Not happy with crappy tuner on Panasonic DMR-E55S

[Tubescreamer]

I bought a new DMR-E55. I did some research before buying this unit and it seemed to be the best for the money. The tuner degrades my DISH picture. Are they all this way or did I get a bad unit?
No zoom and no subtitle button on the remote. Am I expecting too much from a $250 recorder?

[tekkieman]

I've been researching recorders for the last week or so, and it seems that tuners are the biggest complaint. If the picture quality is degraded on captures through the tuner, have you tried using the composite output of the dish box to the composite input of the recorder?

[spiderman2k1]

Use composite or S-video it will give a better picture then your tuner any way. I never use my tuner. S-Video is the best you can get for recording right now.

[mracer]

The E55 has one of the better tuners available in a DVD recorder. Your problem is probably something else, perhaps a bad cable or just the normal degradation of the ch. 3 or 4 connection method. Like the others said, you can start down the right path by not using the tuner to record from your dish reciever, use s-video.

[Tubescreamer]

I'm running my dish straigt through line one. I shouldn't need S video but I can give it a try. I have to use my tuner if I want to record from my Dish. If S video doesn't stop the degrading this recorder will most likley be returned and I will wait a few years until they can make a better tuner.

I just don't get why they can't make a decent tuner. How many years have they made tuners for VCRs? I've never had a problem with my VCRs tuner degrading my Dish picture. and I'm not using S video

[handyguy]

Well, we do have a lot of topics on satellite dishes & the Panasonics & what people did.

[wulf109]

The tuner in a standalone of any kind is never going to be as good as the direct inputs. S-video will yield slightly better results than the RCA jack.
I assume your using channel 3 on the recorders tuner to get the RF output from your Dish reciever? If so you also losing stereo audio.

[Tubescreamer]

The tuner in a standalone of any kind is never going to be as good as the direct inputs. S-video will yield slightly better results than the RCA jack.
I assume your using channel 3 on the recorders tuner to get the RF output from your Dish reciever? If so you also losing stereo audio.

I'm using input line 1 for the DISH. Do you think that would be a problem?
Are the inputs different from the tuner?

From doing a search it looks like them term for my problem is pixellation. That's what the Panasonic does when watch Dish through the line 1 input. I just removed the cables and hooked them up directly to the TV. Much better picture now. I never had this problem running it through line 1 of my VCR.

[Megahurts]

Tubescreamer

I believe what you are seeing is the effects of second generation MPEG decoding. The first being the Dish reciever the second, the DVD Recorder. Do you have this problem when recording an over the air signal?

A VCR records analog to analog which is why it has no added pixellation.

Regards,

Chas

[wulf109]

Are you 'daisy-chaining" the output of your satelite reciever thru the DVD recorder? Most Dish recievers have,S-video out,video out(RCA),L&R audio out(RCA),and a channel 3/4 switchable output. You should send the S-video and audio jacks to your DVD recorder and use channel 3 output for watching on your TV,unless your TV has more than one pair of direct inputs.
I don't own a standalone DVD recorder. I assume it's tuner is not capable of tuning satelite channels directly,you need to feed it the channel 3 output of the DVD recorder?

[samijubal]

There is degradation of the satellite signal when connected to a DVD recorder, that's the way it is, no way around it. I tried an E-55 and it added alot of compression look to the picture, worse than the E-10 and E-20 did. I took it back and got the JVC, mistake. It didn't have as much of that compression look as the E55, but had faint lines in the picture that were far worse than the compression look of the E55. When using Dish Network I couldn't see any difference between composite and s-video whatsoever, they looked exactly the same. If you are using a line input, you're not using the tuner.

[sync]

No device, other than a Dish receiver, is capable of tuning a Dish signal. If you are using coax output from Dish you won't get a good picture.

[Captain Satellite]

You're not using the recorder tuner if you're going into line one but I think you've figured that out.

[bobaber]

My DMR-E85H Pannasonic specifically says use L-3 input for cable or Satellite for better picture quality. I don't know if this also applys to the E55 series.

[tgettys]

I just purchased a DMR-E55S today and also have Dish. The manual says you need to run the Dish signal to the DVD recorder via the coax in, but I have it hooked to the line 1 in as suggested above.

My question is this - can I do timed recordings using the line 1 in and bypassing the coax? That way I can set Dish to tune a program at a set time and tell the DVD recorder to automatically come on at that time and record. I haven't tried this, but it looks like the timed recordings require you to specify a channel to record from, which I assume will be using the input from the RF.

Thanks.

[KTH]

tgettys,
Yes, you can tell the DMR-E55S to record on a specified LINE IN in a Timer recording.

1) Press the "PROG/CHECK" button on the remote to enter the timer set mode.

2) With "NEW TIMER PROGRAM" highlighted in yellow press the "ENTER" button on the remote.

3) The "CHANNEL" set option should be highlighted in "YELLOW". Now press the "UP" or "DOWN" arrow buttons (Buttons located above & below the "ENTER" button) until the LINE IN that you want to record from is selected.

4) Now press the "RIGHT" arrow key (Located on the Right Side of the "ENTER" button) to set the record Date, On & Off times & Speed.


I think you can figure the rest out.

[tgettys]

KTH-
Excellent.
I will try it today. Thanks for your help.
Tod