Rating: 
Summary: does ok by me
Review: The manual isn't the best and it takes some time to get used to, but this recorder does everything that I expected it to. If I think it should do something, I dig through the manual or look through the set-up menu or whatever. I didn't expect to be able to copy copy-protected materials, because I haven't had a vcr or dvd player or whatever that would do it for many years anyway. Maybe I've led a protected life.
Rating: 
Summary: CPRM is a big negative !!
Review: With all the restrictions built into this machine, you might as well get a Tivo box instead. I'd be nice to be able to transfer my VHS collection over to DVD-R, but other than that, I can't see what the point is to having this machine since it includes CPRM hardware. See, CPRM will let you record TV programs to DVD-RAM (which is *incompatible* with just about every other DVD player that's out there), but it won't let you burn to DVD-R for your own personal library. And since DVD-R is compatible with most players out there.... Starting to get the picture? And as more and more cable TV programming starts using CPRM flagging, it'll practically make this recorder useless in a couple of years, anyway. Especially when HDTV broadcasting becomes more widely available. So there goes your $700 investment as more and more "copy protection" errors start to appear on your screen. It's going to get worse (for us viewers) as time goes on. Plus, it's also been mentioned elsewhere that the quality of the DVD-R copy is degraded from a digital to an analog signal due to a sneaky D/A conversion that's also built into the machine, thereby giving you an inferior copy from what you can view on the recorder's HDD. That's just peachy... (sic) I find this whole machine deceptive. Maybe D-VHS might be something to consider, after all...
Rating:
Summary: Not Worth the Money with DirecTV
Review: I purchased this hoping to be able to record shows from DirecTV either when I was not home or when watching another show. The instruction booklet barely addressed connecting to a satellite (there are only several million of us using them). It is one of the most poorly written manuals I've ever seen. When I figured out how to get it connected and be able to record a show I was watching at the time, the picture quality was mediocre. I really wanted to use it for recording when I was watching something else. When I called Panasonic support (a number I found online, it's not in the poorly written manual), the recording warned me of hold times of 18 minutes. It ended up being over an hour. The rep that helped me explained that the system isn't really designed to work the way I wanted. It's being returned. What a disappointment, I guess I'll be going to a Tivo. I WILL NEVER BUY PANASONIC AGAIN. This is why I usually but Sony.
Rating: 
Summary: WOW-
Review: The DMR-E80 is just what we expected and more. The first task was to transfer and edit a home movie taken during a long trip across the USA. I have edited video for commercial television, medical and educational use since 1967 and this unit is the best yet. It is now possible for the average customer to edit videos with ease and perfection. The scene start and stop features, search and other editing functions make this product complete. Panasonic, you could have spent a few more cents on "soy ink" to add a few editing tips to the instructions for those not familiar with video editing and I would have given 5 stars.
Well worth the price and once again Amazon.com came thru with fast, easy purchase and delivery of my items.
Rating:
Summary: updated review: great machine, mark/edit/dub, archive VHS
Review: (Update to my previous review after several months of usage) First, one correction to an older review-
- Edit/Mark/Dub:
you CAN edit out commercials etc. on the harddisk, make "chapter" (skip-to) marks, and dub to DVD-R in Fast mode, eg without re-encoding or losing quality. You must first record programs in "DVD-R compatible mode", mentioned in the manual.
I haven't seen any quality difference w/ this setting vs "VBR" mode, and it's great- I can mark chapter points to skip to during playback (also marking the ads, so I can jump to them quickly during editing), edit out commercials ("shorten segment" feature, not "playlists"), and then dub it to DVD-R for archiving. Editing saves space, besides removing commercials, and the chapter marks are retained, for dubbing.
This makes for a really nice feature for home videos also- besides editing out "mistakes", you can also highlight exactly the spots you want to, eg first scene of the birthday party, landmarks during travel, etc.; viewers of your DVD can now just jump to exactly the "interesting" points YOU defined, skipping boring parts :-) Some other brands just put auto-defined marks eg each 5minutes, not under your control.
