electronic device that is most confidence-reducing, it's got to be the ez series. :p It just sits there outputting a black screen while flashing all sorts of nonsense on the front display for minutes, strange whirring sounds going on inside, etc. I just avert my attention elsewhere for a few minutes, and eventually it is up and running when I return. ;)

Short of just waiting for apparent recording failure (at the expected recording time), have you tried a different disc (just to make sure it isn't just your dvd-ram disc that bit the dust)? Also be sure to power cycle it with an empty tray at least once, before finally dropping in a blank disc to be used later in a scheduled recording. I find this is useful to do to flush out the remaining gremlins, after a fit of misbehavior has ensued.

My EZ17 is out of warranty.

Normally it powers up into the pause mode about 1 minute before the actual recording start time. This particular time I waited 3 minutes into the actual start time. I don't think this was the same RAM disc that caused a problem last time, but I'm not 100% certain. I'm going to label the discs & keep track of which one(s) cause a problem. While I've had these discs several years, I've certainly not done anywhere the 100,000 re-write cycles as claimed for DVD-RAM. Maybe they're just starting to go anyway. It's just a bit strange that I never had the timer/freeze problem for a year & now I've had it 3 times in about a month. So maybe the discs are starting to fizzle out. I just would hate to buy a batch of new ones & still have the same problem.

I already have a case number from Panasonic & also responded to their online questionaire asking about the problem. I'll have to give them a little time to respond. If not I'll contact them again.

Well remember there was that one time I asked about the lifespan of a dvd+rw disc, because one of them was giving me trouble. It was really far too early to expect it to be eol, but it was now flaky, nonetheless. All is well now, that I ditched that disc. The other discs in that same collection are still in-service just fine, as well. So maybe it is not unusual for "a" disc to just prematurely die?

Well I had another timer/freeze problem with a different disc. This makes 2 failures out of the last 4 timer recordings. Never had this problem till a few weeks ago. Must be because the unit is now out of warranty. Meanwhile the good old ES20 keeps working.

If anyone else has a case number from Panasonic please let me know.

If your EZ17 is still under warranty call Panasonic. Since you have already contacted Panasonic concerning the Pause/Record/Freeze situation (and tell Panasonic that this AVS Forum thread is verification that this as a common experience among other EZ17 owners) you need not settle for a Panasonic representative's feigned ignorance of a common problem. You know and Panasonic knows that this is a common problem so you need not "jump through a hoop" to get satisfaction. It is not your problem that Panasonic finds it necessary to "reinvent the wheel" whenever hundreds or thousands of EZ series owners report the same problem. Your expectation is that Panasonic will make good on the warranty. It's as simple as that. Your should insist that Panasonic provides you with RMA information for warranty service at the Panasonic Service Center in Elk Grove Village Illinois; or replace your EZ17 with known good product (not another one "just like it").

See this post for more information:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1056657

None of my EZ17 models are covered under the original warranty. I've learned to live with the bugs and design flaws. I wish you well.


Since my EZ17 is out of warranty I thought I'd clean the lens & spindle. I have seen your photos of these parts and thank you for posting them. Is there anything special or tricky I should know about opening up the recorder or the drive?

Since my EZ17 is out of warranty I thought I'd clean the lens & spindle. I have seen your photos of these parts and thank you for posting them. Is there anything special or tricky I should know about opening up the recorder or the drive?

This post provides DVD drive disassembly and reassembly advice and a link to the Saint Baz hub/spindle/lens cleaning procedure:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=14479898#post14479898

This post provides DVD drive disassembly and reassembly advice and a link to the Saint Baz hub/spindle/lens cleaning procedure:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=14479898#post14479898


Thanks for all the information.

It took only a few minutes to do. The most difficult part was removing the 4 small screws that hold on the drive cover. The plastic that they are screwed into had a real firm grip on them.

The hub had some dirt on it which I cleaned off. I cleaned the lens too. Even though the RAM discs looked clean I washed them just to reduce any dirt transfer back into the recorder.

I also checked for leaky capacitors & did not see any.

