Panasonic DVD Recorder DMR-EH75V TV Guide listings problem

I have a Panasonic DVD Recorder Model DMR-EH75V. I'm having problems getting the TV Guide listings again. I recently got a new TV, and I noticed that a few days out there were no listings. Then my power went out during a winter storm. I've gone through the set-up (trying different things), and then have left it off for 24 hours. But I'm having no luck. I'm using a cable connecting (with no cable box). The Panasonic website was of no help. Any ideas? Thanks!

Perhaps you can try resetting or restoring the machine to factory default and then leave the unit off for 24 hours.

I use mine with Directv, along with that little G-Link gizmo. I'm not a fan of the TVGuide, especially where that green button is placed on the remote (annoying!) but it seems to be in-tune. I usually just use the "manual recording" function (under scheduler), bypassing the TV Guide button altogether.

From most reviews, I'd say this is the one area (TV Guide) that the EH75 gets tagged the most. Can be irritating/frustrating and I bet Cust Service is usually clueless.

We have an analog tv with cable and had a similar problems with the tv guide. To troubleshoot we rented an digital cable box, but still could not get the tv guide to work.

It turned out that there was an issue with the broadcasting of the tv guide in our area after a storm. The tv guide is typically broadcasted by your local PBS stations. I was told that the problem had been corrected in my area and per the instructions of the pansonic customer service tech (or rep), did a hard reboot of the panasonic, redid the setup process, and the tv guide info appeared the next day. ( btw - we also noticed a problem with the clock being off a few minutes and this process corrected that too)

As a sidenote, I was told that there could be issues with the broadcasting of the tv guide being dropped from analog lineup in certain locations. Anyways, I was advised that I may want to keep the digital cable box in order to be sure that the tv guide service will work in the future.

[I am curious if a digital converter box with a QAM tuner could replace our digital cable box and obtain the tv guide service - We have had some issues with the ir blaster not translating the correct channel to the cable box during programmed recording and only rented the digital cable box in an attempt to get the tv guide working]

We were very impressed by Pansonic's customer service and ability to solve our problem.

AFAIK the digital cable box won't effect whether you get the guide or not. The guide info is transmitted over analog channels now and that's how your EH-75 gets it. The key will be after the analog shutdown and if your cable company will insert the TVGOS signal over their analog CBS channel. Yes in my area anyway CBS is transmitting both the analog and digital TVGOS. It changed from PBS sometime last year I believe.

Thank you for the info jjeff.

I have an almost identical problem. My Panasonic DVR (DMR-EH50) can not load the TV Guide. It's directly connected to cable (not through the TV) to Brighthouse Network (local cable company in Farmington Hills, MI). I've done numerous "hard resets" on the DVR, turned if off overnight, etc. It is able to get the correct channel line-up but no TV Guide. I've sent a note to Panasonic (no reply) and to TV Guilde. Brighthouse tells me that they can't do anything. This began around the 20-25th of December. It has happened before but always come back.

Any ideas/suggestions are greatly appreciated.

I would suggest contacting your local CBS or maybe PBS station to verify they are indeed sending out the TVGOS signal.
For now anyway Brighhouse should be just passing the signal along. If you confirm the signal is OTA then I'd press BH more. They could be stripping it off or somehow not passing it on.
Here's a link to a TVGOS thread on AVS, I think?? I remember reading something about Brighthouse. Many people all over starting to have problems with TVGOS not updating.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=941025

I've got this problem also with my Panasonic Recorder DMR-EH75V, but I believe it is just like jjeff said, It's not the box it's the signal that all of the cable companies have decided to delete from their cables. I think PBS still provides or provided this signal here but COMCAST is only focusing on the DIGITAL signals. I think they don't realize how many people use the Panasonic's or some other brand and don't want to go back 10-15 years and program every 1/2 hour manually without the aid of TV Guide to see what's on. In addition the Cable DVR is only good for about 40 hours of analog and the Panasonic would hold about 80 hours. Both would be significantly reduced when recording HD [maybe just regular digital too] signals versus the older less dense analog signal. Maybe they just want everyone to use only THEIR box and not any others. Sounds like a MONOPOLY.., but we've got more than one of those still running!

