Panasonic DMR-ES20K DVD Recorder
Amazing but Quirky
This is some pretty amazing technology. The image quality is fine. The LP mode is remarkable and I'll be darned if I can see much difference between LP, SP, and XP. I'm watching this on a Toshiba 27\\" with RCA connectors, so there may be some artifacts that aren't obvious to me. The EP mode is very soft and generally unacceptable for archiving anything. This machine is not without problems though. <br />It does occasionally \\"freeze\\", requiring a forced \\"restart\\". I also found yesterday that it refused to finalize a particular DVD-R. The disc plays fine on the unit but when you try to finalize it...nothing. Strange. I also found something even more troubling. <br />After erasing a program on a Panasonic DVD-RAM disc, I recorded another program. Upon watching it, the image became jumpy at one point with some heavy artifacting. Then out of the blocky mess I could see images from the erased program! Is Panasonic allowing beta versions of these things out or what?!