miscellaneous DMR-E30 questions

[izgoblin]

Hello all.

I'm new to this board, but have read quite a bit in this forum since yesterday. I bought a Panasonic DMR-E30 back in December, and have a couple of questions. My unit was manufactured in September 2002.

1) I've read here that units made prior to Oct. 2002 had "firmware problems". Can anyone elaborate on this? Is newer firmware available and easily updateable, or am I screwed just because I got an older model?

2) Does anyone have any links to technical information on this model, or can they briefly explain the technology used? I am very curious how this unit works. What I don't understand is that with computer CD writers, video must first be encoded before burning, which takes a long time in itself. How does the DMR-E30 then burn the video in seemingly real-time? My only theory is that perhaps it has a large amount of internal RAM in which it first puts small amounts of A/V data into and subsequently encodes. Then it must burn that small amount of data to DVD-R before starting another section. Am I on the right track or no?

The reason I came to this forum is because I had been successfully burning DVD-Rs to their max capacity using Memorex ver. 2.0 DVD-Rs. (Every now and then I'd have a small problem, but reasons for this have been covered elsewhere in this forum.) Suddenly, none of the discs I would burn would work, meaning at approx. 1 hour through a 90-minute film on FR mode, the picture would break up completely on any DVD player. On the DMR-E30, attempts at reading the disc could result in U11 on the display after taking much longer to read than successful burns.

I am, from info provided here, under the theory that I've gotten stuck with crappy Memorex discs that may have been made by a manufacturer other than whoever made the ones I had such great luck with. I am awaiting some Accus to see if I have better luck. Because I at first couldn't comprehend a whole slew of DVD-Rs being bad (I've made about 7 coasters in a row), I took the unit in to Panasonic for warranty service. Oddly enough, they replaced the DVD-RAM drive in the unit. I suspected this meant they found and acknowledged a problem, but when I got it back, my next disc was a coaster with similar results.

So far I haven't tried anything other than Memorex's, so I hope when I try an Accu that I'll at least burn one successful disc, proving that my problem was indeed bad media all the time.

Anyway, if the problem mentioned above does not sound like bad media to anyone familiar with this model, please let me know so I can prepare myself for a potential disappointment. I love this unit (despite being ripped off for a $649 "sale" price at Best Buy), and would really like to be burning DVDs again!

[Erwin]

Have you tried Verbatim, TDK, or Samsung BeAlls?

[izgoblin]

Nope - Memorex is all I tried so far only because I had no idea that once a brand works fine it could possibly suck later.

I've read mixed reviews of Verbatim discs here, so if you've had minimal or no problems with TDK discs in the DMR-E30, they may be the next thing I try. But I can tell you one thing - once I figure out what works fine, I'm not buying any more 10 packs and risking changes in manufacturing. I'm gonna buy myself a nice 100-disc spindle so I have plenty of known good discs around.

Has anyone here provided feedback to Memorex since they apparently are known for offering sucky media? Seems to me that might be useful to them, and helpful to others like me who would never expect such garbage at $3 per disc.

[Erwin]

Memorex was the "one" brand I didn't even give a second thought because I read over a hundred reviews on the internet that gave warnings about their DVD-Rs. I have been through 45 Verbatims without any problems so far. I haven't heard one bad thing about TDK's DVD-Rs. Yeah, stick with one good brand.

[mkelley]

My Panasonic is notoriously picky when it comes to media -- that was one of the reasons I switched to using a computer DVD burner (but I still use the Panasonic for burning non-critical things).

I can't say I've had any problems with Memorex, but I've had problems with just about every other sort. My feeling about the Panasonic is that the higher the price the more likely it will work (unlike my Sony burner, which digests everything I've tried, including > $1 media).

The Panasonic encodes in real time like a lot of other hardware encoders. It does a very good job, but it has nothing to do with memory. Dedicated hardware encoders use a chip that has the encoding logic built in. You can buy similar products for your computer (but it's not a good idea if you intend to edit your movies before putting them on a disk, as editing MPEGs is a very bad thing to do).

[davideck]

I recently purchased two five packs of Memorex DVD-Rs which were faulty. They would only burn at 1X, looked cloudy when complete, and could not be recognized by any DVD player I have. I exchanged them for two new packs, both of which were fine. Something real screwy is going on at Memorex!

[ejai]

I use TDK ONLY!

I've tried Memorex and it was the worst of the bunch, I've also tried Accu and it wasn't much better than Memorex.

One main observatiion concerning your problem is one of the reasons I keep telling people to really check out most of these disks they create in other players. I thought the disks I made with Accu and DVDPro were great until I gave them to several friends to play on their players and they didn't work well at all.

I also bought 2 new DVD players (one is a portable) and they had the same problem playing those disks. Just like everyone else I would like to buy cheap media, but they playback problems are not worth the hassle.

TDK DVD-Rs played in every player I tried them in with no problems.

ej

[mkelley]

ejai,

That's good advice about checking the disks you make out in various players. However, you should be aware (and you probably are) that even the best media made with the best burners will still fail to play in a certain percentage of DVD players even if those players are rated for burnable media, and even if those players will play other burned disks.

It's just the nature of the state of the art right now there are all these odd inconsistencies. I have five DVD players, all of various makes, and I cannot tell you how many combinations there are of what disks they will and will not play. The one that consistenly plays *anything* is the cheapest -- the old $69 Apex. The one that is the most finicky is also the most expensive (my Pioneer -- just ironic I guess).

If I run a verify process on the disks I burn I find it a very reliable predicter of whether that media will be playable in most machines, but you can't do this for the Panasonic standalone, of course. To add confusion to this issue, I've even burnt disks on the Panasonic that were playable everywhere else -- just not the Panasonic (try and figure *that* one out).

A few years from now I'm sure this will all be behind us but in the meantime it will always be a crapshoot anytime you try a disk out on a new machine.

[scottymac]

Most Panny DMR owners (me too LOVE MY E30!!!) recommend Samsung BeAlls for the best combination of multi-brand compatibility, quality and price.

[ejai]

mkelley,

I agree, I'll be glad when this mess is ironed out.

ej

[Quigonsean]

I have a Panasonic DVD-RAM/R pc drive, and Emtech disks work great.

Memorex's problem is they don't make their dvd discs. They sub out to the absolute cheapest bid for the ammount they are ordering at the time. They are then labled and packaged as Memorex. So you usually end up paying $3.00-$3.50 a disc for sub generic with a brand name label on it.

"Some DVD's are made in the same factory (but can still be different in quality!!)
Manufacturers like PANASONIC, MAXELL and PIONEER don't rely on other sources and make their own DVD's
But MEMOREX for example buy their supplies from different sources, depending on how cheap they can deliver.
This will not result in a stable and reliable product as user experience and test result prove!"

Read the whole thing here btw it is from a forum on the dmr-30 http://www.thewholewideweb.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=167

I hope this helps someone.

Sean Ward