Rating: 
Summary: A great investment!
Review: The wife & I decided to hold off on buying a DVD player until they could record, and those units were more affordable. To the DMR-E50K I can only ask: "Where have you been all my life?!?"
This is a great concept and a wonderful machine.
I currently have 2 VCR's slaved to one another then channeled through this unit, the satellite receiver and either the DVD player from my home theater, my camcorder or my digital camera connected to this machine. It is not an overstatement to say that this device is the workhorse of our Media Center. And it's up to the job.
Until I brought this out of the box, my wife was recording her craft shows to video tapes. Twenty-some of them, to be exact. This means that on a 6 hour tape, there might be 30-40 minutes of stuff she wants to save for future reference. Now, she can use the timer to record the whole show, but edit out the stuff she doesn't want to keep. Also, all those tapes will, someday, have the parts she wants to keep transfered to DVD.As other reviews have noted, I am also transfering my old video tapes to DVD and simply based on the space I'm clearing up, this machine is worth the price.
The only media problem I've ever encountered was when I bought the wrong format. Other than that, all the media I've used have worked well.
Rating:
Summary: Great Price Great Quality DVD recorder direct from Amazon
Review: This DVD recorder makes 2 hour recordings on DVD-R that I cannot distinguish from a live satellite tv broadcast. The unit was able to use one dollar generic brand DVD-Rs disc. It was possible to playback both on my computer DVD drive and on other home DVD players The unit is compact and quiet. There are three line-in inputs (RCA and S-video). A minor negative is the lack of a firewire connection for connecting a miniDV camcorder. I have not tested the DVD RAM feature that allows re-using the DVD RAM disc repeatedly. It comes with one free DVD RAM disc; these cost about Five dollars each. Set up is quick and straightforward. The remote is comlicated but does everything it's supposed to do. There is a "flexible record" (FR) feature that use the complete space available on the disc so that recording are of maximum quality. The unit is able to ecord up to 6 hours onto a single 4.7 GB DVD-R but the instuctions say that quality deteriorates noticeably if you go much over the two hour limit. Recordings that I have made in the 2 hour range looked great, better than anything I've seen from a VCR, but not as perfect as a store bought DVD. The source material affects the appearance: a broadcast of a grainy, faded movie looks grainy and faded on the recording whereas newer material looked very good.
I bought this from Amazon. The item was in my PO box four days after I ordered it. The price was the lowest I saw from a major source. Shipping was free and the price came to nearly one hundred fifty less than I would have paid had I walked into C*rcuit C*ty to buy the exact same thing. A minor shipping negative: Amazon sent this expensive item thorugh the mail in it's own box which obviously identifies it as an expensive piece of electonic equipment.
Rating:
Summary: Great Value
Review: This Panasonic machine offers tremendous value for the price. The video and sound quality are excellent, as are the numerous features, and there is an overall sense of quality about the recorder and its workings. The machine will record to both DVD-R and DVD-RAM discs and offers high functionality in both formats. Using DVD-R, I have transferred several VHS tapes and have had no trouble viewing these on any recently manufactured DVD players. Further, users can input names for both the disc and the individual titles recorded on it. In the finalizing process for DVD-R discs, the recorder inserts chapter stops into each program at 5 minute intervals, which structures the DVD-R programs so they are very similar to those contained on standard DVD-Video discs. As for DVD-RAM, I can't heap enough praise on this format. While it (surprisingly) does not enjoy high compatibility, RAM is certainly the most versitile of the recordable DVD formats available. It is also the most expensive; however, the fact that it can be rewritten about 100,000 times offsets the higher price. DVD-RAM is nothing less than a removable hard drive. It allows for seemingly endless program editing options, such as erasing portions of programs, creating playlists, and more. The time slip feature of RAM allows the user to begin watching a program from the beginning while it is still recording or to watch an already recorded program while recording a separate program on the same disk. Other manufacturers should realize the value of the DVD-RAM format and begin the move toward higher compatibility. Nothing better currently exists in rewritable media. Outstanding.
Rating: 
Summary: Two strikes you're out
Review: This recorder was great when it worked right. Unfortunately, that wasn't very often. The first unit I got would just shut off for no reason during recording. I returned it and got another. This one stayed on at least, but it ruined a disk for every one it created successfully. I've had enough of the Panasonic and am going to try another brand. One bit of good news is that Amazon.com's return mechanisms work wonderfully. So at least that part wasn't frustrating.
Rating: 
Summary: Great playback, but will not read DVD-R
Review: This unit does a great job of playback. I have never had a DVD player/recorder and it looks great with store-bought DVD's or the DVD-Ram disc that panasonic supplied. But as another reviewer mentioned, it does not read DVD-R. I used several Maxell DVD-R discs (I don't know why the brand should make any difference) and the player says: NO READ. You must purchase DVD-Ram discs or you won't be able to record anything. I did see that others claim that DVD-R works in their units and the manual says it should, but I had no luck and I wouldn't spend $ 400. if you think you're going to record on DVD-R with this unit. Best of luck. Other than that, it's great. You also must have a THREE JACK (Yellow, White & Red) Output a/v on your TV or you will not be able to record from your TV set. If your TV is more than a couple years old, and it has TWO A/V jacks in the rear of the the set, you will not be able to record from your TV or VCR.