I just set up the recorder for a series of short timer recordings & will have to wait & see what happens.

Since cleaning I tried 4 short & 1 long timer recordings and so far all were successful. Of course that does not mean a lot, but at least I did not have a 50% failure rate. I'll keep a short leash on this unit for a long time.

Panny sent me another firmware upgrade CD, presumably in response to my case number. However it's the same version they previously sent me.

I don't recall if this has been discussed before (but I vaguely recall something like it in some discussion), but has anyone ever noticed the fan running (ever so subtly) even while the ez17 is powered down? I never noticed this before until I recently snooped around in an utterly quiet room, with all of my equipment shutdown for the night. Does the fan really run 24/7 on this thing, or is it just momentarily directly after shutdown? If the former, why?!

I don't recall if this has been discussed before (but I vaguely recall something like it in some discussion), but has anyone ever noticed the fan running (ever so subtly) even while the ez17 is powered down? I never noticed this before until I recently snooped around in an utterly quiet room, with all of my equipment shutdown for the night. Does the fan really run 24/7 on this thing, or is it just momentarily directly after shutdown? If the former, why?!

I don't hear mine running, but is has been off for a while and my ears are not the best. Maybe DigaDo can give an answer.

I don't hear mine running, but is has been off for a while and my ears are not the best. Maybe DigaDo can give an answer.

Normally the fan runs whenever the machine is powered on.

The fan also runs when an "abnormal inner temperature [is] detected" acccording to the DMR-EZ17 Service Manual (Canadian English) at Service Mode 7.1.1. In that circumstance "U59 is displayed for 30 minutes." "Self-Diagnosis Functions" states "display appears when the drive temperature exceeds 70* C. The power is turned off forcibly. For 30 minutes after this, all [remote control] entries are disabled. (Fan motor operates at the highest speed for the first 5 minutes. For the remaining 25 minutes, fan motor is also stopped.) The event is saved in memory as well."

Here's my update- whereas I had suspected it was a fan noise, I now think it is the sound of the disc spinning inside. I checked it again, this morning, after removing the disc and shutting it down. The sound was now dead silent.

So does that make any sense? Dead silent with an empty disc tray and powered down, but if you shutdown w a disc installed (as you would typically do in preparation for a scheduled recording), the disc spins eternally?! Normally, you would expect it to spindown when you shutdown...or maybe it spins down after some amount of time? It just seems weird that the disc spinning would operate independently from the rest of the recorder.

Here's my update- whereas I had suspected it was a fan noise, I now think it is the sound of the disc spinning inside. I checked it again, this morning, after removing the disc and shutting it down. The sound was now dead silent.

So does that make any sense? Dead silent with an empty disc tray and powered down, but if you shutdown w a disc installed (as you would typically do in preparation for a scheduled recording), the disc spins eternally?! Normally, you would expect it to spindown when you shutdown...or maybe it spins down after some amount of time? It just seems weird that the disc spinning would operate independently from the rest of the recorder.


Just a thought, do you have the Instant On turned on? I don't think it should make a difference, but who knows. I've been keeping my Instant On turned off.

That thought had crossed my mind, as well, but I know I had set it to "off" in the past. I have been meaning to check it, again, to confirm it is still off.

Since cleaning the hub/spindle on my EZ17 about 2 weeks ago, I have not had a failed freeze up scheduled timer recording. Maybe it’s too soon to tell, but I was starting to get the freeze up on a regular basis. Nothing had changed except time, so I figured it probably was an electrical or mechanical component failure versus a firmware problem. I did not see any leaky capacitors when I took off the unit’s cover. After removing the drive’s cover I cleaned the rubber part on the hub/spindle & some dirt did come off. Also cleaned the lens.

My older ES20 has never had this problem so it made me think why the EZ17 series did. Short story, some time ago I spoke with a Panasonic engineer who had helped out with a bug on the ES20. About a year ago I called him regarding how noisy the drive was on the EZ17 when doing Chase Play. He said like anything else they try to reduce the cost of products. While he did specifically say the new drives were cheaper than the old drives, I’m guessing they are.