Editing is pretty easy once you get the hang of it. The pause/frame/slow ffwd/rvs make it easy to exactly find your edit points. - Input TBC/Stabilization:
For VHS/8mm or other video archiving, the "input TBC" (time-base corrector) is a GREAT feature- it's what seems to make the videos "look better than the original tape", mentioned in other reviews. It stabilizes the picture and removes the analog tape "jitter" or horizontal wiggles, and sometimes helps stabilize colors also. This is a very important feature for those who want to archive old videos, and I don't see it on other competing brand models.
For quality, either SP(2hr) or LP(4hr) mode seems to work well; while LP has half the resolution (352x480 not 704x480), analog video doesn't really have that much resolution anyway, so you don't lose very much detail; only downside is LP still shows more "motion artifacts" in fast-moving scenes. - Progressive Scan:
For playing back movie DVDs, I was pleasantly surprised with the Progressive-scan output to my HDTV... it made a much bigger difference than I expected. It seems to enhance the DVD resolution, not just be a line-doubler, like my HDTV already has built-in. Diagonal lines and curves seem much sharper and "anti-aliased", if you know the computer term. It still does a good job with video sources as well, and it's easy to turn off Progressive mode w/ the remote if you want to (for one thing, closed-captioning doesn't display in progressive mode.) - Stability:
While there may be other (PC-based) ways of making DVDs of your TV shows or videos, there is one big benefit to buying and using this DVD recorder: it doesn't crash, it simply works. No software incompatibilities, no bugs, installation/upgrade problems, etc. Not to mention, recording & editing & burning DVDs doesn't tie up your computer for hours :-) (just the TV)
There will always be some small issues with DVD-R and player compatibility; you can't escape that, it's not Pansonics fault.
One note, since this does have a hard-drive, I suggest buying AT LEAST a surge protector, if not a small UPS (battery-backed power.) Same goes for Tivo/Replay. It's also pretty cool to record a show on battery during a power outage, and watch it later when power comes back :-) Some small complaints: - the remote and operations are complicated. Lots of buttons, and you do have to read the manual a lot. Once you understand what it tries to say, it's pretty easy :-) (Recording is easiest of all- set the channel, recording "speed" (quality mode), and hit Record button. Done. They have a "dub" shortcut key to copy a playing program to DVD-R also.) - While recording a show, although you can watch another show, you can't edit or delete anything. - VCR+ and "programming" to record shows is still like a VCR. No "TV schedule" listings like Tivo, eg browse shows/channels and "select" to record... and if the schedule changes times, you have to update your program manually.
It also means you have to "type" in names for your programs, a small pain.
This is a BIG benefit to the Pioneer DVD Tivo Recorders... However, Tivo doesn't let you edit out commercials :-( - Burner is "1x" speed to DVD-R, which means it takes 1hr to burn a full disk. DVD-RAM is 2x speed, eg 30minutes to burn a disk. Panasonic has higher-speed PC DVD-R drives, nicer if they had used those models. - "Finalized" DVD-R menus are pretty boring, just text w/ some themed background image etc. No "thumbnail" pictures of the video, and no chapter (scene selection) submenus- only lists each separate program (Titles, in dvd speak.)
However, if you wanted to, you could use the divide feature to split one recording into multiple pieces, and name them separately, so they show up in the menu screen. Besides these complaints, HIGHLY recommended if you want to do any DVD recording, or a "cheap" tivo-like recording of TV; even as a backup to existing Tivo or VCR. Amazon has a GREAT price on this, and DEFINITELY pay the extra for this model w/ harddrive.. the editing->dub to DVD-R features are very key, and not much more $$ than the DVD-R only models.
Rating:
Summary: I SHOULD HAVE WAITED FOR THIS ONE!
