Rating: 
Summary: Hopeless....
Review: I bought this unit in November. It broke down after one day, when it locked up reading a disc. It took three weeks to get the replacement. It worked (brilliantly) for three weeks. It locked up again after inserting a disc. This time I had to take it to a "factory authorized" service center, which has had it for five weeks. Panasonic apparently has no repair manuals written yet for this unit and are not easily able to supply replacement parts. Calling Panasonic is hopeless -- I got three days worth of busy signals before I got through. Once I got through, they were vague, evasive, and unhelpful. As of today, it sits in repair shop limbo, with no sign of being repaired, replaced, or returned. Recommendation? Buy this only if you have money to burn and do not have the patience to wait until the bugs are worked out!
Rating: 
Summary: The VHS of the 21st century
Review: I had two units now for about 3 weeks and I rate them excellent. The unit performs as well as it looks. The recording quality is very good in SP mode (2 hr. per DVD)and quite decent for LP and EP. programming is easy once you overcome the initial "features overload". (in any case if you are one of those whose VCR blinks 12:00 this unit is not for you). I love the ability of watching the beginning of a show while the unit is recording the end of it, also the background recording in the hard disk while I watch a DVD. Get one, you will not regret it!
Rating:
Summary: worthless product
Review: I have a lot of experience with hooking up vcr's , dvd's , and pal ntsc converters. I have never in my life experienced the difficulties associated with this dvd recorder. It absolutely will not interface with my tv [I have a panasonic tv} The only way I could get this to even interface at all was by hooking it through the vcr which it says you are not supposed to do . you have to program the channels into it. What if you just want to use it to convert your vcr tapes on to dvd? I was not able to do this at all. It is a worthless piece of equiptment, and unfortunately since I have spent about 3 months trying to hook it up [without benefit of their technical service which is non existent} and now it is too late to return it. I am so disappointed, do not buy this piece of pooh.
Rating:
Summary: A little pricey but in the end worth it.
Review: I have been trying to buy a recordable DVD player for the past few years. This animal wasn't available until two years ago. As of now, the price is still very expensive, but I couldn't hold out any longer. I broke down and bought the Panasonic DMR_HS2 a few weeks ago. I choose this unit because it has a 40GB hard drive, which can be very convenient feature for recording. Unfortunately, I am not pleased with this model's functions nor with its performance.My requirements for the recordable DVD are: · Record programs from the TV: The Panasonic unit works perfectly in this area. It works just like a VCR. It has additional features such as allowing you to record a program directly to the hard drive and store it there. You can also edit the recorded program to erase all the commercials before dubbing it to a DVD disk for permanent storage. You can also create chapters. But doing these jobs can be a very time-consuming and tedious process. You can only create chapters on the hard drive or on a DVD-RAM disk, which isn't compatible with most commercial DVD players. Nevertheless, these nice features are available. · Transfer VCR tapes to DVDs: I would love to transfer all my old VCR tapes and store them in DVD format. DVDs last much longer and they are more compact. My objective is to retire the VCR. The Panasonic unit basically did the job, but at the expense of quality. I am well aware that the quality of the dubbed DVD can be as good as the source VCR tape. However, I was very disappointed to find out that there is a very noticeable degradation in quality from the tape to the DVD. The ironic thing is that I can accomplish this function, but I still cannot throw away my original tapes because their quality is better. · Create music DVDs with all my favorite songs: I have always wanted to create a few DVDs with all my favorite songs in them. These songs will be taken from the music DVDs that I own. Too bad this unit doesn't have this feature. In fact, it doesn't allow DVD dubbing. Mind you, what I want to do is perfectly legal. This function, if it is available, is protected under the "fair use" doctrine in the U.S. copyright laws as long as you own the source media. Overall, I think this Panasonic model is over-priced for what I am looking for. I'm hoping that future recordable DVD systems can do what the dual-well recordable CD players can do today.
