Hi everyone. I subscribed to this forum after reading many interesting threads about Panasonic DMR-EX series.
Some months ago my old beloved Panny (0) DMR-EX77-EC-S (bought in 2009) started doing strange sounds during a mastering session, after which it was completely unable read dvd discs anymore (Disc Icon appears even when dvd is not present). After reading these threads it became evident my laser diode died.
So I started buying several used/broken DMR-EX77, in the hope to find a working DVD Drive+PCB board (because laser calibrations are on Digital PCB Board). I bought in the order:
1) DMR-EX77 (no other codes present).
Had blown capacitors on Power Supply PCB. Once fixed, it worked again, and the dvd drive was good. However this model comes from England and thus interface is english only (I cannot change language beside English or its regions like Welsh and so on). The main disadvantage is that, even if I can tune digital channels to my country (Italy), when doing a programmed recording, it automatically selects english as main language (most channels in Italy now support dual-audio). I was not able to select the desired language for recording, or set italian as main language. Is this possible at all?
2) DMR-EX77-EC-K (k = blank, EC = ??? )
Blown capacitors on Power Supply PCB. Didn't have them, so I took out the repaired Power board from the previous recorder, and the VCR powered on. However, it remains in permanent Please Wait state, and DVD Drive start forcing eject 1cm per second, and keep forcing it out even after reaching end of rail. I suspect the Digital PCB is blown or unrecoverable.
I took out the laser assembly and put it in my old Panny (0). It reads DVDs without problem. However recordings are not readable (if you look at dvd surface, there seem to be some regions where the reflection of the recorded track changes, while previous readble recordings seem to have uniform coloring). It's like something has changed during disc rotation speed adjustment. I tested TDK and Verbatim DVD-R and all failed, so I assume something is wrong with laser calibration. It is strange that it reads DVD from start to end without hiccups, but maybe playing and recording are two different parts of the medal.
3) DMR-EX77-EG-S (s = silver, EG = ??? )
Blown capacitors on Power Supply PCB. Once fixed, it started with usual Please Wait message, and usual DVD Drive clunking sound with DVD icon when nothing is in the drive (G*dmnt). However I can access user interface (which supports multilanguage). The problem arises when doing channel setup. It seems to completely miss all the digital setup. It supports only analog tuning, which is useless since the switchoff. According to the repair service manual, DMR-EX77-EG-S supports Digital Tuning. So what am I missing? May be the firmware so old that it doesn't have the digital tuning part in it? My first Panny has the same code of this but the user interface has more options.
EDIT: another thing about this model is that although the SDCARD slot is present, it cannot be selected with the remote. I can switch only between HDD and DVD.
Yesterday I attempted to put Power Board PCB of (3) in (2), and put the DVD-Drive (broken) of (3) in (2) as well. The VCR started, but a U81 error appeared. User interface can be set in English or German (which makes me think that firmware is stored in digital PCB), recordings language can be selected, including italian as main language. However it doesn't start Digital Tuning (white screen until power off, and the Firmware version reports 0.00 - maybe because of missing communication with ST microprocessor, as U81 error seems to indicate). I see C1557 is blown, C1558 seems good though. I do not have a replacement for now.
Swapping hard disk between (3) in (2) proposes me to format it (I didn't format it). When put back in (3) hard disk is still recognized, without forcing a format or requiring DVD Firmware. It's serial code is probably stored in Main PCB (or in Backend PCB which I was unable to remove from any of my VCRs, it's pretty tied in and I have fear to break it. Manual says to pull it up, but when trying I do not see any perceptable evidence of detaching). Since I don't have a DVD firmware, and Panasonic support has been completely deprecable ("we don't have it" was their reply), I did a binary dump of the disks (at the least of the first 360MB) just in case.
Swapping DVD-Drive+PCB board of (1) in (0) allowed me to record my videos at hispeed without errors or strange dvd coloring in tracks. But, in this case, user interface turned english Only. Which gave me more evidence that firmware is really stored in the Digital PCB.
So, for now I have 4 VCR, none of which is completely functional. The reason why I'm telling you all this is to have some suggestions to obtain a completely working unit. So, to summarize:
a) Find a Firmware DVD for DMR-EX77, which may be different for English only (DMR-EX77), german market (DMR-EX77-EG), italy+spain (DMR-EX77-EC). Would a holy soul of you help me to find it?
b) Find a way to select Italian as main language in (1) model. This is the mostly working unit I have, but this limitation is currently too much penalizing for normal use.
c) Once made clear if (3) is effectively limited to Analog only tuning, maybe because of very old firmware (because my Panny 0 has the same machine code and it seems to me so strange that the firmware is so different), I may sacrifice it to desolder components to make of (2) a possibly working unit.
Sorry if I have been so pedantic, but I tried to be as much specific as possible.
I'm looking forward to read your suggestions and opinions.
