Do any of you EH60 owners have it connected to a Panasonic TH37/42/50PE50 plasma TV by any chance? As if you do I have some questions on how best to set up the connections!

Hi Gavin

I think I understand what you are saying.

The only way the recorder could work as you say would be for it to record everything as 16:9 anamophic wide screen. Then the whole picture has been stored. Then when you change the TV aspect ratio setting in the connection menu. It would process the image eg adding in the black top and bottom for letter box.

If the recorder, recorded the broadcast mpeg transport stream then this would be possible but I think we are all agreed that it doesn't. It simply feeds the digital tuner output in to the mpeg encoder. This is why the subtitles are permanent and have to be viewed to be recorded and can't be switched off.

I think the widescreen flag issue is more to do with the format of a DVD-R video disc used by panasonic. DVD-RAM and DVD-RW appear to use the Video Mode (VR) DVD-Video format. DVD-R discs use the conventional DVD Video format with a video-ts folder.

I have only written one DVD-R with my panasonic unit. The video was one program an hour in length in xp mode. The disc was dubbed at normal speed rather than high speed. It video has been split into 4 vob files of about 1GB each.

When dubbing several recordings in high speed using DVD-RAM it would appear they are combined together into one .VRO file.

One thing to note is that when recordings are made using "record for high speed dubbing" set to ON the wide screen flag is missing from all recordings on the hdd even if you transfer them to DVD-RAM.

Regards

Phil

Hi Comic and Phil

OK. It looks as if I am the one under the misapprehension.
Had I a widescreen set I might have reached this same conclusion sooner.

Apologies for forcing you to drag it all out again.

Before we leave this subject altogether, have you noticed how when starting some [ High speed ] dubs, a message is returned saying words to the effect of: "Please wait whilst the material is 'optimised' which may take up to three minutes"

What is happening there? ... because I thought it was simple file transfer that was going on in this mode ?

That only happens sometimes. Other times the dubbing starts immediately.
I've recently been dubbing to DVD-R's and to DVD-RW's and it may be that this is the reason for the difference.
At the time I've not been concentrating enough to observe and note which is which.
I will in future.

Gavin

Sorry mates

One further point ... How do we then explain Medic45's experiences as he described in posting number 232?

Gavin

Sorry - Not in my case ... but I note that Plasma set has component input so a triple phono lead link would appear to be your best option.

Gavin

Yep, I am going to connect by component but I was wondering if I connect it by scart as well what would happen as ideally I want to get the plasma to switch over to the input from the the EH60 automatically when hitting play on the EH60 remote (but for it to take the video from the component cables - probably impossible but would be great). I guess there would also be some benefits from having scart as well due to the Q-link stuff?

Also re. the component connection i wanted to know whether progressive scan should be enabled on the EH60 or whether you get better results if the TV handles the progressive scan processing as I believe it has the ability to do.

Perhaps we need more info here. Particularly what settings for display ration is his Panny set to when recording and dubbing. Also, is he referring just to widescreen pictures / what happens when he records or dubs a true 4:3 picture.

Unfortunately I don't have a widescreen set so can't test out what happens with one.

Also the TV may have some auto formatting that it does in some way. I know a friend who has a widescreen set that streches the sides of a 4:3 picture to fill the widescreen so that you dont get pillarboxed pictures.

Here's some info that might help.

I have a panasonic TX-W28R4 widescreen TV. The TV is a CRT one and has the following aspect ratios:-

Auto
4:3
Zoom
16:9
Just

It doesn't have 14:9 but the models which came out about a year later did.

I usually have it in Auto aspect ratio mode.

Now when viewing an anamophic widescreen recording from the DMREH60D with "Record for High Speed Dub" set to OFF it will expand the picture to 16:9 and will display WIDE on the screen indicating it has received a video signal with a wide screen flag.

With "Record for High Speed Dub" set to ON it will leave the anamophic widescreen picture as 4:3 and I have to change the screen size manually to make the anamophic widescreen picture 16:9.

Now, my dad has his 60D wired up to a Sharp LCD tv in auto mode. The picture will always fill the screen and you cannot tell whether it has received a widescreen signal or not.

I expect medic45's Sony has an Auto mode which acts similarly to my dads Sharp TV rather than my older panasonic TV.

Regards

Phil

That sounds reasonable.