Rating: 
Summary: A Very Expensive Machine Not Worth Its Price
Review: I have been trying to buy a recordable DVD player for the past few years. This animal wasn't available until two years ago. As of now, the price is still very expensive, but I couldn't hold out any longer. I broke down and bought the Panasonic DMR_HS2 a few weeks ago. I choose this unit because it has a 40GB hard drive, which can be very convenient feature for recording. Unfortunately, I am not pleased with this model's functions nor with its performance. My requirements for the recordable DVD are: ·Record programs from the TV: The Panasonic unit works perfectly in this area. It works just like a VCR. It has additional features such as allowing you to record a program directly to the hard drive and store it there. You can also edit the recorded program to erase all the commercials before dubbing it to a DVD disk for permanent storage. You can also create chapters. But doing these jobs can be a very time-consuming and tedious process. You can only create chapters on the hard drive or on a DVD-RAM disk, which isn't compatible with most commercial DVD players. Nevertheless, these nice features are available. ·Transfer VCR tapes to DVDs: I would love to transfer all my old VCR tapes and store them in DVD format. DVDs last much longer and they are more compact. My objective is to retire the VCR. The Panasonic unit basically did the job, but at the expense of quality. I am well aware that the quality of the dubbed DVD can be as good as the source VCR tape. However, I was very disappointed to find out that there is a very noticeable degradation in quality from the tape to the DVD. The ironic thing is that I can accomplish this function, but I still cannot throw away my original tapes because their quality is better. ·Create music DVDs with all my favorite songs: I have always wanted to create a few DVDs with all my favorite songs in them. These songs will be taken from the music DVDs that I own. Too bad this unit doesn't have this feature. In fact, it doesn't allow DVD dubbing. Mind you, what I want to do is perfectly legal. This function, if it is available, is protected under the "fair use" doctrine in the U.S. copyright laws as long as you own the source media. Overall, I think this Panasonic model is over-priced for what I am looking for. I'm hoping that future recordable DVD systems can do what the dual-well recordable CD players can do today.
Rating:
Summary: HS2 beats VHS anyday
Review: I just bought the Panasonic DMR-HS2 and my VCR will soon see the dumpster. If you aren�t up to speed on DVD-RAM technology and recordable DVD, then you should get to an electronics store and test drive the HS2. First of all, since these units are digital and have hard drives (same as your PC), you can record video or TV shows to the hard drive (40GB) and then burn a DVD-R copy for your friend who has a DVD player. So that�s something that single-cassette VHS machines couldn�t do at all. Also, I can plug my digital still or video camera SD card into the HS2 and edit my pictures into a video that I just shot. RAM DISKS can also be re-recorded I think like a 100,000 times or something. But the advantage of the RAM disc is that it allows you to store video, audio and photos. Then with the hard drive you can back all that stuff up onto the drive and edit your own videos, since this thing also has great editing features. And like TIVO (which I love, but see that with machines like TIVO won�t be around much longer) you can record TV shows to the hard drive using VCR Plus codes or by setting the schedule yourself, even a month in advance. So I would check one of these out, there great fun and you�ll be happy you broke-up with your VCR.
Rating:
Summary: HS2 beats VHS anyday
Review: I just bought the Panasonic DMR-HS2 and my VCR will soon see the dumpster. If you aren't up to speed on DVD-RAM technology and recordable DVD, then you should get to an electronics store and test drive the HS2. First of all, since these units are digital and have hard drives (same as your PC), you can record video or TV shows to the hard drive (40GB) and then burn a DVD-R copy for your friend who has a DVD player. So that's something that single-cassette VHS machines couldn't do at all. Also, I can plug my digital still or video camera SD card into the HS2 and edit my pictures into a video that I just shot. RAM DISKS can also be re-recorded I think like a 100,000 times or something. But the advantage of the RAM disc is that it allows you to store video, audio and photos. Then with the hard drive you can back all that stuff up onto the drive and edit your own videos, since this thing also has great editing features. And like TIVO (which I love, but see that with machines like TIVO won't be around much longer) you can record TV shows to the hard drive using VCR Plus codes or by setting the schedule yourself, even a month in advance. So I would check one of these out, there great fun and you'll be happy you broke-up with your VCR.
Rating: 
Summary: Highly Recommended with a couple of drawbacks.
