Info and forum posts by 'OX-Steve'

Panasonic dmr-ex85 - replacing HDD

Afternoon all,

I`ve got a Panasonic DMR-EX85 HDD/DVD recorder and the disk`s failed. I`ve replaced the disk fine but it`s still throwing an error. Looking online hints that the firmware may be stored on the disk rather than in flash, and that it needs to be booted from a firmware disk to reinitialize the new HDD.

Has anyone else replaced a drive in one of these, and is this correct? I don`t suppose anyone happens to have a firmware disk? Panasonic sadly don`t make it available on the website..

Cheers,
Steve.

RE: Tescos LCD TV clearance

Can`t say whether the smaller ones were really any good, but the TVs in there were all set up pretty badly. I guess they are in most box-shifting outlets - a combination of people fiddling with all the settings and a weak analogue signal split between multiple TVs. The Panasonic and Sony looked quite poor - I only know they`re not having seen them running in John Lewis. And now downstairs. :)

Steve.

Tescos LCD TV clearance

Not sure if it was just the Tescos Extra Abingdon branch, but Tescos had a lot of their LCD TVs reduced.
The discontinued but still (hopefully!) good 32" HD ready TX32LXD52 was down from ~1200 to 840 but myself and a friend grabbed the last two from the warehouse. They still had the display model, which might go even cheaper if they reduce them.

They also had the 40" Sony LCD down from ~1700 to 1250.

They had others too, but I wasn`t paying much attention to them - sorry.

It doesn`t look like it`s on the website from a brief glance.

Steve.

RE: FREE CHOCOLATE !? free chocolate ?!?!?!?!

When I tried, it said that all 30,000 had been given away. :(

Steve.

RE: Sammy 15

Are they really in? They didn`t indicate they were out when we ordered them, but they still cancelled the order that they`d already confirmed. Maybe I`ll try again.

Tried again, this time it says `due to high demand,item unavailable`. Which it didn`t say last time, it let us order them.

Steve.

This item was edited on Friday, 4th June 2004, 12:22

RE: Sammy 15" TFT/LCD tv

Useless Dixons.
Myself and a friend ordered 3 of these (for personal use, NOT for selling for a profit before anyone complains - took us over the 500 barrier needed to use the relevant discount code!) Got order confirmation email. Then got an email saying `Sorry, we haven`t got any, call for alternatives.` Called and they had no alternatives and had cancelled the order. They say they don`t intend to order any more in. Still waiting for supervisor to call back, as requested. (2 days now).
My friend wasted a couple of hours going to the local branch, who said the same thing, but that the local PC World had 3 in stock. So he went there. They refused to price match with an internet price, or with an `out of stock` item, despite it being the same company. >:(

This is not the first time that Dixons advertise cheap items that they don`t have any of. It was the same with the terrestrial digital boxes they were advertising on TV and in papers a few months back - none in stock, and none ordered until they put the prices back up. They obviously only had a couple of them, but continue to promote them.

The order process even has a `checking for stock` message which didn`t indicate that there weren`t any, and allowed the order to proceed.

I`m thinking of going to trading standards on this - it`s not like it`s a blatant error that they`ve noticed and rejected all sales of - 200 quid is a cheap price but not a mistake. Dixons are just once again falsely advertising products.
I doubt it`ll do any good mind...

Has anyone else managed to find any of these? They supposedly did a national search and didn`t find any. Is there any magic phrase to make PCWorld and Currys price match their partner company?

Shame that Technomatic/Microwarehouse has just been bought out by Dixons group too. We used to do a lot of trade with them...

Steve.

RE: Sammy 15" TFT/LCD tv

Excellent, I`ll have to see if the local Dixons has one at that price. 3 year warranty too.
Does it have AV inputs? Scart/Svideo/composite?

What`s the picture quality like? I think I saw one in the shop once, and it didn`t seem too great - but then again, none of them did.. I think they`re never set up properly, or people have fiddled...

Cheers,
Steve.

RE: Richer Sounds and Buy Back

It used to be 50% buyback within 3 years (or if the warranty and buyback option is unused you can get the money back).
Now it`s apparently been changed to:
50% of the value within 1 year of purchase
30% within 2 years
20% within 3 years

Less of a good deal perhaps, but you can still sell the item privately for its true value and then claim back the money that the extended warranty cost. Don`t forget about claiming back though - I think they only give you a 28 day window in which to do so.

Steve.