Review: IF ONLY I HAD WAITED FOR THIS BABY TO COME OUT BEFORE WASTING A LOT OF MONEY ON LESS CAPABLE, TROUBLESOME PRETENDERS. YESTERDAY I THREW BOTH MY REPLAYTV AND PHILIPS DVDR985 IN THE DUMPSTER AND REPLACED THEM WITH THIS PANASONIC. THE PANASONIC COMBINES ALMOST EVERYTHING I LIKED ABOUT THE PHILIPS AND REPLAYTV INTO A MUCH SMALLER BOX AT A FRACTION (LESS THAN HALF) OF THE PRICE. THE ONLY THING KEEPING ME FROM AWARDING 5 STARS IS THIS MACHINE'S INABILITY TO CHANGE CHANNELS ON MY CABLE BOX. ALSO, ONE NEEDS TO BE AWARE THAT THE FOCUS OF THIS MACHINE IS ON RECORDING, NOT ON A LOT OF FANCY FEATURES WHEN PLAYING DVD. I FOUND THE OPERATION TO BE VERY STRAIGHT FORWARD AND INTUITIVE. THOUGH THE MANUAL'S DESCRIPTION OF EVERY CONCEIVABLE SERIES OF KEY STROKES MIGHT SEEM OVERWHELMING AT FIRST, I FOUND THAT I WAS ABLE TO LEARN THE MACHINE'S OPERATION QUITE EASILY JUST BY PLAYING AROUND WITH IT AND FOLLOWING THE ON-SCREEN MENUS. A WORD OF CAUTION ON DISCS. FIND A BRAND OF DVD-R THAT CONSISTENTLY WORKS BEFORE DROPPING A LOT OF MONEY ON A LARGE SPINDLE OF DISCS. I HAVE HAD NO LUCK WITH MEMOREX DVD-R, BUT FIND TDK 2X DVD-R WORK GREAT. ALL OF THE DVD-RAM DISCS I HAVE TRIED WORKED FLAWLESSLY, BUT THEY ARE EXPENSIVE. IF ONLY THE DAMN THING WOULD CHANGE CHANNELS ON MY CABLE BOX!
Rating:
Summary: Great recorder, here's some tips.
Review: I've written some tips based on the reviews here and the problems that I've had. I hesitate to write them, because it makes the Panasonic DMR-E80GH seem so complicated. It's true that it is more complicated than a plain DVD-player, but it does so much more! 1.) The Panasonic DMR-E80H has a hard drive similar to a computer. So it helps to treat it like you would a computer. Get a high quality surge protector and plug the DVD player into it. If you turn the DVD-player off or unplug it, wait a minute or so before you turn it back on or plug it back in. You want to allow the hard drive to power all the way down before you ask it to power back up. I unplug it (and all my home entertainment equipment) during thunderstorms, just like I do my computer. Sometimes the DVD player needs to finish what it is doing before it will respond to a new command from the remote or a button on the machine. 2.) There are two important buttons: HDD (hard drive) and DVD. Whichever one is active will be lit (on the DVD player). So, if you press a button on the remote and you don't get the expected response, check to see which one is lit. For example, if DVD is lit, then pressing 'stop' then 'enter' won't stop a program from recording to the hard drive. So you have to push HDD first, and then 'stop' then 'enter'. 3.) Consider keeping the old DVD player hooked up for children. 4.) For DVD-Audio, the default setting is typically stereo 2.0, and you must go into the set up menu of the DVD *disc* to change to 5.1 or DTS. 5.) For playing some DVD-Rs, I've had to go into the DVD *player* set-up menu and select 'disc', then 'DVD-video mode', then select 'on'. What I like: Panasonic DMR-E80H has a higher quality picture than our previous two DVD players, one of which was progressive scan. The recording quality is much better than TiVo. I like the fact that it has several inputs. I have inputs from my vcr, two cable boxes, and TiVo. I love the editing functions (which TiVo lacks). When my brother-in-law was Iraq, he wanted news programs. I recorded a news show every day, edited out what he wasn't interested in, and mailed him the discs. He loved it! I've used the cheapest DVD-R's that I could find locally (not on the internet). They work fine. I recorded a program related to work and passed it out to everyone at work. The discs played on everyone's DVD player. We've had no problems with compatibility (yet). If you push play twice, it plays at 1 1/3 speed. It still plays the speech, which we can generally understand. This is great for watching something when we're in a hurry. Unfortunately, this only works in HDD mode, not on DVD's. What I don't like: It doesn't change the channel on the cable box like TiVo does. Once I wanted to record a program and I pushed the record button. Well, about 10 minutes later, it stopped recording the show to record a previously programmed show. It doesn't warn you (like TiVo does). I highly recommend this DVD-recorder. I love it.
