Rating: 
Summary: Must Have Home Electronics product - Simply SUPERB
Review: I have been using this recorder for about a month and a half and I will agree to all the positive posts about it. I am simply thrilled to have it, it basically changed the way I watch TV. I will not repeat the positive comments which have already been made, I will try to answer a couple of problems people faced.1) Memorex DVDs: Memorex DVD-R comes in two forms, on is a 10 pack in a round spindle box and the other is 4 pack in a larger rectangular shaped box. The latter one has the words "For Home DVD Recorders" written on it, and this is the one that works on this recorder NOT the former. Unnowingly I purchased the 10 pack spindle box variety and the recorder failed to recognize the media. I think this variety is for DVD writers on PCs. I also recorder on TDK brand DVD-Rs that I bought from COSTCO and they worked fine. Note that the TDK discs come in spindle box but work fine. 2) Copyright protection - I never had any problem in recording movies from cable and broadcast channels, I recorded from allmost all of them except premium channels like HBO/Showtime about which I can't comment.
Rating: 
Summary: Worked fine for three weeks
Review: Then turned it on today, went right to the formatting HDD display. Tries to format, then says 'formatting is failed.' So I went to the panasonic web page, and it claims there are no repeat no service centers within 3000 miles of washington dc. how crazy is that? When it worked, it was great--after trying to figure out the manual that is.
Rating:
Summary: The DMR-80H changed my life.
Review: This player brings me back to 1986 when I plugged a 5 Meg hard drive card into a Tandy 1000 PC. Suddenly computing had lots of new and intriquing options. Same deal with a DVD hard drive. A few of the life changing benefits: Thanks to chasing playback, we haven't sat threw a commercial since Christmas -- and no Tivo fee. We start watching a show 1/2 hour after its scheduled air time and chase it. Breaking down sports replays in slow-mo is awesome baby -- The XP speed has the same quality as live TV -- there is no VCR blur. Transferring our family videotape to dvd's has been a snap -- and we are able to easily edit out the boring stuff. Panasonic has a blockbuster product. Network executives and advertisers should be very worried.
Rating:
Summary: Everything my VCR ever wanted to be, and much more!
Review: After about a month of use, I love this machine! Usually I'll wait longer before posting a review but this unit is just so neat that I feel obliged to share my experience. Appearance: I was a little apprehensive about adding a silver unit to my all-black home theater setup, but the unit looks really attractive. Silver seems to be an emerging trend, and the mirror finish in the center looks surprisingly good when the unit is powered on. No complaints here. Build quality: Very solid feel all round, the initial build quality seems impressive compared to some other consumer electronics on the market today. Evidently some reviewers have been experiencing quality problems, but so far my machine has been working flawlessly. Setup: A breeze! I use a splitter to feed cable directly into the RF input, with the digital cable box feeding the S-video input on L1, as well as the RF input on the TV. This yields a very flexible setup for independent recording and viewing. A VCR feeds into L3, leaving L2 free for a camcorder or other device. The hard drive: Absolutely the one feature that sets this unit apart from the rest. Don't even consider buying a recorder without a hard drive, it adds enormous flexibility. I won't be surprised if the models without hard drives start disappearing off the market relatively soon. Features: No need to repeat all the features here, suffice it to say that I agree with all the positive reviews about the features of this machine. It absolutely changed the way I watch and record TV. One of my main goals is to archive stacks of old VHS tapes on DVD, and this machine offers everything I want in that regard, and a whole lot more. A real-life example: we recently took family from abroad on a trip up the coast, using two camcorders. Back home, it was an easy exercise to record all the video on the hard drive, edit the programs to remove bloopers, and then create playlists to combine the footage from the two camcorders into chronological sequences, with titles, etc. The playlists were dubbed to DVD-R and the results are impressive! Video editing is always time-consuming, no matter how and where you do it. I actually prefer doing it on this machine, rather than using my PC to laboriously string pieces of video together, fighting through a bunch of fancy software editing features I don't really need. I record in SP mode most of the time and I cannot distinguish the recording from the original source material. User manual: I found the manual useful and accurate, but I'll concede that it is a little cryptic in some areas. All that is required, though, is a little experimentation to get the hang of all the different features. The manual is not nearly as bad as portrayed in some other reviews! Media: I've been using only Memorex DVD-R so far and they have worked without fail. Not one coaster, and after finalizing they work in all my other DVD players, including two computers. Picture and sound: Very impressive. I feed the optical audio output into my home theater system and the sound is superb. So is the picture quality. The focus of this machine is its recording and editing capabilities, but as a progressive scan DVD player it is no slouch, either. Very good. Panasonic did a great job with this machine. Some nice-to-haves in a follow-up model would be Firewire input (the DMR-E100 has it but not worth the extra money), component video output and the ability to change channels on a cable box. I don't consider any of those essential, though - as it is, the DMR-E80 is a great addition to any home theater. Don't be put off by uninformed reviews - do yourself a favor and check out this machine, it rocks!
