Panasonic DMR EX75 Experiences so far....

Right,

had the above for three weeks now and so far all is pretty good give or take one main thing....

Setup - took a while and not that easy, though my tv is anchient so does not reallylike the panny...now all working peachy.....

recording - a doddle, always record to disk great so far..

Editing - that too great, esp using partial delete....

Creating Playlists.....really useful, esp for kiddies tv programms....can now sort them and record to disk....

ONE MAJOR ISSUE........randomly the whole machine, when watching tv cuts out and appears to go to sleep.....hit a button and it comes on again for a max 10 secs...then black screen again.......only solution is to unplug from mains and replug....all fine then.......happens about once every two days....

Any one have ideas???

Other than that, the amchine is a great tool....

So who has the same issue??

Any ideas on how to stop??

many thanks

adrian

[Gavtech]

Originally Posted by adriancole

ONE MAJOR ISSUE........randomly the whole machine, when watching tv cuts out and appears to go to sleep.....hit a button and it comes on again for a max 10 secs...then black screen again.......only solution is to unplug from mains and replug....all fine then.......happens about once every two days....

Any one have ideas???

After about 30 minutes of no button activity ... and with no disk in the disk drive, the HDD will go into 'sleep' mode and spin down.
'Sleep ' willl be displayed on the front of the machine.

Is this what you are encountering?

... and when you say 'Watching TV' are you actually watching a TV channel or a channel using the internal tuner of the EX75?

Depending on your answers above, my first guess is that there is nothing wrong here but that AV switching is being triggered on your TV ... and THAT is down to how your TV prioritises AV grab instructions.

When this happens, leave the EX75 as it is and see if you can restore the picture by using the TV control to switch AV / TV channels to see if that restores picture.... as power cycling the EX75 may just be misleading you here.

Originally Posted by Gavtech

After about 30 minutes of no button activity ... and with no disk in the disk drive, the HDD will go into 'sleep' mode and spin down.
'Sleep ' willl be displayed on the front of the machine.

Is this what you are encountering?

No, i get that bit too, little blue strip on screen sayin gthat...its not that

Originally Posted by Gavtech

... and when you say 'Watching TV' are you actually watching a TV channel or a channel using the internal tuner of the EX75?

A channel using the internal tuner of the machine.....

Originally Posted by Gavtech

Depending on your answers above, my first guess is that there is nothing wrong here but that AV switching is being triggered on your TV ... and THAT is down to how your TV prioritises AV grab instructions.

When this happens, leave the EX75 as it is and see if you can restore the picture by using the TV control to switch AV / TV channels to see if that restores picture.... as power cycling the EX75 may just be misleading you here.

Yes, screen goes blank.....if i use my tv remote, the channels come back , though only bbc1 to channel5.....if i then go to AV1 i get all the freeview channels, though they only stay on for aabout ten secs...then screen goes blank again......its weird as it only happens occasionally and generally after watching something on direct navigator.....will make sure i notice exact sequence when it next happens... will post up again when it does.....

Think your on the right track though, somethine to do with the av1/av2 functions.....

adrian

[JulianDS]

The screen going blank os not to do with av switching.


For example, the picture will stay if you are recording or have a menu/info box displayed.

The fixes posted have suggested power off (as you have found) or re-scanning the box.

I have sent a message to Panasonic about this, but had no reply, I guess it will stay a mystery

Julian

[Gavtech]

Originally Posted by JulianDS

The screen going blank os not to do with av switching.


For example, the picture will stay if you are recording or have a menu/info box displayed.

The fixes posted have suggested power off (as you have found) or re-scanning the box.

I have sent a message to Panasonic about this, but had no reply, I guess it will stay a mystery

Julian

Julian

That issue is separate problem. I do not think it applies here.

In fact it remains possible that those reporting this problem have variants of this same issue above [ and therefore not really a machine problem ]

However I need more information to make a determination.

OK, has happened again...this is the process tonight on how it happened.....


Was watching tv via the inbuilt tuner of the panasonic.... flicked over to drirect navigator, then immediatly pressed return....then started quickly flicking through the channels using the Page ch rocker button on the remote......found a programme to watch.....then the shutting off every ten secondes occured.

NOw instead of pulling out the plug i pressed Pressed input select....this brought up the menu whihch said AV1.....no shutting off, except that when i then pressed the channel rocker button on the remote, it merely cycled through the AV1, AV2, AV3 area.....

