Panasonic

[pjblevin]

I have a Panasonic DMR E80HS. I've played some DVD's on this machine, but some have started to break up.......usually at around half-way through the showing. Sometimes I can restart at the beginning, and everything will work out allright......but often not. I took a DVD disc that started breaking up on the Panasonic (around halfway through the video; they never mess up near the beginning), and popped it in my LG DVD Drive on my PC; it played fine, via WMP. I sure need some direction here. Is my Panasonic faulty? If so, what do I do? I know these are a lot of questions, but I just hope that some kind and talented soul will give me some answers.

pjblevin

[ZippyP.]

Are you using good quality disks?

[Synergy]

I took a DVD disc that started breaking up on the Panasonic (around halfway through the video; they never mess up near the beginning), and popped it in my LG DVD Drive on my PC; it played fine, via WMP. I sure need some direction here.

If your HDD has no problem playing back the recordings, only the DVD drive, then this sounds like a symptom of the laser optical/pickup head is failing, and it'll probably get worse and eventually says no disc present.

If you can get it fixed under warranty, that'll be the best solution. If your warranty is expired, then you may want to consider the cost/benefit factor before paying the repair cost out of your own pocket. Good luck.

[pjblevin]

ZippyP: I don't know what you mean by "quality". It was a DVD-r disc copied from my original commercial disc. This was done via my PC-based LG DVD burner (buttressed by "DVD Decrypter & DVD Shrink" software). As you probably know, this is a LEGAL enterprise. So I put the copied DVD into my $500 Panasonic DVR. It proceeded to break up after a time. Having had the same problem with other copied DVD's, I was very irritated about this whole situation. Why is this happening, I'm thinking. Should I call the Panasonic help desk? Google my problem? I didn't know what to do, but a thought kept floating through my mind........'it could be the Panasonic DVR'. Fast forward. I just got back from Wal-Mart, where I bought a Magnavox (can anybody remember that name?) DVD player. I brought it home, hooked it up, and it played my copied DVD perfectly! Wanna know what I paid for it? $39.00. Playback only. I bought the cheapest one they had, just to conclusively prove my suspicion. Wanna know what I think?.........f*** Panasonic, and all the rest of the expensive "high-end" vendors. I'm still gonna keep my $500 Panasonic DVR to copy TiVo downloads to DVD disc, but otherwise, when I watch a DVD on my home entertainment system, I'll use my $39.00 Magnavox.

pjblevin

[ZippyP.]

ZippyP: I don't know what you mean by "quality".

As in not cheap, bargain-basement brand disks. Lousy disks cause the problems you describe.

Read on: http://www.digitalfaq.com/media/dvdmedia.htm

[handyguy]

Your computer dvd drive isnt as picky.

As others mentioned use great media & write at say 4x to test.... the faster you write the more it wobbles....