RE: Sauron LOTR talking figurine cheap

cool :)
on the webpage they also seem to have a 6" Frodo with a light up sword for 4.98...

edit: they also have a Sauron for 12.98 but doesn`t say if it`s a talking one. The talking gollum is 24.99 so maybe they just got them muddled up and mispriced them in the shop? I can`t see any other Saurons though. Does the one you bought look like the one on the webpage? (www.anotherworld.co.uk - you may need to click on treebeard to get to the LoTR bits - side navigation thing completely fails to do anything on my machine)

This item was edited on Tuesday, 26th August 2003, 18:25

RE: Family Guy - Season 2

Seems to be 16.99 now... bah.

RE: Very Very Very cheap dell

Looking at the spec - it comes with a 17" CRT and a CDRW drive. Not bad at all!
Only 128Mb RAM which could do with an upgrade and 20Gb disk which is the lowest you can get these days (but still more than adequate for web/email/word processing!) XP Pro rather than home too. And 3 year warranty.

Not bad. Shame I hate Dell so much for having appalling customer service... still, at that price it`s still incredibly tempting. ;-)

Oh, hang on... at the top it does say `Medium and large business`. I suspect you`ll not be able to get that price just as an individual home user. Much the same as I get `academic` pricing at work, which often used to work out slightly higher than a random member of the public could buy the same spec machine from the standard public webpage...

If anyone orders one OK, let me know - I might think about getting one for my Dad!

Edit: Ah yes, same model and spec comes to around 750 + VAT academic pricing!

Steve.

This item was edited on Monday, 16th December 2002, 23:00

RE: Return your ITV digital boxes or pay £40

I`ve not tried it myself but know someone who says they have - apparently it doesn`t need the smartcard inserted in order to pick up the free to air channels.

RE: <<Who is the crappest actor/actress in Eastenders??!!>>

Eastenders has actors? ;-)

RE: Return your ITV digital boxes or pay £40

I`m a bit annoyed by this - I paid a subscription for a couple of years. They broke the contract by stopping the broadcasts and declaring themselves bankrupt to get out of paying the football teams - in fact the final few months had a decreasing amount of channels for the same cost.
I don`t have a contract with Grant Thornton or whoever claims to own the box, which as far as I`m concerned is mine.
What would they do if someone claimed they threw it away when ITV digital went bankrupt and it became useless?

Cheap IPAQs

Not seen it myself, and they don`t seem to have this clearance offer on their web page but according to my Dad, Carphone Warehouse are selling Ipaq 3870s for 299 inc VAT, instead of 4-500 or whatever it normally cost... It`s the 64Mb version which is being phased out in favour of the newer 3970 with bluetooth.

Don`t know if it`s all stores - I`ll check in town when I`m next passing.
Edit: Ah, 3870 seems to have bluetooth too. I`m not particularly familiar with them ;-)

This item was edited on Monday, 9th December 2002, 17:05

RE: My free Fox DVD just dropped through the letter box this morning.

I had been a bit confused when a DVD turned up with my address but someone else`s name but looking back here again, it doesn`t seem to be unusual!

I did have doubts about opening something addressed to someone else, but since I had no idea who the person was, and there was no indication on the outside of who it was from, I thought I`d check. Bag wasn`t well sealed anyway, didn`t even have to tear it open. Nothing on the inside to say it was from Fox, but based on what everyone else is saying, I`ll just assume this copy of WLB is mine - at least, it`s what I ordered 8 weeks or so ago...

Thanks to whoever first mentioned the offer in this forum!

RE: The BigGesT bESteST DeAL iN The WholE-wIDe WorLd EvEr - NEW INFO

In case anyone local is interested, I just swung by the Sainsburys on the south of Oxford and they still had about three quarters of their top40 stock on the shelves, including Monsters Inc collectors edition.
I`ll stop in there again next week and see if any of the new disks are out.
Most expensive week`s shopping I`ve done for a while though ;-)

RE: Toshiba 36ZD26P - Best deal?

Not sure on the difference between P and B, but Empire wanted £50 delivery when I just stuck it in my basket and told it to calculate delivery.

Also, the Robertsons-online page doesn`t seem to have any letter on the end, it just quotes it as 36ZD26 as the model number. Doesn`t specify warranty length either, but since Empire`s is only 1 year it`ll be at least as long...

RE: Kodak digital camera worth £300 for £100 PLUS loads of accessories

Sorry if anyone else has already spotted this - there are rather a lot of messages in this topic ;)

Anyway, The Register has posted an article this morning about the legal case with Kodak:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/23873.html

Steve.

RE: Anyone else had problems with Play247?

I`ve used them a number of times with no problems. Things started to slow down a bit in December and haven`t really improved in the New Year.
The last couple of orders seemed to take 4-5 days just to actually get processed, then another week to actually get sent and turn up.
Just ordered some more disks from them, so have to wait and see when they arrive.