To stop this i had to key in a channel manually via the numbers......back to shutting off every ten seconds......

One thing to note is that it had also changed from HDD to DVD on the front of the machine.......wonder if that is relavent......??

Anyway had to pull plug and all is back to normal service for the moment....

Hope that helps more...will write again the next time it happens with the exact sequence again..

thanks for the help


Adrian

[garyjd]

I had this same issue with my original EX75, ended up getting it replaced with the supplier who managed to reproduce the fault. Fortunate that they did as it didn't happen very often but I wasn't prepared to accept it. Mine didn't change from HDD to DVD and I don't recall using the direct navigator before hand, just watching TV normally. Only thing I could do was turn it off and leave it off!

Good luck.

[Gavtech]

Originally Posted by adriancole

OK, has happened again...this is the process tonight on how it happened.....


Was watching tv via the inbuilt tuner of the panasonic.... flicked over to drirect navigator, then immediatly pressed return....then started quickly flicking through the channels using the Page ch rocker button on the remote......found a programme to watch.....then the shutting off every ten secondes occured.

NOw instead of pulling out the plug i pressed Pressed input select....this brought up the menu whihch said AV1.....no shutting off, except that when i then pressed the channel rocker button on the remote, it merely cycled through the AV1, AV2, AV3 area.....

To stop this i had to key in a channel manually via the numbers......back to shutting off every ten seconds......

One thing to note is that it had also changed from HDD to DVD on the front of the machine.......wonder if that is relavent......??

Anyway had to pull plug and all is back to normal service for the moment....

Hope that helps more...will write again the next time it happens with the exact sequence again..

thanks for the help


Adrian

Some thoughts on this.

I presume that after you had pushed Input select and been restricted to the AV 'channels', that had you pressed Input select again it would have returned to the tuner channels also.

I would be intrigued to know whether this only affects the digital tuner.
When it next occurs, can you try an analogue channel and see if the blackout problem persists?

Have you already, or have you considered reporting this directly to Panasonic Customer services [ advising them that you know of other sufferers too ].
It is possible that this is a known problem for which they have a remedy.

I'll pass on a link if you require it.

[talismanamsilat]

Gavtech - do we think a change to RGB1 on the av1 out might help?

[Gavtech]

Originally Posted by talismanamsilat

Gavtech - do we think a change to RGB1 on the av1 out might help?

Indeed we do.... but if it isn't set to that already it is presumably for a reason.

But it wouldn't explain why some users apparently experience this problem only sometimes... unless they normally never sit for long enough periods watching through the in-built tuner, to invoke the auto switching.

[ Info for users:
In RGB1 mode RGB is output all the time that the unit is on.
In RGB2 mode RGB is only output when the on-screen display is used or playback is occurring. ]

OK, will try switch to rgb to start with...also a link would be great to Panasonic.......will let them know....

Will try switching to analogue too next time it occurs, though i seem to remember the machine did not originally work on rgb for some reason.....

Adrian

[Gavtech]

Originally Posted by adriancole

...also a link would be great to Panasonic.......will let them know....

Hi Adrian.

Here is the link.

Fill in the boxes on the page and send which will return a form where you can give an account.

http://www.panasonic.co.uk/customer-...tact-email.asp

[talismanamsilat]

I'm still convinced this is a setup issue!

What tv make and model do you have?

[Gavtech]

Originally Posted by talismanamsilat

I'm still convinced this is a setup issue!

I agree it seems the most likely.

The anomaly is why does a power reset apparently restore the kind of normal operation they expect.

[JulianDS]

I only get this problem occasionally, and interestingly also when I tend to be using the channel button to go fairly quickly through the channels.

When the screen goes blank, the unit is still out-putting a signal, just with a blank screen (for example, pressing 'i' to get the programme details brings the picture back momentarily). It only affects some channels (typically between one to three) at any one time, and the unit is fine on a different channel. I have found that a re-scan or power off will sort it out.

The TV remains on the correct input - I have checked this, and in my case it is not a switching problem. The output is RGB1.

I have not had as many probs lately, but then I've not watched much telly recently!

I filled-in the on-line form about 4 weeks ago, but got no reply, at some point I'll get round to doing it again.

Julian