Panasonic DMR-E30 Unfinished Disc Help Needed

[inabind]

Many years ago I owned the Panasonic DMR-E30 and successfully converted my VHS video to it of our family movies. On two particular times though, I was not successful because the video clips I had burned to a TDK DVD-R 2x 4.7 GB disc and a Panasonic DVD-RAM 4.7 GB rewritable disc were both longer than each disc allowed, so they wouldn't finalize. I didnt worry too much though becuase I could still view the contents whenever i wanted on my Panasonic DMR E30. So I carried around the unfinalized discs putting off fixing it, but in 2010 we were robbed and my Panasonic DMR E30 was stolen. Now, i have 2 unfinalized discs of precious memories but when I put them in other DVD players or our Windows and Mac computers they show as blank discs. I have looked on other sites to find old machine, but haven't located one yet. Does someone know if there is a compatible Panasonic model I can buy that would read what is on the discs and finish the job? Or any other ideas to help me bring back these memories would be surely appreciated. I am in a bind and based on other threads know this site has the top experts to help me solve this. Thanks!

[jjeff]

Any Panasonic DVDR will finalize your discs IF they were not damaged by the recorder that recorded them. If they are damaged your only choice is to play them realtime in a Panasonic DVDR and record the line out to another DVDR(or PC with a capture card) or better yet would be to try a PC program like ISObuster http://www.isobuster.com/
BTW even if a program is longer than a DVD will hold, the recording will just stop, it should not damage the disc. If you were not able to finalize your discs on the recorder that recorded them it's my guess the discs were damaged during recording.
Good luck! PS I've never used ISObuster but have read it's basically meant for what you are trying to do, for my unfinalizable discs I've used the reatime copy method which does involve a reencode but generally doesn't drop the quality much if you use something like SP or better.

[inabind]

Thanks very much! I will give that a try. The discs were not damaged so I hope that works!

[jman98]

Funny how it took 2 years for this to suddenly put you "in a bind". And for the record, you do not have to pretend to be a woman (I love that one - it's SO obvious when men do that) or tell us just how super incredibly important something is to you to get help. Just posting and asking for help is enough. Plenty of people here are sincerely willing to help you without you going through a lot of drama to justify the request.

[jjeff]

Thanks very much! I will give that a try. The discs were not damaged so I hope that works!

The discs may not look damaged but Panasonic DVDRs have a nasty habit of corrupting unfinalized DVDs when the spindle becomes dirty. Again no way to tell if the disc is corrupt by looking at it, you only find out once you try and finalize it, if it tells you it's a non-recordable disc or unfinalizable, it's corrupt

[inabind]

Update - I just found another Panasonic DMR DVR, Model E75V on Craigslist for $15, bought it, and can confirm jjeff was right, the unfinished Disc will work in another Panasonic model. Problem solved. Thanks jjeff for the help.

[jjeff]

Very nice find
The E75v is one of Panasonics nicer combos. It was Panasonics first combo and had the very handy dual displays, meaning one display was for VHS and the other for DVD. I've been kind of looking for a used Craigslist E75v in my market but have yet to see one in several years of looking and I wouldn't have imagined getting it for what you did!
Your E30 was one of Panasonics first DVDRs(3rd model year '02) while the E75 is a couple years newer at '04. You should also notice the E75v gives you thumbnails for each title whereas the E30 only did a list display.
If you need the manual I have a link in the following thread for most Panasonic DVDRs, just click the word LINK next to your DVDR model.
http://www.avsforum.com/t/1134909/panasonic-dvd-recorder-us-models-years-produced-and-features/0_100