Panasonic DMR-E85HS Progressive Scan DVD Player with 120 GB Hard Drive Recording

Rating:
Summary: Great unless it breaks!
Review: PART 1 -- SERVICE: One of the biggest factors for me in purchasing an expesive piece of electronics like this is service. On that point, I have to give Panasonic a ZERO.

There must be a LOT of these breaking because the parts have been back-ordered for mine for 60 days and they tell me it will be another 30 days until the parts come in.

So, let's do the math... you have a one-year warrantee, but if it fails, you don't get to use it for 3 months of that one year. Assuming the parts come in when they say they will. Ouch!

PART 2 FEATURES:

It's a great machine when it works. The TV guide listing, while not as powerful as TIVO is really nice if you don't need all of TIVO's features. You can edit out commercials fairly easily. Entering titles is a pain, however on a remote control (nothing beats a keyboard and that is simply not an option on this machine). The harddrive holds plenty of shows, but be sure you back things up you want to keep to DVD (see bad service part, above).

PART 3 VHS CONVERSION:
This thing rocks at converting old VHS (or, in my case, old BETA) tapes to DVD. The quality on SP is great and the TBC does a great job.

PART 4 PROBLEMS:
WAY too many false positives saying that a show is copy-protected. I had to get a MACRO remover to copy some of my 20-year-old BETA tapes that were filmed by me! In short, if the machine says you don't have a right to copy a video -- even if the call is WRONG! -- it simply won't let you burn it to DVD. So, I plunked down another two-hundred bucks for a good external TBC and MACRO remover. Problem solved.

PART 5 CONCLUSION:
If you're like me and need to preserve those old tapes before they degrade any further, it's a great machine. Don't expect reliability, however, nor good service. I can only give it two stars because a 4 for the machine, averaged with a 0 for service and reliabilty, equals a pathetic score of 2...

Rating:
Summary: An Amazing Machine
Review: Pros: Tivo like system, editing capabilities, and easy to use.

Cons: Manual could use some work and editing capabilities could be improved a bit.

What an amazing machine. I bought this just to transfer some home movies to DVD. Having the 120GB HDD (Hard Disk Drive) is great to store hours of TV programing thats on to late. Not to menchin its a wounderful place to edit out some of those "user errors" while running the camcorder. When recording from the camcorder to the HDD or DVD its as simple as pressing a button. All and all, once you figure the basics out, its a really easy operation. For me personally, I wish this came in black. Oh-well.

Rating:
Summary: Mine broke down 2 times for less than a year.
Review: The reason I chose Panasonic DVD recorder over other brand is that product is still made in Japan. Most of other DVD recorders now are made in China. I really fell in love with it when I first received it. This is my dream machine I have been yearning a long time ago, so I can retire my vcr. But six months later the machine broke down, I took it to Panasonic to have it service. The machine is still under guaranteed so I don't have to pay anything. Panasonic has good service. And a week ago my machine broke down again. I don't know if I can trust Panasonic DVD recorder anymore.

Rating:
Summary: Nice recorder - but TV Guide listings cause unreliability
Review: This is a nice machine for the money, considering the features and hard disk size. I've had it for a couple of months and have found that one day per week for the last two weeks, my TV Guide-selected timer recordings failed to occur. I gather that this is due to the TV Guide listings trying to download at that time. This happened again today and apparently the listings did not update at all because most of the TV Guide screen shows "No Listings Available".

As this appears to be a common finding, considering some of the other review, I would hope efforts are being made with the technology to somehow improve this.

It appears the way to avoid such failure may be to do a manual timer recording for those programs you really truly want to record. And, only count on the TV Guide-selected recordings for those you won't really miss if they don't quite happen.

Rating:
Summary: It works just fine, once you figure out the owner's manual
Review: This is far from being my first Panasonic built product, and I'm sure it won't be my last.

It is fairly typical for Panasonic: Well constructed, good quality, and once you figure out what the typically incomprehensible Panasonic owner's manual actually means, it is pretty easy to use. Especially considering the fact it is performing some fairly complicated multi-tasks.

It just makes sense to record all off-air programming directly to the hard drive. That's obviously what Panasonic has in mind. And in the "SP" recording mode (that's the next-to-best mode) you will get picture quality virtually indistinguishable from the original broadcast. In this mode the hard drive will store around 55 hours of material. Surely that will give you enough space to time shift all those fabulous shows you didn't want to miss.

I agree with others that the longer-record modes offer very compromised picture quality. But who really needs to get 200 hours of time on the hard drive?

As for dubbing from hard drive to a DVD-r or DVD-Ram, it's fairly uncomplicated. Especially after you've done it a few times so you can say to yourself "Oh, that's what the owner's manual meant - but didn't really say". Because it is a TV set-top accessory rather than a computer add-on, you have to use the remote for just about everything. It is a bit laborious until, again, you get the hang of what it is you are supposed to do. Gee, a keyboard option would be so great.

As for the TV Guide On Screen option, the only problem I've been able to find is that it seems to take a very long time for the info to download and, of course, since the function actually involves channel scanning, it can only be done when the machine is not in use. And, by-the-way, it is also dependent on the information being fed it by the individual channel. Therefore, you may occasionally have listings at a particular time of day for most, but not all, your channels. The conundrum is Panasonic has designed the machine, what with it's Time Slip feature and all, to be used practically your every waking hour. But, and this is a big "but", you don't have to use TV Guide On Screen to program the timer. You can program it in the usual manner, or use VCR-Plus, just like any VCR.

And, something very nice: If you have a repeat program scheduled, say, every Tuesday at 9PM, and it isn't running on a particular week, the machine automatically skips it, and reschedules itself for the next week. However, unlike Tivo, it doesn't search out different times and days that program might be on. And, also unlike Tivo, it is absolutely free.

So, in conclusion, I am very pleased with this machine. You have to use it to understand how to use it, because Panasonic, as is their tradition, is not especially helpful with their owner's manual. I could certainly never go back to video tape.

Oh, yeah, in response to someone who said it won't record on DVD-r's from bulk spindle packs, yes, you guessed it, pure horsehockey. Just buy a quality brand like TDK, Maxell, etc, and, like me, you'll have no problem (over 30 so far without a hitch).

Have fun!


Rating:
Summary: A verynice unit. Watch out TIVO!
Review: This Panasonic DVD/digital video recorder is great! I haven't had the problem described (concerning the TV guide feature)--but note that this feature only works with the cable directly attached to the unit (cannot be hooked up to a digital cable box). The TV guide feature does not work with satellite either. TV guide feature is awesome...and you don't need a phone line (like TIVO). See epinions.com for my expanded review http://www.epinions.com/content_143539670660