Panasonic DMR HS2 and RGB

ramjam55

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Hi,

I've recently bought a DMR-HS2 and I'm hppy with it, however I'm having some issues with the RGB signal. I have my Sky box connected from the TV out (RGB) to the AV2 RGB in on the HS2 and then from the AV1 on the HS2 into my plasma. When I have the AV1 and AV2 set to RGB on the HS2 and the AV2 mode as decoder (it just gives a blank screen in any other mode). When the HS2 is in standby, SKY gives a RGB picture which is not to bad, but when I switch the HS2 on the Sky picture degrades and looks to be outputing in composite (flicker around the edges on menus). The menus on the HS2 are fine and so it's outputing RGB from the HS2 but not from Sky. Any ideas why this is happening ? Maybe a config issue ? I'm using good scart leads (QED and IXOS).
 
It should be set to normal, not decoder as otherwise you can't record from the built in analogue tuner.

It sounds like your sky box is sending a video signal not rgb, this is usually as a result of having pressed the tv button on the digibox remote, witch switches the box from rgb to video and results in a black screen.
 
HI,

I don't have any analogue devices connected to my system. I have a netgem and a Sky box so everything is digital and records via RGB scart. I know that the sky box is outputting RGB as I've checked the settings and I can tell visually thats its an RGB signal. As I mentioned, the picture quality when the HS2 is switched to standby is fine, it's only when it on that the quality drops. It's the same for my Manhattan STB, so it's the HS2 thats causing this picture degredation.
 
JUst a thought but the hs2 doesn't pass the signal through, it processes it ready for recording even when just on and viewing a channel without recording, hence all the threads relating to out of sync sound which is ok when you view the recording itself.
Have you got the recorder set to a low resolution, in which case you may be seeing the equivalet of an ep or lp recording? Even sp will not be quite as good as an original rgb connection passed strsaight through, you would probably need to go to xp to see no obvious quality reduction.
I cant actually easily do this with mine as it always has timer recordings planned, hence when you switch it on you just get a grey screen saying that timer recording is set, so I would not have noticed a degredation in quality.

All that really matters is the recording quality, if this is ok why would you have the unit on when not recording with all the sound sync issues anyway.
 
The HS2 does pass RGB through without problems.Although some people seem to be having the same problem as the original post,you should be able to tell that the HS2 is recording in RGB.Unlike Philips recorders which show the reduced picture quality before recording of SP,LP etc,the Panasonic range do not.Even if you go to record in LP,the picture from the source will be the same as the original,even while recording
 
There was a thread a week or so ago detailing a similar problem, which was correctable by switching the AV2 input on the HS2 from RGB back to composite ('Video' on the menus?), then back to RGB again. Mine showed the same problem last week (tizzy menus), and doing this corrected it. I think I did a power cycle in the middle (ie before changing back to RGB again), and it's been fine since.
 
So the problem could be that although AV2 is set to RGB it is infact still in composite video. I'll give it a go with a power cycle in between and see what happens. It does appear that the RGB signal from Sky is not being passed through when the HS2 is on, but is when its in standby.
In response to why I have it on when it's not recording, is so I can look through the sky tv guide and program the HS2 at the same time. Maybe picky wanting crisp menus just for this. but when I've spent 3k on a plasma screen and 500 quid on a HS2 I want the best picture quality I can get.
I called Panasonic yesterday and I'm still waiting for a call back 24 hours later. Not very good customer service in my opinion.
 
I have the same tizzy picture while viewing the EPG althought the program content seems fine. I will also try your suggestion. Thanks. I have to keepswapping between Normal to record channels directly (not very often because I have Sky +) & Decoder to record from Sky (wonder why?)
 
My HS2 was also suffering from this problem. However I have just tried the solution posted by marky_h above and now the sky menus are as crisp as when the HS2 is not being used.

Thanks marky_h

:clap:
 
You should not have to keep changing from 'normal' to 'decoder'.When set to normal you can record your analogue stuff via 1-5 and Sky from AV2
 
At last I've now sorted this out and I get a nice RGB picture even when the HS2 is on. How I did it is still a bit cloudy. I tried what Marky_h suggested but it still gave fuzzy menus. So I kept chopping and changing but no luck, even with power cycles inbetween. Then I reset it back to shipping conditions and tried it, but to no avail. Then I set AV2 to EXT Link 2 which as expected just gave a grey screen, until I pressed the EXT Link button under the front panel and hey presto a RGB picture. I then went back into the menus and changed EXT Link 2 back to decoder and the picture is still in RGB with no fuzzy menus. I have still to do a recording test to make sure it's recording RGB but I can't see there being any problems. HS - nice kit but can be a bit fiddly to get working with RGB. Thanks to all who have replied and offered their suggestions and advice. Much better response than the support clowns at Panasonic.

:smashin:
 

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