Panasonic DMR ES20 . copyright protection? CPRM? FR mode no pause etc

my ES10 burned out and I bought an ES20 from Ebay, New In Box. Now I am regretting it for the following reasons.

1. FR mode does not allow pause. This is a critical feature for omitting ads in real time without having to do it on the PC later. You can still pause in the other modes XP, SP, LP....

2. FR mode auto creates chapters about 90 seconds apart!! In XP mode, the chapters are also auto created but the splits are about 4:30 to 5:15 (min:seconds) apart which is normal and customary on Pannys I believe.

3. the worst feature is that on ANY mode, there seems to be copyright protection on any tv show, game etc where you cannot even play the FINALIZED disc on any other dvd player, dvd recorder, or PC drive. THUS I HAD TO extract the vob files using DVD Decrypter and that only in IFO mode (File Mode did not work for extraction). Then I had to reauthor the video then burn it to another disc.

also, Windows or PowerDVD can only see the beginning files and play only about the first 5% of any total video before jumping back to the root menu as if the movie is over. This really seems like some copyright scheme gone terribly wrong. I was just trying to copy the local news to a blank dvd-r in XP mode , after finalizing, it did the same thing, not play in the pc dvd drive, altough shows 4.3gb of data but opening it does not show but the first vob of about 400mb or something.



anybody have experience with these issues?

what about the firmware upgrade U3-150, does it solve any of these problems?

any help is appreciated..

thanks for the reply. Source is comcast cable tv. I was just trying to record random CNN and for 1 hr XP and still was not able to play it on my PC drive with powerDVD, although the 4.3GB is showing. I bought the unit with some research but now I leard the ES20 has a bad reputation. All my blanks are DVD-R , 8x Taiyo Yuden premium line.

it was received new in box. With all the elements still in wrapped plastic, with manual, cords. Even the dvd tray was still taped to the side to prevent it from sliding open.

thanks for the advice as i will try to redeem the mfg warranty.

the finalized pc does play on my standalone Magnavox dvd player but not on the PC.

also , tried a 1hr xp version and it did not even fill the disk, only went to 4.01GB.

finally, unplugged and plugged back in, only to find the clock time was lost with a blinking 12:00 !!

weird unit. Don't ever buy one of these ES20s !!!

I called Pan support 1800 211 7262 and they are mailing me firmware # U3-158 which is not available online. I don't think this will help , will probably just try to return it if the ebay seller will be good enough to give a refund.

mike,

can you pause in FR mode? does it create 90 second chapters in FR mode? if unplugged, does the closk setting go to 12:00?