Help. Panasonic E85 stopped working.

[shadieb]

Hi,

Last April I bought a Panny E85. It has had very light use since purchasing it. At the weekend i was dividing a few recordings when it froze. After 20 minutes I figured there was a problem so I turned the recorder off.
When I rebooted the machine it went through the self test but now the display is blank and no buttons on the unit or the remote control work other then the power off button?

Today I contacted Multiregion Magic where i got it from and they say it is a common fault and I have to post it back to them for it to be fixed. I am now worried as it only has 2 months warranty left and I don't want the same thing to happen as soon as the warranty is out.

The way the guy on the phone spoke about it, it should be a fairly simple thing to put right, he even reckoned I wouldn't lose any recordings on the hard disk.

Does anybody know what the fault is and how to cure it? I really don't want to be without my recorder for the near future and could do wothout having to package it up and get it delivered to Multiregion Magic.
I have tried searching the forum and found a post from somebody with the same problem but couldn't find anything else?

I'd really appreciate any help offered.
Many many thanks.

 

[JP300]

Can't offer any help, I'm afraid, but this is exactly the same problem I had with my E85 after 2 months. It went back to Comet, who for a couple of months kept promising to return it after another week, but eventually wrote it off - so I got no feedback on what the problem was. I've read about an identical problem on another forum, too.

I took a refund from Comet and bought another E85 from Richer Sounds (£200 up on that deal!). The replacement machine's just started crashing whenever I try dubbing to a DVD-R on anything other than high speed. So back this one goes too.

Are these problems typical?

I'm thinking of getting an LG RH4820 as a backup (although it doesn't seem to do flexible recording, which is the feature I use most on the E85). Can I expect that to be more reliable?

 

[shadieb]

Im in the same boat as you JP300. I am thinking of buying another machine as a backup as I don't trust the Panny.
It got sent back to today by courier and I have no idea how long it will be before I get it back? But with 2 months warranty left I am worried in case it does it again once the warranty has run out..
I paid nearly £500 for this and I aint overly impressed with it. I have been searching all over the net and a lot of people say to you use chapters to cut out adverts rather then dividing the title as it will stop the player from crashing. I believe if the recorder has the feature to divide a title then I should be able to use it and not have to pussyfoot around it.

Anyhow, rant over and thanks for the input.
Best wishes.

 

[shadieb]

Well, I got my Panny back and it is working great. Nothing was lost on the hard drive and I have to give Multi Region Magic 10 out of 10 for getting the recorder back to me so fast.
According to the paperwork that was returned with the recorder it has had a software upgrade. I just hope it doesn't have the same problem dividing titles in the future, especially after the warranty runs out (fingers crossed). I am still tempted to buy a new recorder from a different manufacturer just in case.

 

[peck2000]

I took a refund from Comet and bought another E85 from Richer Sounds (£200 up on that deal!). The replacement machine's just started crashing whenever I try dubbing to a DVD-R on anything other than high speed. So back this one goes too.

I had the same problem with mine. Turned out it was the brand of DVD-R I was using. Switching to another brand cured the problem. So now I use my cheap DVD-R brand for dubbing in High Speed and a more expensive Sony DVD-R for when I want to dubb a longer movie in FR ...

peck2000