Old dvd recorders like the panasonic DMR-E20

[Jaymich]

Does anybody out there have a panasonic E20? Well I have had this unit for 3 years now and have recorded about 2000 discs. Well as of late the unit has a hard time reading DVD-R discs when you have recorded something, but have not yet finalized the disc yet. It seems like the only way I can fix the problem is by taking the unit apart. After I reassemble the unit it work great for a few weeks before the problem starts again. Yes it sounds like the unit might be dirty, but it seems like if would be good for more than a couple weeks after a cleaning. Does anybody know a solution to this problem.

On a side note my unit can not use 8X discs. Is this the same for everybodies unit?

[musher70]

I have a panny E-50, and habe no problems
with any 8x discs yet....
Use DVD-RAM most of the time
and have tried 3x there
and no problems//
never switch back to -r
and i hate +r's, so theres
that...

[dafoe]

What are you doing to the unit after you "take it apart"?
I've had an E-30 since they first came out and I've never had any problems with it.

However, I hardly use it anymore now that I have the HS2 unit. I just kept it because I obviously wasn't going to get a fair amount for it on Ebay.

I usually use cheap 4x discs in the E30 and save the 8x discs for my PC. So I'm not sure if I've ever used an 8x in the e30.

I would check out Ebay. The E30 is very outdated and is being sold for nothing. You can find them for $75-$150. Better yet, I would upgrade to a recorder with a HD.

Good luck.

[handyguy]

An e20 writes @ 1x, so you don't need 8x disks. Get some Accus from meritline.

If you want e20 topics, seach the dvd recorder forum for 'e20'.

[samijubal]

Try better discs. The only time I had that problem with the E20 was when a I got about 8-10 series episodes on a disc, once in awhile it wouldn't read the disc. After opening and closing it would read the second time. Mine died after about that many discs, maybe even less.

[tomwil]

I have three (3) Panasonic DMR-E20's that are used most everyday and rarely give me any problems. The only problems I occasionally have are with the cheap discs from CompUSA. If I ever notice a tracking or reading problem, I just insert a DVD lens cleaning disc and that is all it takes to correct the problem. And, all three recorders take good quality 8X discs just fine.

The only other problem I had was when I recorded a DVD on my Panasonic DMR-E60, and tried to finalize it on one of my DMR-E20s. Apparently, those recorders use different internal recording formats, and the disc could not be finalized on either machine after the attempt, although could still be played on any of the recorders.

I just also wanted to mention that finding good quality 1X media is almost impossible now ... most are almost always multispeed rated now.

[handyguy]

I only put disks that are in carts in my E30. This keeps dust from ever getting on a disk. Been using the same disks for 20 months.

[samijubal]

The Panasonic recorders do seem to prefer RAM discs. They work pretty good with DVD-R, they are excellent with RAM. When my E-20 started failing finalizing DVD-R discs, it would still work fine with RAM discs.