Rating: 
Summary: Great so far but...
Review: This machine is quite incredible but it is certainly not for the gadget phobic. The manual is not very user-friendly and it takes a lot of trial and error to figure things out. So far I have managed to transfer things I recorded on Tivo to the hard disk, can delete commercials using the short segment feature, etc. However, when I tried to record a show on a DVD-R, the machine did not work. Based on the reviews of other users I purchased a pack of Memorex DVD-Rs -they are listed as accessories by Amazon itself- since they are considerably cheaper than the Panasonic brand. Lo and behold, the machine does not accept them!!! I get a message of cannot dub, unrecordable DVD-R or some similar message. Now I'm stuck with 25 supposedly non recordable DVD-Rs, that's just peachy! I will try different brands now to see which one works, hopefully I'll find a brand that will not set me back $3.5 per disc. In another review, I'll let fellow users know what I find out regarding DVD-R compatibility so others don't make the same mistake I made. For now, beware of Memorex with this machine!
Rating: 
Summary: The dreaded recover and crash
Review: I love the advertised features of the DMR-80. When it wants to work it's great. I have had it less than a month and I am packing it up for a trip to the repair center in Texas. Video is jittery through the unit and every time I try to record directly to a DVD-r or DVD Ram it goes into recover mode. It then resets and goes into recover mode again and then goes BYE! Recordings to the HDD seem fine but even dubbing from HDD to DVD-R usually crashes by going into recover mode and then shutdown. I'll be sending the unit out this week. We'll see what the turn around time is and if they really fix the unit. So far very disappointed in video quality and inability to do the very thing I purchased the unit for, that is burn DVD's
Rating:
Summary: Misleading warranty statements - 1 Yr PARTS and LABOR
Review: I was reading some reviews and I've to agree with all the compliments for the E80. It is a great machine and I love it. The one comment I did't like was the one posted by Scott Balikian. He says that this unit comes with a 90 days parts and 1 year labor warranty. WRONG. It comes with 1 YEAR PARTS AND LABOR WARRANTY (page 60 on the manual). Also, if you look at other of Balikian's reviews you'll find he either bought several Panasonic products with the exact same results or he just copied and pasted his reviews. Please, don't make false or un-verified statements.
Thanks and enjoy the E80 !!!
No, I don't work for Panasonic ;)
Rating:
Summary: Great product and some misleading warranty statements
Review: I don't want to go over all the good posts about this product because I agree with them and this is a grat machine. But I want to clarify that this DVD recorder has a 1 (ONE) YEAR PARTS AND LABOR WARRANTY as stated in page 60 on the manual. I don't think is fair and honest to mislead possible customers posting false statements and I just wanted to contribute with my $.02
Buy with confidence and don't trust everyone on the cyberspace. And no, I don't work for Panasonic ;)
Rating:
Summary: Horrible Warranty - Bad Customer Service
Review: Since it's not posted on any of their products, I thought you should know that Panasonic DVD products come with a 90 days warranty on labor and 1 year on parts. That means when your unit breaks in 6 months, (Hard drive fails, motherboard dies, drive breaks) the part will be covered, but they will charge you the labor to install it! On a unit at this price, you might consider it worth it, but on cheaper DVD players, the labor costs more than the players themselves, so you just have to trash it and buy a Philips. BUYER BEWARE
Rating:
Summary: Easy to use for non techi-type
Review: I have had the unit for two months and have had lots of fun using it. I have digital cable going to the recorder and found that recording at the SP speed was perfect for everything, i.e. cable movies or old James Bond movies on AMC. Editing the commercials is very simple and you can't mess up. You are always given an option at each step. If you have very little experience with this type of equipment and are afraid it will collect dust, forget it. You will really enjoy the entertainment it can provide you. PS. I have 42" Panonsonic edtv. Great picture with the recorder.
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