Panasonic DMR E80H question Display DVD videos on all TVs

[LadyTrek]

Hi all! I love my Panasonic DVR recorder! I have successfully recorded TV shows and burn my first DVD that I was able to play on a 7+ year old standard DVD player. I have even figured out how to set up my laptop via L2 port to display home and other videos from my notebook to my 51 inch HDTV TV screen--and even recorded some of those vids to the Panasonic HDD drive with great results!

Here are my two issues/questions I would like to address here to anyone familiar with the E80H DMR or owners of this DVD recorder model:

Issue #1) My first attempt to burn a DVD was a partial success! I can select the recorded TV show from a menu on the burned DVD and it will play on my 4:3 standard TV but my video does not fill the entire TV screen and is displayed as small vid in the center of the TV screen. I cannot make it full screen on my standard TV set or via the standard DVD player. I feel it is a problem with my initial setup/configuration of my Panasonic recorder (obviously a newbie/operator error on my part!) but for the life of me--I don't understand all that techno lingo about TV Modes 4:3 480I, 4:3 480P, 16:9 480I and 16:9 480P. I read the very brief descriptions in the Panasonic users guide, (as clear as mud! ). I can sorta get around this if I play the DVD on my widescreen TV by selecting Full screen mode on that 51 inch TV but the video looks stretched out! What settings should I modify on the Panasonic so ALL recorded videos will display properly/ the same on any TV screen regardless of a 4:3 or 16:9 TV format?

My goal is to share home and TV show videos with my family and friends but need guidance so I don't waste a spindle of blank DVDs trying to figure out the right configurations myself! You can post here or PM me with some suggestions or options to try out!

Issue #2) I can get the DVD recorder to work from L1 and L2 ports but I cannot figure out how to set up the Panasonic to auto detect all the cable TV channels in order to set the timer menu to use a specific channel. The only options I have on the Timer Recorder menu are for L1 and L2. The Panasonic users guide is not very user friendly (clear as mud--LOL I said that already) -- I try what the booklet suggests but I get stuck when steps taken for setup don't work as outlined. The manual does not have a user friendly troubleshooters guide for newbies like me! Any suggestions?

I can provide digital pics of my cable connections from the Panasonic to the HDTV cable box to the Sony HDTV if that will help anyone that wants to assist me in figuring out my two situations above!

I appreciate any responses!

OBTW If anyone wants to know more about projecting videos from a notebook via L2 connections for displaying on a TV and recording to HDD on the Panasonic recorder, please feel free to PM me and I will share what I figured out on my own! :P I have a HP Pavilion ze4400 notebook and my TV is a Sony 51 inch HDTV widescreen.

Thanxs

LadyTrek

[oldfart13]

There was a visual guide posted to the forums here but there are many more users and full guides for that model at:

www.avsforum.com