Review: I purchased the DMR-HS2 primarily to convert my 80 tape VHS collection to DVD. The editing functions on the unit are perfect for doing this. You can record the entire tape to the hard drive (or DVD-RAM) and then use the "divide program" feature to split up the six hours into individual programs. The "shorten segment" feature is easy to use and allows you to cut commercials or other sections you don't need. Entering titles is a bit tedious and they are limited to 64 characters (40 on DVD-R), but Panasonic did the best they could short of having a keyboard port. Once you have all of your programs divided and titled, you can dub them to DVD-R. A well thought out menu lets you pick the programs and order to dub and tells you the length of each program. After adding each program, you are told how much time is left on the DVD-R. This allows you to make very efficient use of the remaining time. Dubbing occurs in real time for DVD-R and 3x for DVD-RAM. After dubbing to DVD-R you can enter a title and finalize the disc which takes about 5 minutes. You have a choice of 9 menus. The menus are pretty basic, but work well. There are four recording modes (XP, SP, LP and EP). The SP mode is excellent, but only allows for two hours per 4.7 GB disk. The LP mode is of good quality, allows for 4 hours per disc and is what I use for everything. Unfortunately, I was very disappointed with EP and don't record anything in this mode. One other major drawback is that you are unable to dub from DVR-R back to the harddrive. If you need to make a copy of something you've burned to DVD-R, you need to play back with a DVD player and suffer the associated quality loss. After figuring this out, I decided to put my entire collection on 9.4 gig DVD-RAMs. You pay about a 40% premium over purchasing two 4.7 gig DVD-R, but you 1/2 the number of discs you need and can make unlimited copies. One other note. If your VCR doesn't have SVideo out, plan to purchase one that does along with a high quality SVideo cable. It is a small price to pay for a huge improvement in picture quality.
Rating:
Summary: Panasonic DMR-HS2 review
Review: I was overwhelmed by the features and functionality of this machine - on paper anyway. It had all the features I was looking for, HDD, DVD-Ram, Time Slip and chasing modes. Perfect also for capturing thode cherished moments from DV Camera to DVD-R. Unfortunately, here in Ireland, our stations are transmitted in both UHF and VHF. This machine only recognises UHF. This meant (1) I would have to use a slave video for receiving the signal on the machine, (2) the video would have to be on the staion I wanted to record from, (3) My video was defunct as a recording device on it's own. Although I could set the timer recording on the DMR for multi recording, I would also have to set my video to come on at the same time and stations for the DMR to record my selection. I felt seriously let down by both the dealer for not informing me properly and Panasonic for not allowing VHF signals to be received. Also, the lack of DVD-RW functionality was a bad omittance. Maybe Sony's new DVR machine can do the trick!
Rating:
Summary: A little pricey but in the end worth it.
Review: Let me address a couple of the gripes on this webpage about the problems with the recorder. One, does not record tapes as well as the original. I would recommend selecting a better recording resolution on the recorder, it has four and the top two recording levels will definetly allow you to produce a better backup of your VHS tapes then the originals, due to the 3D digital comb filter. Two, why would anyone want to put music on a DVD, and even if you would how many tricks is this dog supposed to do? Three, only records to DVD-R and DVD-RAM, well only with the advent of the new dual format recorders for computers has any one player been able to record to both + and -formats, but I have a brand new dual format recorder and I still only use the - format, in fact, looking at many of the DVD players today they prefer the - format. Four, can't figure out how to hook it up to the television, if you can't hook it up with the s-video, component out, or just plain old coaxial perhaps you should take a course. Videophiles that just aren't happy with these connections should seek professional counseling.
I wanted a keyboard along with it to enter titles to programs, remote works as good as it can, with directional arrows. Also, would have liked to have seen a faster transfer rate using the DVD-R, like a 4x, instead of the 1x, but what I usually do is set it up to record and just forget about it, come back it is done. But I am starting to get greedy like some of my other fellow reviewers:) Great machine though, even for the price, replaces a high-end DVD player, recorder, TIVO, and can archive your pictures!
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