Cameron McGaughy

Hey gang! I have a Panasonic DVD recorder (DMR-E80H) that's about 6 years old. Many months ago, it started acting odd when I would finalize DVD-Rs. It would give me an error at the end, saying it was "unreadable", yet if I put the disc in again and played, it was fine. Now, it's not reading ANY DVD-Rs when I put them in, finalized or otherwise. Says there's "no disc", which is driving me crazy, since I can't watch saved discs or record stuff I want to save. It plays standard retail discs fine, just not my own. This ever happen to anyone? Is there a solution other than getting a new recorder?

AND...if I do need a new recorder, any suggestions? There don't seem to be that many standard def ones made anymore...I'm assuming I should be able to find a way to record the stuff on my broken Panny's hard drive to a disc on a newer DVD recorder if I hook them up the right way...right?

rw2516

I had an E80H that did pretty much the same thing. It started to fail reading a blank DVD-R disc when I put it in to record, got the "NO DISC" message. It was hit and miss for awhile but finally quit reading blanks altogether. It would still play anything I put in, and I'm sure it would have still recorded if it could past that initial reading of the blank. I had several programs on the hard drive. I bought a new Panny recorder with hard drive and copied the programs from the HD of old recorder over to HD of new one and then burned them. Would work the same for burning them straight to disc on a new recorder the same way.
When the unit I have now goes kaput I'll spring to buy the Panny with HD that's only available in Canada.
I love the Pannys with an HD.

Overpar

Do those DVD-R's play in any other players?

Cameron McGaughy

yeah, I tried them in my portable Panny and they played fine. I'm guessing I'll need to get a new one, and will probably to stick with Panny because not all of my discs are finalized; would feel more comfortable sticking with the same brand. Do any relatively new Panny models still have a hard drive on them? Would prefer to still have that...

Spiky

They are all standard def. If you use good media, they should play in any player. Mine do.

rw2516

Panasonic quit selling models with hard drives in the U.S. They still sell a model in Canada. $599 full retail. Have to buy from Canadian retailer or ebay. Around $475-500 on ebay.