Rating: 
Summary: Still works for me...
Review: This is a follow-up to my January 2004 review of this product. After 3 months of use, I'd give it 6 stars if I could. The unit has been rock solid, and having successfully burned more than 50 DVD-R discs (without a single failure), I have to classify this as one of the coolest pieces of electronics I have ever owned. It does exactly what it claims to do, and it does it very well.Some reviews mentioned "poor" or "blotchy" picture quality, and even compare the quality with that of analog video equipment like a VCR. Talk about apples and oranges... Of course, in special cases MPEG compression will result in some unwanted artifacts, but I have not found this to be an issue at all. On the contrary, the MPEG encoder built into this unit does an admirable job (in real time!), especially in comparison to the slow and lower quality MPEG encoding found in most digital video software packages. The video quality is excellent, and with XP or SP recording is very nearly indistinguishable from the original source material (and MUCH better than on my expensive VCR from 5 years ago). And, unlike analog recordings on VHS tape, the quality does not degrade with time or use. And yes, the unit does not change channels on a cable box. For me, not a problem - if I want to record a digital-only channel on cable, it's easy enough to program the cable box to switch channels at the appropriate times. But I am surprised that people go out and spend this kind of money on equipment without doing basic product research up front, and then complain about a "missing feature" - please! This is not a Tivo. It's something a whole lot better than that.
Rating: 
Summary: Not a Panasonic fan anymore
Review: Initially, I really liked this unit. Then, about 2 weeks later, it started having trouble, and hasn't worked right since. Despite a month at the "factory authorized" service center (over an hour away, even though I live in a _major_ city, and only open inconvenient hours), it still doesn't work right. It won't even record at all now. Panasonic's response: bring it back to the service center...again. No other option. They won't replace it. Not even a hint of how long it'll take this time. So right now I have a _really_ expensive doorstop.
I've read a lot of other positive reviews, but I wish I'd never bought this thing.
Rating:
Summary: Almost useless with a digital cable box
Review: I totally agree with the reviewer who is upset by the inability to change channels when used with a digital cable box. We purchased this dvd player/recorder just before Christmas from Amazon.com. My husband put off setting it up for some time unfortunately. Once set up, we were only able to record the channel we were watching, which is pointless to me because I'm already watching it! So my husband called Panasonic and was told by a customer support technician to get a cable splitter and faxed over a diagram. My husband got the cable splitter, followed the diagram and STILL NO ABILITY TO CHANGE CHANNELS. So he called Panasonic AGAIN and was told this time that it is not possible to do with a digital cable box. Why didn't they tell us this first? Now it has been too long to return this DVD player. Frankly, we would have gotten just a regular DVD player for $100 if we had known this "little" bit of information. Instead, we payed $600. I can't begin to tell you how angry I am at wasting $500!!!!!!! I had wanted to record programs while I was at work, or while we slept, or while we were watching another program. It is not going to happen with a digital cable box. I would give this product 0 stars if I could (and 0 stars to Panasonic customer support)!
Rating:
Summary: Can't switch cable tv channels
Review: I bought this unit to replace my broken replay tv with a unit that could do long term archiving on to dvdr. When I got the unit, I thought it was a beautiful unit, but after I set it up, I couldn't figure out how to get the unit to change channels on my cable box. Then, I read in the manual that it COULDN'T! What good is a Tivo like unit, with hard drive recording capabilities if you can't schedule a recording without manually setting the channel??? It's completely useless without the ability to change channels. I mean really, what's the point with the VCR+? Why did they even bother with the hard drive? I can't believe there's 89 reviews here and not ONE of them makes any big deal out of this. This unit is only good if you want to transfer stuff to dvd from a video source, otherwise, PASS on it!
Rating:
Summary: A Great Device!
Review: I was looking into getting a TIVO, or equivalent, when I ran across this unit. Essentially, it is a TIVO with a DVD burner, and no phone line. I have been recording programs for viewing at my leisure, and converting video tapes to DVD format. It's great!!
Rating: 
Summary: Smudging Problems
Review: I have Dish Network and an excellent 35" television. The problem I have noticed is that smudging appears on walls and certain backgrounds on some shows/movies etc. They are not always obvious unless you look for them. On certain broadcasts, they are completely un-noticable. Changes in brightness levels often show up in black and white shows on such things as dark suit coats. If I watch these shows on the TV without going throught the DVD recorders tuner there is no such problem. I was able to try an exact same model of this recorder and got the same results. No other reviews seemed to touch on this so I wondered if anyone else had this problem. What I see on the screen when I record to the HDD or DVD is exactly what the tuner portrays.