Yes, very little incentive for cable systems to care about TVGOS. They'd just as well see you rent their DVR

I love my TV guide on Screen when it is working. When I am channel surfing and find something interesting I can figure out what it is.
I have a Toshiba 27HL95 TV. I have had my TV guide go off about 3 times in three years.
The last time it was off for three weeks, so I tried things. I unplugged the TV and let it sit for an hour. In the menu under "channel add/delete" I reset all the channels to a blank slate. I did this for Ant 1 and Ant 2. Then I went into "channel program" and had the TV rescan for the channels.. Since I only have cable on Ant 1 I did not rescan for ant 2. My theory was that the info. was being sent, but the TV could not find the correct PBS station to "listen" for the information. Anyway, it worked. Cheers.

My Panasonic DMR-EH75V also lost its TV Guide On Screen listings a couple of weeks ago. My local PBS station (Seattle) confirmed that they will no longer have the TVGOS info sent on their channel, and Comcast Cable in Seattle confirms that no TVGOS info channel is available.

I've contacted Panasonic customer service and they escalated my problem to a next-level report to TV Guide On Screen, and say they will call me back to let me know what they say. Panasonic customer service was very nice, and I'm still very happy with my DVR. Technology marches on, and it looks like I'll have to figure out a new DVR setup for the digital TV world.

You can still do manual recordings on your EH-75v but not the TVGOS grid programming. AFA the QAM(digital cable) channels you won't be able to tune those but for the most part they'll just be your local HD channels anyway. The future of cable is a STB (which you could hook up via line output to your current DVDR). You won't find any current DVDR anywhere near the quality of your EH-75v.

HeyJude-
It will only get the listings if you have DirectTV.

I have an E-85 and Comcast cable without a converter box. I lose listings a couple of times a year. Most recently, last week. I have found that to get the listings back, you need to do the reset (holding down the channel buttons) and then unplug the DVR for about 5 minutes. Turn it back on, enter your zip, and turn it off for 24 hours. When you turn it back on, it should ask you for the proper channel line-up. Now you can select which channels you want downloaded (keep the number as small as possible). Turn the unit back off for another 24 hours and listings should show up. By the way, in my experience, 24 hours is really overkill. If you turn it off after midnight, it should update by mid afternoon. I always make sure my DVR is off between 2am and noon so my listings can download. Again, it helps if you keep the number of channels turned on to as small a number as possible.

I have 4 DMR-EH75V recorders and all 4 of them now show the wrong time - no TV Guide - It sarted March 16th I called Panasonic and thay walked me thru a setup , but it didn't work .Comcast , New Haven , CT.http://club.cdfreaks.com/images/smilies/4/angry.gif

I recently bought a DTV PAL Plus converter box that was supposed to work with my old dmr-e85h Panny recorder (it has upgraded firmware). I set up the PAL Plus like it was a cable box and I set the Panny and IR Blaster to control the PAL Plus. But, dammit, even though the DTV PAL Plus can download programming within a minute or so, I still can't get that freakin' Panny to download any programming list from the PAL Plus. I'm using LN3 as my connection from converter box to Panny. I think that should work. Is it necessary to use a coax connection from the converter to the Panny? It should still work over the AV cables, right? Please let me know if I'm wrong.

I followed all the instructions in the PAL Plus manual and reset the dmr-e85h to default settings using the channel buttons hold-down and waited 24 hours and got zilch. I've had this dmr-e85h for five freakin' years and have never been able to download a programming list. I've tried it OTA and through a Scientific Atlantic cable box (TimeWarner, NYC). My OTA connection with the PAL Plus has 43 stations with strong signals plus a couple of PBS stations.