Perhaps the new/cheaper drives do not clamp down on the disc as firmly as the old drives. Therefore it does not take too much dirt in order to cause slippage & therefore a failed recording. That’s just a guess on my part. Anyway the little cleaning made a big difference.

Thank you DigaDo for your cleaning instructions.

At the moment SCI-FI channel is showing Twilight Zone episodes all day long. Most of the Twilight Zone episodes I have are dubbed from videotapes or were recorded at EP so I'm recording today's episodes at LP with a DMR-EZ17 connected cable-ready to our local Comcast service.

I'm watching some of these episodes through the DMR-EZ17 as it records. A few minutes ago there was a brief period where the screen went blank. I looked at the EZ17's counter and observed that it was frozen, for perhaps four seconds, on the minutes and seconds. As I'm typing this happened again but only two seconds or so this time. In both instances once the picture returned to normal the EZ17's counter's seconds display started to advance as is normal during a recording. This is the first time I've observed this behavoir.

Has anyone else observed this behavoir?

Strange, I never noticed that problem(lots of other problems, just not that one:D). AFA TZ I've been lucky enough to procure all 5 seasons from commercial DVD. I just love the clarity of the conversions to DVD as well as NO station bugs or commercial interruptions.

This morning one of my daily use DMR-EZ17 recorders of February 2007 manufacture, originally entering my service in October 2007, suffered a DVD Drive laser assembly failure at around 1,665 recording hours. The DVD Drive had satisfactorily recorded two movies bulked as a single title late last night to a Taiyo Yuden Premium Line 8x DVD-R. Powering up this morning returned a message window “check disc” and a "no read" front panel display. The DVD Drive made the "clunking" "chugging" and "errrp" noises that are common indications of a dirty lens or a failed laser assembly. That DVD Drive had its most recent lens and hub/spindle cleaning less than two and a half months ago. This morning a new lens and hub/spindle cleaning did not restore functionality.

A 2006 model year DMR-ES25 with 1,338 laser use hours (mostly playing DVDs) was swapped into the failed EZ17 model’s place. The ES25 was set up, configured and the unfinalized DVD from the EZ17 was finalized by the ES25. This DVD was auditioned, finding last night’s recording normal in every respect.

Two of my four DMR-EZ17 models have experienced DVD Drive laser assembly failures in the last three months. The other failed DMR-EZ17 was of January 2007 manufacture with the laser assembly failure occurring at around 1,523 recording hours. I now have two DMR-EZ17 “clunkers” that have been designated as “parts machines.”

DMR-EZ17 score: two down, two more to go.

This morning one of my daily use DMR-EZ17 recorders of February 2007 manufacture, originally entering my service in October 2007, suffered a DVD Drive laser assembly failure at around 1,665 recording hours.

Two of my four DMR-EZ17 models have experienced DVD Drive laser assembly failures in the last three months. The other failed DMR-EZ17 was of January 2007 manufacture with the laser assembly failure occurring at around 1,523 recording hours. So is this what you have been seeing in general with your recorders? That you get 15-1600 recording hours out of them before they fail?

So is this what you have been seeing in general with your recorders? That you get 15-1600 recording hours out of them before they fail?

My report concerning two DMR-EZ17 models with recently failed laser assemblies should be regarded as anecdotal.

A survey of my Panasonic DVD Recorder list with latest recording log data shows these estimated recording hours for my Panasonics:

2005 models:

**DMR-ES30V 4,384 (Panasonic replaced the DVD Drive, under warranty, due to a failed laser assembly at around 1073 hours.)
**DMR-ES30V 2,890
**DMR-ES40V 355

2006 models:

**DMR-ES35V 2,985
**DMR-ES35V 0 (This ES35 is new in its box)
**DMR-ES35V 3,097
**DMR-ES35V 1,390
*DMR-ES35V 522 (Originally purchased as a parts machine with a good DVD Drive that was swapped into an ES15. Now fully functional with swapped in DVD Drive originally from the other ES35 parts machine and Digital PCB from the below ES35.)
**DMR-ES35V 120 (Factory replaced DVD Drive and Digital PCB swapped in from DMR-ES46V. Original ES35V DVD Drive had laser assembly failure at 3,140 recording hours.)
***DMR-ES46V 3,140 (Swapped in DVD Drive from above ES35 due to failed laser assembly at 3,140 hours. This DMR-ES46 is "dead.")
***DMR-ES35V (Originally purchased as a parts machine. Good original DVD was then swapped into an ES15. That DVD Drive laser assembly later failed after nine months use.)
*DMR-ES25 1,338 (This figure is laser use time, mostly playing DVDs, not recording hours)
**DMR-ES15 2,987
**DMR-ES15 1,048
***DMR-ES15 (This ES15 was purchased with a bad DVD Drive. A good DVD Drive from a DMR-ES35 parts machine was swapped into place, the recorder was used for nine months until the DVD Drive laser assembly failed with around 1,113 recording hours.)
***DMR-ES15 (This ES15 was purchased with a bad DVD Drive. A good DVD Drive from a DMR-ES35 parts machine was swapped into place, the recorder was used for around one month and then rotated into standby use. Eight months later this ES15 was found "dead." This DVD Drive, along with a good Digital PCB--see above--was later swapped into the ES35 attributed with 522 recording hours.)

2007 models:

***DMR-EZ17 1,665 (failed laser assembly)
***DMR-EZ17 1,523 (failed laser assembly)
*DMR-EZ17 1,982
*DMR-EZ17 907

2008 model:

*DMR-EZ28 1,156

Notes:

*These recorders are in daily use.
**These recorders are set aside for standby use.
***These recorders are designated as parts machines.

Wow, not a post to this thread since 2/09 and at one time it was in daily use. My guess is most people have either given up on their EZ-17 or they've got a real quirk and it's still working;)
Digado, in regards to your NIB ES-30v, I had to check my local CraigsList to see if you snagged this (http://minneapolis.craigslist.org/ank/ele/1460613725.html) NIB combo, but now I see it's a ES-35v. I think $175 is a little steep for a '06 model but I guess if one doesn't care about the analog tuner it's a better bet than a EZ-48v:eek:

Wow, not a post to this thread since 2/09 and at one time it was in daily use. My guess is most people have either given up on their EZ-17 or they've got a real quirk and it's still working;)
Digado, in regards to your NIB ES-30v, I had to check my local CraigsList to see if you snagged this (http://minneapolis.craigslist.org/ank/ele/1460613725.html) NIB combo, but now I see it's a ES-35v. I think $175 is a little steep for a '06 model but I guess if one doesn't care about the analog tuner it's a better bet than a EZ-48v:eek:

Jeff,

The "new" DMR-ES35V was purchased in September 2008. I opened the sealed box, examined the contents, set it up and checked it out. I may have made a two to five minute recording on it and swapped that disc to another Panasonic for later recording/finalization and returned this ES35 to its box where it's remained ever since. So, technically this DMR-ES35V isn't strictly a "NIB" Panasonic.

From the original owner I purchased the DMR-ES46 as a parts machine. The original owner had problems so he returned the ES46 to Costco. Costco sent it to a local "authorized" repair shop that replaced the RFKNES46VP DVD RAM module (Digital PCB and DVD Drive). Then Costco returned this ES46 to the original owner. The original owner told me that he continued to have more problems with the ES46 so he put it back in its box and stored it away a closet for a year or more. When he did some housecleaning he found the ES46 and advertised it on Craig's List. When the owner gave me the original Customer Receipt showing the correct serial number and the "authorized" repair shop's $323.35 repair charged back to Costco I was eager to purchase the ES46 for the asking price of $20. Once home I checked out this ES46 finding it "dead" but the Digital PCB and DVD Drive were in new condition. As mentioned above, these parts were then swapped into one of the DMR-ES35V models.