Rating:
Summary: 24 Hours and Its Easy to Use!
Review: I have been using this unit for less than one day. So far, its working great. I have already burned a DVD-R. And it works on my other 2 DVD players (a lap-top and a 2 year old unit). So I think the DVD-R will work on almost any DVD player. And despite what Panasonic will tell you, ANY DVD-R should work with this unit. You DON'T need to buy a panasonic DVD-R. There is a lot to learn on this unit, but it is impressive.
Rating:
Summary: Good first genration hard drive recorder!
Review: I'm US History teacher so I have always had a soft spot for nostalgia. I had boatloads of home videos that I wanted backed up on DVD, for all the reasons why DVD is better than VHS. I was always interested in getting a DVD recorder, but I wanted to wait for the price to come down. One day I was rewinding an old tape and it snapped. I bought this machine the next day, and I have backed up all of those videos. The hard drive was great in terms of editing and dividing programs. Furthermore, I have my DirecTV hooked up to this. Like Tivo, I can record programs and watch them later, and erase them off of the hard drive. If I really like the program, then I can store it on a dvd. The XP mode is wonderful, but only able to store an hour of video. I backed up all my home videos on SP mode, the next best thing, so I could store up to 2 hours. Much like the old VHS camcorders of the late 80's and early 90's. I don't recommend recording analog on the LP or EP modes. However, from my DirecTV feed, LP is great for storing programs. Furthermore, with 4 hours of storage and the ability to take out the commercials, the LP mode is great without losing too much picture quality. It took about a day or two, but I got used to the machine and its remote. Overall, a great machine, and good first generation hard drive recorder. My only gripe is that I cannot record from my DVD-Rs back on to the hard drive. But the positives far outweigh the negatives.
Rating:
Summary: I love this thing
Review: If you like a lot of TV shows and want to record them to DVD for high-quality storage and easy access, this is your machine. I almost bought this unit's predecessor, the DMR-HS2, on more than one occasion. When the E80H came out at half the price and twice the hard drive size I was sold. I am not particularly technically adept, yet the unit is pretty user-friendly if you take the time to read the manual. The editing functions are easy to get down. It took me a couple times with the manual by my side to memorize the controls and procedures, but now I can edit out commercials and other junk in a matter of minutes. I bought this unit both to record several TV shows and to archive old VHS tapes. It's done great with both so far. I find the LP recording speed to be the best compromise between space and quality. LP gives you about four hours per DVD-R and dang good picture quality. The shows on VHS that I've recorded to the hard drive have actually improved in quality somewhat. I have analog cable and the unit also seems to improve the signal quality. The DVD-Rs I have burned so far have been compatible with my four-year-old RCA DVD player and every other player I've tried. My three-year-old Toshiba laptop occasionally has trouble with them, but it does play them, so I'm willing to chalk any problems there up to old age. I have my complaints but they are few and inconsequential. There is some slight pixelization during fast-moving action scenes recorded at LP, but not enough to be annoying. I also wish there was a USB 2.0 port, but I can live without it. The fact that you can't copy your DVD-Rs back to the hard drive is kind of irksome, but there are ways around it. These quirks aren't enough to keep me from giving the thing 5 stars. I was out of the country for a month and had it programmed to get every show I wanted, and it came through with flying colors. I would unequivocally recommend this machine to anyone.
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