There are new firmware updates for Panasonic DVD recorders on the Canadian web site (click here). (http://panasonic.ca/english/customercare/sandd/softwarequery.asp)

For example, the firmware update for the DMR-E500S DVDR (which I have) has a date of 6/26/2007 and a version number of DU100, whereas the one on the US Web site has a date of 4/12/2005 and a version number of DU97.

I checked the text file in the zip file containing the firmware update and it had this:

DU-100

Performances improved are

1. Countermeasure of freezing or picture darkness on DVD playback
through STB BOX MADE BY Scientific Atlanta as Model#:SA3250.

DU-098

Performances improved are

1. Better playability with high-reflection detection DVD-ROM.
2. Better playability with fingerprints on DVD-ROM disc

DU-097

Performances improved are

1. Improved start up with new copy protection DVD disc in Europe area.
2. Better capability to play dual DVD-R/DVD+R disc.


Does anyone know anything about these new firmware updates?

Has anyone tried to update their US Panasonic DVDR using these firmware updates?

Thanks.

I bought one of these on-line when they first came out and I love it!. I recommended it to a friend and they seemed to stop making them? Does anyone know why? I found one online anthey wanted $2,000 buck for it. What up with that?

As of March 1 of this year, all new DVD recorders distributed in the USA have to have digital TV (ATSC) tuners, per FCC mandate. Panasonic and most other companies chose not to release any new models with hard disk (HDD) and ATSC tuner in the USA. Look around here and you'll find some threads with people arguing about why the companies decided to do this: lack of potential sales, or an evil conspiracy by the movie studios to keep people from recording movies. Take your pick. :rolleyes:

It seems few if any are interested in the potential of downloading firmware updates from the Canadian Panasonic site.

I guess I'll just wait to see what technical support from Panasonic Canada has to say.

There's another new posting about firmware in the " Another ES-20 BUG ??" thread. I also added my 2 cents worth about a caution that a Panasonic engineer told me about using Canadian firmware in a USA machine. That if it did not work, you might not be able to go back to a USA firmware version. The recorder only updates to newer versions. If the Canadian version is a higher number than the latest USA one, then you'll never be able to get the USA one installed. If I recall the USA Panasonic engineer was not familiar with any differences between USA & Canadian models. I took it as more of a cautionary note, not a definite that the Canadian firmware will not work.

Thanks Mike. That's my impression also. I was curious whether others had updated their US models with the Canadian firmware updates.

Let's see what the Canadian Panasonic folks say, if they answer my query.

I have trouble entering Model #'s into the search engine!
No mater what I put in, it doesn't find anything.

Enter the model no. without any dashes. For example, my Panasonic E-500 DVDR would be entered as DMRE500HS.

What is the model no. that you are trying to enter?

I got it to work after about 10 searches. The search engine is just dumb. What worked was (I think) entering "dmre" without selecting a computer operating system, then it returned a long list of units.
What I have is a "DMRE85H"

As of March 1 of this year, all new DVD recorders distributed in the USA have to have digital TV (ATSC) tuners, per FCC mandate.

To be nitpicky, they could be tuner-less and require an external tuner.. or work only for cable and not OTA.. (similar to how the Series 2 DT ones are.)

I realize that's a worse solution to many than not releasing any however.

I received a response from Panasonic Canada Technical Support concerning using the Canadian firmware updates on US DVD recorders. Specifically I asked about the firmware update for my DMR-E500HS recorder.

Here is their answer:

"Thank you for your email. Yes you are correct the firmware will work on the unit that you have from the USA.

We hope this information is of help to you."

So, it appears that, at least for the E-500, that the Canadian firmware updates will work on my recorder. I will give it a try when I get a chance.

What I have is a "DMRE85H"

It came right back with firmware for a DMRE85S when I entered DMRE85H (which is the model I have also). Now the question is, will firmware for a Canadian DMRE85S work with a US DMRE85H?

Somebody wrote that it's possible to do a deep reset on the thing where it throws out all the firmware updates and the unit returns to the original factory firmware. I tried doing what I thought was the right sequence of buttons on the front, "|<<" "Time Slip" "Open Close". That seemed to do some kind of reset but the unit still refused to take the last US firmware update, so the theory that it's possible to have later firmware updates discarded may be just wishful thinking.