With my current set up I make extensive use of RF pass through connections so I prefer using DVD recorders with unmodulated RF outputs. The ES30 and ES35 models are outstanding products, the main workhorses used in my ten month long 5,200 title dubbing/copying project. In those models the RF outputs are easy enough to switch to an unmodulated status. Even with their modulated outputs they would be effective as the last recorder on a pass through connection.

The one DMR-ES35V that's in current use, was originally a $15.29 parts machine that I recently brought back to full functionality, is now connected to the family TV.

I thought the family TV deserved a rebuilt ES35 that's much better than the dreadful, little-used DMR-ES40V (even though the ES40 set us back $269.99 in December 2005). I keep the DMR-ES40V as its DVD Drive has only 355 recording hours. That DVD Drive is the same model as found in the DMR-ES30V. With my daughter's two ES30 models and my two ES30 models there are four "high mileage" ES30 models in this household. The first ES30 that may experience a laser assembly failure will get the ES40 DVD Drive. Then the dreadful DMR-ES40V will be nothing but parts.

Jeff,

The "new" DMR-ES35V ....

With my current set up I make extensive use of RF pass through connections so I prefer using DVD recorders with unmodulated RF outputs.

I could have sworn your post said your NIB was a ES-30v:confused: I guess my link makes even more sense then.
Oh and you do know you can easily turn the RF modulator OFF on your Pannys don't you? It's buried in the manual and is hidden under the subject something about if you're getting a poor picture from the RF out:rolleyes:
I wrote the page number on the front of my ES-30v after it took me quite a long time to find it upon getting my second ES-30v. On all my ES-30vs I've turned OFF the RF mod. I don't know why they couldn't just title the header "How to turn off the RF modulator":D

DigaDo,

Some time ago in one of these threads I recall reading how to check the hours and/or power that the laser was using. With your vast knowledge of the Panny recorders I'm presuming that this information might have come from you. If so, how does one access the service menu or do whatever it takes to check out the laser?

Thanks in advance.

DigaDo,

Some time ago in one of these threads I recall reading how to check the hours and/or power that the laser was using. With your vast knowledge of the Panny recorders I'm presuming that this information might have come from you. If so, how does one access the service menu or do whatever it takes to check out the laser?

Thanks in advance.

I've mentioned Service Mode in different contexts in recent posts. What follows is a sampling.

This post identifies the different methods, based upon model type, to enter Service Mode:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=16694871#post16694871

These two posts mention the interpretation of laser power calibration and both attempt to reproduce page 29 of the DMR-EH75 Service Manual (the images are better in the second post) where the information is typical of that found in other Panasonic service manuals:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=16883143#post16883143

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=17125192#post17125192

(Unfortunately, I've been unable to reproduce scanned images that provide good results in attachments to my AVS posts. If I were to find an effective and simple method to reproduce Service Mode pages in my posts I would do so. I've had much better results with scanned images at CD Freaks, recently renamed MyCe.)

This post describes entering Service Mode (with a DMR-ES15 or similar model), accessing Laser Used Time and Accumulated Working Time, and exiting Service Mode:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=17168377#post17168377

The quoted post provides more detail as to a variety of service mode utilities and my response cautions against uninformed experimentation:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=15370175#post15370175

This post mentions certain deficiencies in Panasonic Service Manuals and provides some of the "missing" service information:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=16832715#post16832715

(Unfortunately, I've been unable to reproduce scanned images that provide good results in attachments to my AVS posts. If I were to find an effective and simple method to reproduce Service Mode pages in my posts I would do so. I've had much better results with scanned images at CD Freaks, recently renamed MyCe.)
You can use the "Snapshot Tool" icon in Adobe PDF Reader to select an image, paste it in a simple graphic program (I use Lexmark printer SW that came with it), massage it if desired (I do a "1-click enhancement"), save as a .jpg file, then use Photobucket.com or other image site to upload to and hold your pics for Inserting with the AVS "Insert Image" tool?

The pics then appear directly in your post via the URL links the image-hosting site provides.

Click #2 in my sig. for procedure on image hosting/inserting.