Thank you all in advance.
Have a nice day
Some months ago my old beloved Panny (0) DMR-EX77-EC-S (bought in 2009) started doing strange sounds during a mastering session, after which it was completely unable read dvd discs anymore (Disc Icon appears even when dvd is not present). After reading these threads it became evident my laser diode died.
So I started buying several used/broken DMR-EX77, in the hope to find a working DVD Drive+PCB board (because laser calibrations are on Digital PCB Board). I bought in the order:
1) DMR-EX77 (no other codes present).
Had blown capacitors on Power Supply PCB. Once fixed, it worked again, and the dvd drive was good. However this model comes from England and thus interface is english only (I cannot change language beside English or its regions like Welsh and so on). The main disadvantage is that, even if I can tune digital channels to my country (Italy), when doing a programmed recording, it automatically selects english as main language (most channels in Italy now support dual-audio). I was not able to select the desired language for recording, or set italian as main language. Is this possible at all?
2) DMR-EX77-EC-K (k = blank, EC = ??? )
Blown capacitors on Power Supply PCB. Didn't have them, so I took out the repaired Power board from the previous recorder, and the VCR powered on. However, it remains in permanent Please Wait state, and DVD Drive start forcing eject 1cm per second, and keep forcing it out even after reaching end of rail. I suspect the Digital PCB is blown or unrecoverable.
I took out the laser assembly and put it in my old Panny (0). It reads DVDs without problem. However recordings are not readable (if you look at dvd surface, there seem to be some regions where the reflection of the recorded track changes, while previous readble recordings seem to have uniform coloring). It's like something has changed during disc rotation speed adjustment. I tested TDK and Verbatim DVD-R and all failed, so I assume something is wrong with laser calibration. It is strange that it reads DVD from start to end without hiccups, but maybe playing and recording are two different parts of the medal.
3) DMR-EX77-EG-S (s = silver, EG = ??? )
Blown capacitors on Power Supply PCB. Once fixed, it started with usual Please Wait message, and usual DVD Drive clunking sound with DVD icon when nothing is in the drive (G*dmnt). However I can access user interface (which supports multilanguage). The problem arises when doing channel setup. It seems to completely miss all the digital setup. It supports only analog tuning, which is useless since the switchoff. According to the repair service manual, DMR-EX77-EG-S supports Digital Tuning. So what am I missing? May be the firmware so old that it doesn't have the digital tuning part in it? My first Panny has the same code of this but the user interface has more options.
EDIT: another thing about this model is that although the SDCARD slot is present, it cannot be selected with the remote. I can switch only between HDD and DVD.
Yesterday I attempted to put Power Board PCB of (3) in (2), and put the DVD-Drive (broken) of (3) in (2) as well. The VCR started, but a U81 error appeared. User interface can be set in English or German (which makes me think that firmware is stored in digital PCB), recordings language can be selected, including italian as main language. However it doesn't start Digital Tuning (white screen until power off, and the Firmware version reports 0.00 - maybe because of missing communication with ST microprocessor, as U81 error seems to indicate). I see C1557 is blown, C1558 seems good though. I do not have a replacement for now.
Swapping hard disk between (3) in (2) proposes me to format it (I didn't format it). When put back in (3) hard disk is still recognized, without forcing a format or requiring DVD Firmware. It's serial code is probably stored in Main PCB (or in Backend PCB which I was unable to remove from any of my VCRs, it's pretty tied in and I have fear to break it. Manual says to pull it up, but when trying I do not see any perceptable evidence of detaching). Since I don't have a DVD firmware, and Panasonic support has been completely deprecable ("we don't have it" was their reply), I did a binary dump of the disks (at the least of the first 360MB) just in case.
Swapping DVD-Drive+PCB board of (1) in (0) allowed me to record my videos at hispeed without errors or strange dvd coloring in tracks. But, in this case, user interface turned english Only. Which gave me more evidence that firmware is really stored in the Digital PCB.
So, for now I have 4 VCR, none of which is completely functional. The reason why I'm telling you all this is to have some suggestions to obtain a completely working unit. So, to summarize:
a) Find a Firmware DVD for DMR-EX77, which may be different for English only (DMR-EX77), german market (DMR-EX77-EG), italy+spain (DMR-EX77-EC). Would a holy soul of you help me to find it?
b) Find a way to select Italian as main language in (1) model. This is the mostly working unit I have, but this limitation is currently too much penalizing for normal use.
c) Once made clear if (3) is effectively limited to Analog only tuning, maybe because of very old firmware (because my Panny 0 has the same machine code and it seems to me so strange that the firmware is so different), I may sacrifice it to desolder components to make of (2) a possibly working unit.
Sorry if I have been so pedantic, but I tried to be as much specific as possible.
I'm looking forward to read your suggestions and opinions.
Thank you all in advance.
Have a nice day
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