The DL106 Canadian firmware adds improvements for reading DVD's, something I seldom do on the machine. My problem with the DMRE85H is that it starts failing to record programs scheduled to record. It did this once before where it would start skipping scheduled to record programs during the day. Finally it got so bad it wouldn't record anything that was scheduled to record. Re-formatting the disc didn't help. Finally I did the reset thing where the entire Program Guide is lost and you have to start over from scratch. That seemed to work and the machine has worked as designed for several months. But now it's messing up again. Just did another reset where the Program Guide info is lost. It takes several days for the thing to recover. Only then will I know if this does the trick - again. Was hoping a new firmware would address this issue but doesn't appear so.

WhiteWhiskers, set your clock manually and turn off DST and see if that helps.

>set your clock manually and turn off DST and see if that helps

I'll try this and see if it changes things. What it did yesterday was something it's done before. I had something scheduled to record at 1pm and 1:30pm. The machine never came on at 1pm so that whole program was skipped. I walked in the room at 1:45pm and noticed the machine wasn't recording. I turned on the machine and it immediately went into record mode.

It's like it never gets the signal to turn on and start recording. But if it's turned on it will record the scheduled program. The problem begins slowly. First it misses a few shows during the day, then it starts missing shows scheduled to record in the evening. The problem got so bad last year I was ready to take a hammer to the thing. That's when I tried the reset thing and that seemed to snap it out of whatever it was doing. It's been fine since but now the problem is starting again.

When it's reset all the program guide data is lost. It pulled in the channel icons last night but it still has to pull in a lot more. It may take another day before I can test it to see if it will behave normally.

I turned on the machine and it immediately went into record mode.

I don't know if this will help you but my Samsung VR-130 did the exact same thing a couple of times when I first got it. It seemed it did not like the brand DVDs I had (TDK 16X) and would not load the disc when timer recording. When I turned the unit on, it would immediately start recording. Switching to better media illiminated the problem. I don't have any hard drive recorders but maybe it is the hard drive it is having trouble with?

My problem with the DMRE85H is that it starts failing to record programs scheduled to record. It did this once before where it would start skipping scheduled to record programs during the day. Finally it got so bad it wouldn't record anything that was scheduled to record. Re-formatting the disc didn't help. Finally I did the reset thing where the entire Program Guide is lost and you have to start over from scratch. That seemed to work and the machine has worked as designed for several months. But now it's messing up again. Just did another reset where the Program Guide info is lost. It takes several days for the thing to recover. Only then will I know if this does the trick - again. Was hoping a new firmware would address this issue but doesn't appear so.This problem has been well documented over the years in this forum. It has been seen by a number of Panasonic users. Many with the E-85 but it has also been reported by users of later models. In my opinion, your problem is a slowly failing OEM HDD. I also have an E-85. After purchase it worked perfectly, but then after a while it started doing what you have reported -- skipping records because it would not come out of standby. The easy solution was to turn on the E-85 at night for the evenings recordings. It never missed a scheduled record if it was on. A hard reset and reloading of the TVGOS would clear things up for a while but then it would start all over again -- just as you have observed. The length of time between needing resets gradually shortened. Finally I started seeing some skipping behavior on recorded shows which signaled the end was near. Shortly afterwards the HDD died and the unit stopped responding.

Initially I replaced the HDD with a 160GB 7200 rpm spare Maxtor drive I had and the E-85 came to life and worked perfectly again like I had not seen in years. Wanting to use that drive for other purposes, I was able to buy an exact replacement Maxtor 120GB 5400rpm HDD on the Internet for $50 and put that in the E-85. It has been about 4 months now that the drive was replaced. The E-85 has been functioning the way it did when I first bought it. I record about 17 programs per week for my family and it has not missed a single one. No more problems at all with coming out of standby.

As I indicated at the start, if you have the problem and it is getting progressively worse, I believe your drive is slowly failing. If you have a spare drive at least 120GB, drop it in and see. The OEM drives they put in these things are low end. You don't need PC performance to record video.

WhiteWhiskers, set your clock manually and turn off DST and see if that helps.You can't do that on an E-85 without eliminating the TVGOS function altogether.

You can't do that on an E-85 without eliminating the TVGOS function altogether.
If you can turn off DST, just do that.

Sorry, but it's not DST. It really is the HDD.

In my opinion, your problem is a slowly failing OEM HDD.