Gavin

The behaviour of the TV is difficult to predict. Component connection has no signal lines like scart but it would be entirely possible that the TV had an auto-sensing arrangement to switch to that input when there is a signal on it [ Ideally optional ]...There is a note in the EH60 manual that says: " The properties of the Component video sockets are dependent on the TV set or screen."

Some points that may have impact:
There is a setting [ EH60] for how AV1 outputs are configured.

1 - Video [ with component ]
2 - S-Video [ With component ]
3 - RGB [ without component ]

In other words, when set to option 3 there is no component output available from the sockets.

There is another note which says : If the EH60 is connected via the Video out, S-Video out or AV1 socket , output takes place in in the interlace format regardless of settings.

Re Progressive scan, theoretically it should be better and should be enabled on the EH60 .. Yes.

A further point on your first question. It may be worth using the Panasonic Customer support system here:Pansonic Support.
If you fill in the drop down boxes [ specify Plasma panels- Home ] this should get you are targeted enquiry with a good chance of a meaningful response to your specific enquiry... Good luck.

Please share any results on the forum

Regards

Gavin

Another point.

Note from manual:

"The progrssive aspect ratio is 16:9.
DVD Video with an aspect of 16:9 will be displayed properly, However, video with an aspect of 4:3 will be stretched right and left.
If it is possible to adjust your TV for progressive images, set the Progeressive setting to 'ON' "

One would expect the TV you mention to be compatible in this regard, being Panasonic also ... but there's no guarantee.

Gavin

Thanks a lot for your help Gavin!

I bought the DMREH60 multi-region with Freeview from Richer Sounds about three weeks ago. Overall, I'm pleased with it – largely because it appears to do more or less what I hoped it would, and especially because it set itself up to run in conjunction with my B&O 4200 TV without this technophobe needing to do anything difficult.

However, I've met two problems, one not serious, the other causing me some concern.

Let's deal with the not-serious one first: I can't find any means of accessing the red button "interactive" function on digital channels. There's nothing in the manual as far as I can see, and none of the red-coloured buttons on the remote act in the way that the red button on my Sky remote used to do. As I said, not serious, just a nuisance (it's a function I might want to use maybe a couple of times in a month, if that).

More worrying is the following. I recorded two films back to back onto the hard disk, and now I want to separate them using the well-documented "Diivide" function. The manual tells me to use Fast-Forward in the Partial Edit view, to locate the point at which to make the division. However, if I crank up Fast-Forward to halfway or faster, it then does not react to pressing Pause, Play or Stop, but instead careers on at full speed to the end of the recording. Am I doing it wrong, or is this a known glitch?

All advice will be gratefully received.

Best...

Max

Well I can assure you that mine performs both of these tasks without fault.

Pressing the red button to access text content or interactive features has worked perfectly. I recently tried it on the interactive game at the end of the Egypt series that is on BBC1 without any problems. It's on one more time before the series finishes so check it out then as interactive content like that is pretty rare anyway on Freeview.

As for dividing stuff up and fast-forwarding it also has worked for me without fault and I have used this feature quite a lot.

I would suggest that you check out that your machine is picking up the remote signal. The place where the machine picks up the signals is actually the REC button on the machine - it's actually a window for the IR beam to pass through. Unfortunately as noted elsewhere this is right to one side of the deck and if you are aiming at it from somewhere to the left hand side of the machine it can cause reception problems.

Failing that your machine or remote may be faulty. Before sending the machine back I would however recommend resetting the machine to default and shipping conditions, reformatting the HDD and re-autoinstalling the digital channels. This should clear any temporary bug problems and anything remaining may be user uncurable.

Hi Max

First , I can't comment on the red button issue, it's not something Ive ever used, nor would I ever want to, but I'll look into it and report if I find anything.

Secondly, the FF problem. No I've not heard of this problem before. Is this repeatable ? Does it always happen? ...and does it happen with other recordings or only this one? What mode was it recorded in ?

First route for possible 'software contol glitches' like this would be a re-initialisation. Second route ...Complete hard reset.

A small point incidentally .... You referred to the 'Partial Edit' view which, although the navigation behaves in the same way, is not the 'Divide title' view which is what you should use to do what you want to achieve. [ Also accessible from the Sub menu/edit route].

Sorry I cannot be more immediately helpful or encouraging.

Regards

Gavin

Hi, and thanks for your swift response.

I don't blame you re. the red button. Very occasionally Ch4 will augment the content of one of its programmes via the "interactive" button, and that can be worth following up. But not much else.