I really thought I would get some use out of that Panny other than using it with just manual recording. I know the IR Blaster is communicating with the DTV PAL Plus (they tell you to use the code 008 for a Scientific Atlanta and it see it blinking during the test), but after the 24 hours the Panny TV guide said no data was found. I'm gonna keep trying, but it's probably futile.

I've tried getting that Panny program guide to work dozens of times over the years and it just won't download listings. Has anyone else tried the DTV Pal Plus with a Panny HDD/DVD device and gotten success in downloading programming? The TVGOS works so great on the Pal Plus, but sucks with the Panny. Why should it be so difficult for a device to download a programming list? Panasonic should have had some indicator that indicated when something was being downloaded. Even the clock just blinks at 12:00A and doesn't set. What a sucky device.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

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Last edited by Constable Odo; 20-04-2009 at 00:07. Reason: Left out some info

It's crazy you should have to go through that to get programming. Where in the manual does it say that? Nobody'd be able to figure that out on their own. Your suggestion may work , but no device setup should entail that procedure of turning it on and off and keeping it off for 24 hours two times.

The reset info (holding down the channel buttons with Channel Guide off) is in the TVGOS manual under FAQs. Leaving the unit off is a setup prompt after you enter your zip. Unplugging the unit is an extra step that I learned after many calls to Panasonic support. Yes, it's a pain... but it works for me. However, when this unit breaks down, I think I'll be replacing it with a TIVO.

The EH-75v is probably the pinnacle of combos (with it's near twin EH-55 being the pinnacle of straight DVDRs) but once you get a Tivo HD, you'll probably rarely use your Panny DVDR. I still use my EH-55 for off loading the Tivo, but once you get used to timeshifting in full HD, well there's no going back
I get excellent wide screen DVDs going from my Tivo to Panny, in fact better than using a CECB to feed my Panny direct.

Well, my Panasonic DMR E-85 bit the dust about three weeks ago. That was my 3rd one in six years. I looked into Tivo but the unit was $300 plus $13 a month for TV Guide listings. My cable company offered a dual tuner DVR for $14 a month with no up front costs. If it breaks, they replace it. So I went with the cable DVR. It turned out to be a Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8300HDC. I love it. It beats out the E-85 hands down. Record two shows while watching one previously recorded. TV listings one week out were available within five minutes of plugging the unit in. You don't have to leave the unit on standby overnight to get updated listings. The only downside is the search by title function. It lists all the shows that the cable company provides whether or not you subscribe and you have to search one day at a time. I think analog TVGOS is a dinosaur.

Yes cable company DVR's are very tempting. I went with a Tivo HD for $180 and added lifetime for another $400. For $580 I don't have any monthly fees and you just can't beat the Tivo guide and software. I just recently upsized my Tivo HDD to 1TB ($99), something you can't do with a cable company DVR. Also with the Tivo I can wirelessly send my programs to a PC and burn HD DVDs on BR or standard DVD both in 5.1, again not something a cable DVR can do.

Just last week Tivo had a great offer, $500 for a Tivo HD and lifetime, too late for me though.
Good luck with your DVR, it's nice to not have to come up with such a large chunk of change upfront.

For those of you who are struggling to get your TVGOS working, here's a workaround. This took me about two months of experimenting, reading manuals, checking on-line web sites, etc, before I got TVGOS working. Here is what I found. TVGOS is transmitted over CBS digital. So, first you need to get a converter box that will convert the digital TVGOS information to analog. One of the few converter boxes that does that is the Dish DTV PAL+. Then, follow these instructions.



Notes: My apartment complex has a master antenna system that feeds the TV signal to all of the apartments in the building through a coax cable. I purchased a cable “splitter” from Radio Shack (under $5) to feed the coax inputs to the DTVPAL (Antenna In) and Panasonic DVR (RF In).

The component cable output of the DTVPAL (red/white/yellow RCA cable) connects to input three (IN3), located on the back of the Panasonic DVR.