The reset from 2 days ago seems to have restored reliability. It recorded a program at 1pm, something it was failing to do for 4 weeks now. How long this will last I don't know. I just don't understand why a reset would fix a problem ultimately caused by a failing hard drive. I came across an interesting website yesterday that shows the inside of an E85:

http://vassfamily.net/projects/DMRE85H/dmre85h.html

This guy's E85 has leaking capacitor problems. It also shows his machine with a Samsung hard drive, maybe they all use them? I also searched for new drives yesterday. There's a Seagate model that's advertised as "the perfect solution for digital recording." Maybe I'll buy it and pop it in the machine.

The reset from 2 days ago seems to have restored reliability. It recorded a program at 1pm, something it was failing to do for 4 weeks now. How long this will last I don't know. I just don't understand why a reset would fix a problem ultimately caused by a failing hard drive. I came across an interesting website yesterday that shows the inside of an E85:

http://vassfamily.net/projects/DMRE85H/dmre85h.html

This guy's E85 has leaking capacitor problems. It also shows his machine with a Samsung hard drive, maybe they all use them? I also searched for new drives yesterday. There's a Seagate model that's advertised as "the perfect solution for digital recording." Maybe I'll buy it and pop it in the machine.

Too bad the "Vass family" didn't investigate more, because the capacitors for the E85 are available on the Panasonic Parts web site.

Listen to Kelson. He knows his stuff.

It really is the HDD.

I bought and installed a Seagate ST3160812A drive. It didn't like it. Even after I formatted the disk twice and tried numerous resets and removing power, every time I turned on the machine it gave an error message. It would turn on, "PLEASE WAIT", then it would eventually come up only to display a message on the TV that an error happened, it would turn itself off, then cycle back and finally behave normally. I tried recording to the disk and that worked fine. But it just won't power up normally, always with an error message, turns off, comes back on, and then seems to work.

The original disk was a Samsung, jumpered for cable select. The Seagate was already jumpered for cable select, so didn't change any jumpers. So I put the original Samsung back, turned it on, it wanted to format the disk, after it was done all is now back to normal. It doesn't give an error message on startup. There must be something the E85 doesn't like about the new Seagate, I just didn't know what to do. Only time will tell if the thing starts missing recordings again. I didn't see any leaking capacitors, unless they are under the DVD-RAM drive or the hard drive bracket. Wasn't in the mood to tear the thing apart. I don't like messing with thin ribbon cables, they seem real fragile and easily damaged.

Hmm . . . my E-85 had a Maxtor Diamondmax drive in it as the OEM drive (5400 rpm). The first drive I put in as a temporary replacement was another Maxtor I had, but higher capacity and higher speed (7200 rpm). It worked fine from the start. The final replacement drive was another Maxtor, identical to the OEM drive. It also worked perfectly from the start and continues to do so. Cable-select is the correct setting.

A couple other posters have reported replacing their E-85 drives with complete success. I wonder if there is something about the Seagate it doesn't like. There has been some speculation that a high performance PC drive might draw more power than the E-85 power supply was designed to output. Sorry this isn't working smoothly for you.

There has been some speculation that a high performance PC drive might draw more power than the E-85 power supply was designed to output.

Maybe it's a power thing. I just checked the specs for the Samsung drive that was in the E85, model# SV1203N. It has a power up current max of 670mA @ 5v and 2390mA @ 12v. The Seagate I bought has spinup currents of 620mA @ 5v and 2800mA @12v.

From these values it appears that the Seagate does indeed draw more current at spinup (the 12v value anyway) than the Samsung, which may explain why the thing didn't behave properly. I opened the E85 up again to look at those capacitors under the drive bracket. They looked fine, no signs of leaking at all. Oh well, the next drive I buy to put in the thing, I'll be sure to check the specs to make sure it's current draw is less than the Samsung.

Oh well, the next drive I buy to put in the thing, I'll be sure to check the specs to make sure it's current draw is less than the Samsung.The OEM drive in my E-85 was a Maxtor DiamondMax 16 (4R120L0). These are their low-end 5400 rpm drives for consumer appliances like DVD recorders. Maxtor was bought out by, I believe, Seagate so this drive no longer exists in their product line.

However, there are drive liquidators on the Internet that have them. I bought mine from an outfit called DriveGuys. I checked and they still have 12 in stock for $39 each + $8 S/H. That's basically what I paid. DriveGuys were good and quick with no problems so I would buy from them again. Here is the link if you want to consider this Maxtor replacement. Again, this is an exact replacement for the OEM drive that came in my E-85.

http://www.pricegrabber.com/user_sales_getprod.php?masterid=615469&lot_id=3674953