Panasonic DMR-E55S Progressive Scan DVD Recorder / Player , Silver
Recorder is VERY flaky
I bought this DVD player over the summer in the hope of burning DVDs for programs that had been originally recorded on TiVo or VHS tapes. <br /> <br />I found the device for the most part to be relatively intuitive. The process of recording is straightforward. The recorder can record onto DVD-R (basically, record once) discs. I stayed away from using DVD-RAM discs because they are expensive and not widely used. <br /> <br />Recording onto a DVD-R disc is a 2-step process: <br />1. you record 1 or more tracks <br />2. at some point, you finalize the disc. When you finalize the disc, the disc is no longer writable, and you are able (theoretically) to play the finalized disc in any DVD-R compatible player <br /> <br />I was, initially, quite happy with the product, until we started to run into problems. <br /> <br />A huge issue is that the recorder occasionally craps out when you are recording tracks. Once it craps out, you can't finalize the disc, which means you either can only play it on this recorder or not at all. <br /> <br />Here are the specific problems I've run into: <br />1. For one disc (TDK), the recorder can play the disc but can't finalize it. So I am stuck with only being able to play it on this recorder. That's bad. The disc also skips in the same places during playback <br />2. Another disc (TDK) skips in the same places every time during playback. We were able to finalize the disc, but the skipping is annoying <br />3. For another disc (Memorex), the recorder crapped out while I was trying to set the thumbnail clip for a particular track. Now the recorder says the disc is empty. I can't even play the tracks I've already recorded on the recorder. The sad thing is I already deleted those tracks from TiVo (which is what I use to record TV programs), so now those tracks are lost. <br /> <br />I ran into problems #1 and #2 using TDK DVD-R discs. So I bought a different brand of disc (Memorex), but I ran into the problem #3 using a Memorex DVD-R disc. Mystrong impression now is that it is the recorder that is the problem, not the discs. Believe me, I wanted this recorder to not be the problem. It's affordable and like I said earlier, fairly user-friendly, and I don't like wasting time with the learning curve of a new device. <br /> <br />Once the recorder hoses the DVD-R disc, it seems extremely difficult to get the data back. I tried a bunch of Windows programs (e.g. Isobuster) with no luck. I even tried some command-line utilities on Linux. <br /> <br />If you purchase or own this device, my strong advice to you is to only record 1 or 2 programs before finalizing. And don't delete your original copies until after you've finalized the disc. Obviously, you shouldn't have to worry about not being able to finalize. You should be able to record as many tracks as you want until the disc is near full. But my experience is that you increase the likelihood of hosing the disc irreparably. <br /> <br />Do a search on \\"Panasonic can't finalize\\" and you'll see lots of other Panasonic recorder owners who have run into similar problems like I've described. <br /> <br />Problem #3 caused me to lose clips that I REALLY want to have. I am going to have to resort to paying a company to try to recover the data, which isn't cheap. <br /> <br />As a last piece of advice, if you can afford it, I recommend that you get a -RW or +RW recorder. Since researching the problems, I've read a lot of stuff on the Internet that say that the process of finalizing discs is fraught with issues, regardless of the recorder manufacturer. <br /> <br />I did call Panasonic customer service, and they were entirely unhelpful. They got value out of the call (by collecting marketing information about me: where I live, my name, when I bought it) but they were entirely unhelpful. The CSR said there is no way to recover the data. Their simple advice was: use only Panasonic DVD-R discs. That's garbage, and this whole experience was so frustrating I want to spareothers my aggravation.