The output from the Panasonic DVR (coax or S-video) goes to your television.

Plug the IR Blaster cable into the back of the Panasonic DVR, then use duct tape to connect the other end of the IR Blaster (head) to the front of the DTVPAL. The LED on the blaster head should line up face-to-face with the LED located on the left-front side of the DTVPal, (not the Green LED on the right).

With everything hooked up, the Green LED on the DTVPal should now be on.

Panasonic DMR-EH75V Setup Procedure:

1) First, you have to get the Television to display the TV signal coming from DTVPAL. To do this, forget the DTVPAL for now and use your Panasonic remote and press the green TVGuide button. Then, go to the toolbar at the top of the screen and select “Setup”. From the drop-down menu, select “Change System Settings.”

2) Work your way through the menu system, entering “English,” “Screen Size,” “USA,” and the proper zip code, etc. It will then ask you what “Service Inputs” you are using.
“Select” both items listed below:
“Cable without a Cable Box” and
“Cable with a Cable Box.” (should be a check mark on left side of each)

3) Next, it will ask you to select the cable box (satellite receiver) connection channel. Select the item at the bottom of the list, “IN3”. (should be a check mark next to IN3)

4) Next, it will ask, “Is your cable now tuned to channel 9? ” Say “yes”

5) When it asks, “Did your satellite receiver change channels? Say “yes”

6) Confirm the settings by selecting “Yes, continue setup process.”

7) After exiting the setup menu, you should now be able to use your Panasonic remote and tune to channel 2 or 3. After tuning to channel 2, press the channel down button a time or two and you should see a blue screen that says, “Main Menu”. This is the feed coming from the Dish DTVPAL via IN3. You are now ready to set up the DTVPAL!


Dish Network DTVPAL Plus Setup:

1) From the Main Menu listing, select #3, “Setup”

2) Then select #2, “Channel Setup”

3) Next, select “Find New Channels”

4) This next step is important: After the new channels are found, press “Guide” on the DTV PAL remote. That will bring up a grid, displaying all of the channels. Scroll down and find CBS TV and press the center button (Select button) on the DTVPAL remote,

5) Once the CBS station is displayed, look at the top left corner of the TV screen and verify that the “Zoom” setting is displayed. (I think it’s the default setting)

6) After setting the DTVPAL to CBS, once again use the DTVPAL remote and press the “Menu” button, then select “System Setup”

7) Next, select #6 on the menu, “TV Guide & Guide +”

8) Select “Continue” and there will be a warning. Ignore warning and continue.

9) Dish DTV Pal is now set up! The TV screen will act strange during this process. Picture may disappear, then come back on. The remote for your DVR may also seem not to work properly. Don’t worry about that for now.

10) Turn off Panasonic DVR and wait 24 hours.

11) After waiting 24 hours, use the Panasonic DVR remote and press the green “TV Guide” button. If everything worked right, you should see a list of “Channel Lineup” providers to choose from. (I live in Brooklyn, NY, so my list displayed such names as: AT&T U-Verse, Cablevision Systems, Esquire Apartments, and RCN- Queens, etc.)

Here's a link to help determine which Cable Provider you should use:

http://www.rovicorp.com/dtv/10053.htm


12) I selected “Cablevision Systems”

13) If your TV Guide does not show up immediately, press the TV Guide button. If it still does not display properly, you may have to turn the DVR off and wait another 24 hours. Then try it again.

14) Once again, if everything is setup properly, your TV Guide should now work.

15) The last step is to configure the channel line-up. Go to go the toolbar at the top of the screen and select “Setup.” Then, select “Change Channel Display” and arrange the channel line-up to your liking. In my case, I turned all of the “Cable Box) stations “off.” That way, I wouldn’t have duplicate stations, i.e., two CBS, NBC, ABC, etc.

Disclaimer: Most of this setup information is based on memory, so some information may vary.