Rating: 
Summary: Best purchase I've made in the past year
Review: This unit isn't perfect, but I'd say it was money well spent. I had a TiVo already so I didn't see the need to spend the extra money for the hard drive equipped model; I just wanted a quick and easy way to lay shows off to DVD without capturing and authoring them on a computer, and this unit did the trick. The only part I don't like is having to manually enter the program name with the remote--manufacturers should add a USB connector to any device that requires typing so you can plug in a keyboard and do it that way. More editing options for DVD-R would also be nice, but for $279 I'm pretty happy with what it does.
Rating:
Summary: Lasted only 70 days
Review: This worked well for about 1.5 months. Then it became finicky about the DVDR blanks, sometimes failing to record on them (not a good thing when you are timer recording and gone). Now, no matter what disc, it loads it and refuses to eject. Only an undocumented keystroke can sometimes get the disc out...and it makes no difference as to the quality. I have had trouble with 4 Panasonic video items...and all I can say is Never Again!
Rating:
Summary: The Less than Perfect DMR-E50
Review: Using top quality discs to test this recorder is a must, otherwise bad media is to blame if something goes wrong. I purchased the Panasonic DMR-E50S at a local store, after a few days of normal usage it started to fail. The machine also rendered my TDK discs unusable even after its "recovery" mode kicked in. I didn't imagine this was normal behavior so I went back to the store to get a different DMR-E50S. The replaced unit has performed much better so far (for a week), it even takes the formerly rejected TDKs, so there is no question that it had a mechanical failure before. I have seen many complimentary opinions here about this Panasonic model, and it is true that it provides the best compression quality I have ever seen, but it isn't perfect, so I will concentrate on that:
1) You must have nerves of still while using this model because this unit lacks a hard drive, so you are always at the mercy of lady luck. i.e. With the DMR-E50 you risk loosing every episode of "The Simpsons" you recorded if either the DVD-R or the machine fail before you "finalize" the disc. If you record to a hard drive at least you can try different DVD-Rs before erasing the show from the drive.
2) The remote control is extremely directional and only works if you are pointing directly towards the recorder. This forces you to do painful contortions.
3) The final menu is text only, no picture thumbnails as most DVD+R units do. Hence, you must manually add titles to every entry, otherwise you won't know what your DVD contains except for the date.
4) Entering each title letter by letter using the remote is ridiculously time consuming (yet better than nothing).
5) DVD-RAM is great for temporary viewing, but even though they can be edited they are hardly compatible with other players, pretty useless, because if you build an extensive library of edited material, you are married to Panasonic forever. So you must use the non-editable DVD-R for permanent recordings.
6) I have a hunch this type of recorders have a short life-span (maybe less than a year, hence the failures after a few months of usage), keep that in mind.
7) Whatever you do, do not purchase the "store extended warranty" at any local stores. No matter what the salesman promised, they will not give you a brand new unit after 30 days, instead they will take the unit from you and try to fix it for as long as it takes.
Conclusion: this unit is easily surpassed by the Panasonic models that come with hard drives, so, just wait until those come down in price and get one of those instead. Other DVD recorders units I tried and failed to work: CyberHome and Polaroid, both notoriously buggy.
Rating:
Summary: Low Price, High Value.
Review: When I finally decided to get the Panasonic DMR-E50K DVD Player/Recorder, I hoped it would be able to record all our analog camcorder videos and allow editing. No, it wouldn't, but the recordings off digital cable and our camcorder have been excellent, even at the EP speed. At first, I crammed 3 movies on each DVD-r disk, but sometimes I noticed pixelation and jagged edges to curved objects, so I now record the first movie in LP mode, and the second in FP mode for maximum clarity. Using the cheaper DVD-r media produced mixed results. It's better to stick with Panasonic, Memorex, or Verbatim media. My wife loves to record their dances on the DVD-RAM disks, then I discovered that I couldn't copy chapters from her RAM disks on my computer to make masters. However, redchevyman, another reviewer had the solution I needed. Get a cheap Panasonic DVD player capable of playing DVD-RAM disks and record them to DVD-r disks. Then take them to your computer for final editing and production of high quality home-produced DVDs. I found DVD Wizard Pro and Pinnacle/Sonic the answer to most of my needs for making and copying DVDs. But, my growing library of DVD movies recorded from digital cable is my greatest video joy. The results compare to the professionally produced DVDs. The Panasonic recorder is up to the task, and thanks to redchevyman, I know how to remove commercials from those great SCIFI channel productions and elsewhere. However, the commercial skip button works well, or fast forward on the player. For its price, this recorder cannot be beat. I only wish there were any easier way to enter titles of movies recorded than the telephone keypad method.
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