Rating:
Summary: pretty good but can be even better
Review: good things about this player: 1) fairly easy to use. 2) can record all the programs you want into the hard drive and then edit, and record any program or even your playlist of clips into a DVD-R. 3) can record a program and play another one... or record a live program and play from the hard drive. that way, you can pause live tv... although you cannot directly pause live tv if not recording, which tivo can. (probably due to patent issue). the improvements can be: 1) even when you record the programs to a DVD-R in high speed, it takes about 50 minutes to write it. it seems like it is similar to 1x if done on the computer DVD-RW. 50 minutes is too long... consider if it is 4x, then it would take only 15 minutes... the fastest burner right now is already 8x... so 4x should be tried and built into this machine 2) it won't ask you whether you want to finalize the DVD-R. You need to change to DVD-R mode and choose finalize yourself, which could have been an automated function when you write the dvd-r. 3) say if you record a 2:30:00 program, and you want to edit out the extra 1, 2 minutes you set for the recording at the beginning and at the end, it is time consuming: you can divide the program into 2, skipping the first 2 minutes easily. but to divide the program into 2, skipping the last 2 minutes, you need to fast forward all the way to the end. so you need to sit there and wait for the program to fast forward a little by little. and then you can divide the program at the end. it would be much simpler if there is a "go to end" button. all in all, pretty good recorder. much easier to use than the Philips DVDR75.
Rating:
Summary: why 5 stars?
Review: We bought the Panasonic DVD recorder three months ago; we still haven't pressed all of the buttons on the remote. And it still functions beyond our expectations. We wanted to save old VHS programs and we wanted to time-shift television programs to watch later (a VCR). Perhaps very little to expect from a device that costs $500 but over twenty years ago we paid $1000 for a Mitsubishi top-loading, two-head VCR. Enough history. It took almost three hours to hook up to a VCR, a Sony receiver, another DVD player, two TVs and the digital cable box. But when it was turned on, it was fantastic. We used the hard disc drive immediately. Playback was broadcast quality. We dubbed from the VHS to DVD-R; the quality actually improved. We recorded a test DVD-R disc from a commercial DVD and VHS and those both played back flawlessly. The big test came when we recorded a TV program onto DVD-R for a friend who didn't have the cable channel. Her old Sony player played it. The instruction book is intimidating; read what you need and just keep the book handy. The prompt screens are somewhat intuitive. The most important buttons (after three months of use) are the 'Functions,' the 'Enter,' the four arrow buttons and the stop-pause-play buttons. We expect to learn more the longer we use the recorder. The Panasonic recorder (with Hard Drive) is an excellent piece of electronic equipment. Well worth the price and deserving 5-stars.
Rating: 
Summary: CANNOT COPY PRE-RECORDED VHS TAPES!!!!
Review: I just purchased this device because I was having too much trouble using my computer to copy VHS tapes. I needed something that burned the tapes directly to disc instead of copying the movie to a hard drive and then encoding it for 48 hours! However, I found out that this device will not allow you to copy a pre-recorded VHS tape, and as far as I can tell they do not warn you about that ahead of time. I will be returning mine tomorrow.
Rating:
Summary: The death of VHS... Like the CD player was for cassette
Review: I have had this device for two days, and have already burned DVD-R from TV shows, and VHS tapes. I haven't determined if I can go directly from VHS to DVD-R, without the HDD interim step, but will continue to explore. I did have one "freeze up" the first time I attempted to burn a DVD-R from HDD (had the program paused, and it wouldn't play, once I pressed record. Unplugged the unit and all worked well once I again plugged it in). Other than that, all has gone very well. I have been using only "XP" recording mode to get top picture quality, and it is just that, a TOP QUALITY picture, almost indistinguishable from the source. I have three Sony DVD players, and once I finalized the DVD-R created on the Panasonic, it played in the Sony players. Again with unbelievable picture and sound quality. I figure it will only get better as I continue to uncover new features. Although the manual isn't great, I'm not sure why other reviews blasted it. It's not that difficult to use. Best to use the index to locate what you're looking for, but, as far as I can tell, it's all in there...
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