The Fast-Forward anomaly: first, yes, you're right about Delete and Partial Edit. The problem made itself apparent in Delete, but I also reproduced it in Partial Edit which I used to top-and-tail the recording. No, I haven't tried it with other recordings, largely because this is the only long one that I've made so far. It was recorded via scart through AV2 from a self-recorded videotape, in SP mode. (Trying to copy my outstanding video stuff before the VCR finally expires.)

I'll try the re-initialisation method, and if necessary a hard reset (these are in the manual, I assume? I'm not at home now to check), and if all else fails the unit is within Richer Sounds' 30-day exchange period, so it will go back on Saturday.

Thanks again for your input.

Max

The only thing I can remember being "interactive" on Channel 4 was Big Brother. You're not refering to stuff that's exclusively interactive on Sky are you? I'm not sure if you are aware but there is a lot more of that on the Sky versions of the channels than on Freeview.

Also the way I normally have "top and tailed" programmes is to go into "Chapter view" and create new chapters at the start and end of the programe and delete the chapters before and after it. This seemed the easiest way to me and was also achieved using the fast forward - pause - jog to exact frame - create - play - fast forward to next point - pause - jog etc without any problems with the machine not responding or anything.

It would be a help if I could identify the red button!

I'll certainly try the "chapter" method in future. At first, the manual's terminology is a bit daunting, and I can only take in so much tech-talk at one sitting.

Thanks for you replies, CSS.

Max

Is it the case, then, that, say Five via Freeview is different to Five via Sky? I.e., different versions?

Max

The red button is the one near the bottom part of the remote to the left of the row that goes red green yellow blue.

If you select BBCnews24 (channel 80) wait for about 15 seconds or so then a logo should appear in the top right of your screen that says "Press i" in red. Press that red button and you should enter the text service if it's working correctly.

I don't have Sky so I can't be sure of the exact differences but I do know that there are certainly more interactive features on Sky. I think that it's only going to be the interactive/text services caried that have any differences because of the available data stream(s) are greater on Sky. If you go to Sky news on Freeview it will say that you can access Sky active and select from many news screens but that's only on Satellite. A lot of programmes will tell you that "if you have digital satellite you can access interactive" but not all do this even when it's only available on satellite.

Strictly speaking there can be no such thing as 'Interactive' using a DTT receiver such as this, because there is no 'upload ' route as there is with sky, where interactive feedback is sent down the phone line.
There is no route for your feedback with this system , so the best it could be is simple additional information.

Going back to your navigation problem...

I will be very surprised indeed if you have an actual problem with your machine...especially of such a specific nature.

There is often processing delays with remote instructions, and they are sometimes worse than others.

Also, as Comic pointed out, there is a good chance that the unit was simply not receiving the instruction from the remote.

Another point to consider: One would not expect the remote batteries to be suspect yet , but it is possible it has been sat on with a button permanently pressed - or under a cushion etc ... thus draining the batteries ...
When batteries get low and reach a cusp point they can produce misleading syptoms. They can produce a sequence of instructions with no problem [ such as pushing fast forward many times ] but the pulse current drains required to do that can then make the battery voltage dip just below the working threshhold of the remote, so that the next instruction [ Play , pause etc ] fails.

In other words you think the remote is working fine , because it just has... but it isn't. .... Then after a pause the batteries recover and the remote seems normal again.
Its a longshot but it IS possible.

Apologies for being obscure earlier.
By reinitialisation I simply meant turning the machine off and then back on again ... This 'reboots' the machine.
By hard reset I meant removing all power from the machine and waiting 10 - 20 seconds before reconnection.
Lastly there is resetting the machine to shipping condition as Comic suggested.

But have heart. Experiment with navigation on other recordings . You can do that without harming them provided you dont finally comit any erases or divides etc.

I'm reasonably sure you will find the machine is ok. Good Luck

Regards

Gavin

New batteries: works a treat
Red button: an equal treat

Fuller response tomorrow...

Thanks both

Max

Excellent news!

Sleep well

Yes my set does have a auto mode but, I always have it set to 'WIDE'. in auto mode I find it will occasionally switch to 4/3 modes.
So its quite possible that the Wide mode is somehow filling the picture out, which if that is the case, its doing it remarkable well because the aspect appears smack on and quality is superb. One is still able see the visual size changes if I select zoom or 14/9 or 16/9 or 4/3. The Wide option does'nt appear to be changing the aspect or zooming, but obviously it must be.

Mike