Panny E85 Cable Box/DVD/VCR Newbie Set Up Help

[inova1]

Hi again. First I wish to thank everyone who helped in my decision to buy my first dvd recorder/player. I received it yesterday, and hooked it up according to the booklet. Unfortunately the Step 2 (pg 10) for setting up the tv Guide never displayed on my tv to continue "setting up" on TV screen. I also tried hooking it up without the VCR, and couldn't get the Panny to play a dvd--when I push the dvd button on remote nothing showed on tv. To add to my confusion, when the Panny is first turned on, the display reads: please wait, self check, ch1 and GUIDE (eventually GUIDE disappears and P54:33 in its place) and HDD lite in blue. Not sure if the problem is my connection (should this be set to Ch 3?), my cable box/dvd/vcr set up, or perhaps I received a lemon. I'd appreciate help with correct set up (I'm hoping this is the problem), or whatever needs to be done to get me going with this. Right now I have everything set up like this:

Older Cable Box is Time Warner (80 channel without tv guide grid), TV line goes out from box and into "RF in line" of Panny. Cable "out from VHF/UHF" of Panny to "in of VHF/UHF" of TV. The red/white (L/R audio) and yellow (video) in the L1/IN1 section of Panny goes out to the L/R audio/video L1 in the VCR. By the way, I have no splitter. In order to record from the VCR, I turn the cable box to the recorded channel, but set the VCR for channel 3. Thanks in advance and have a good day.

[TeeeRex]

Not sure if you are european - I assume so as the E85 is the european model (E80 US I believe..) - anyway...

Have you not connected any SCART leads to /from the E85 - are you just trying to use the RF connections ?

My recommendations would be to use the best connections possible (Component, SCART, Composite then RF in that order). Connect your cable box to AV2, Video to AV3 and TV to AV1. RF connections should be Aerial -> Cable -> Video -> E85 -> TV

If you only have RF to view, then what you need to do is tune your TV into the E85 using an unused channel - do a scan on your TV or the manual will tell you what UNF channel to look for...

[jim15800]

The e85 is available in both the USA and Uk. For help is setting it up go the www.avsforum.com and search their dvd recorder forum. There are issues with that model working with come cable boxes.

[inova1]

Thanks for the other forum link. I'm located on the eastern coast of US. I just thought there could be another way other than hooking up the VCR between the cable box and DVD--a friend suggested this, and Panasonic's manual notes not too. Have a good day.