Panasonic DMRE85HS Progressive-Scan DVD Player/Recorder with 120 GB Hard Drive Recording
Great recorder, easy to use
I bought this unit a year ago.  I did not want to be tied to yet another monthly charge such as Tivo and I wanted the ability to burn DVDs.  This has been a great machine for me.  I hooked up my (not-so-old) VCR/DVD combo and transferred home videos to DVD. I can also burn DVDs of shows I want to keep indefinitely, but not take up space on the hard drive- thus I can have the entire season of my favorite shows on DVD, commercial-free once I take the time to edit them.   <br /> <br />What I love:  I am no longer tied to a tv schedule so I can watch a favored show anytime I want and not get sucked into some horrible show just because there's nothing on; I don't watch commercials anymore; I don't have a monthly fee; I can save anything indefinitely on DVD and edit it to my liking; I have a large selection of PBS shows saved for my kids to watch anytime that is convenient; and it's easy to use (once you spend a day or two with the manual in one hand and the remote in the other). <br /> <br />The DVDs I have burned work on at least 4 different players that I know of, including a tiny $20 Cyberhome model.  The only player they don't work on that I know of is a portable DVD player made by Durabrand (about the cheapest I could find in August 2004).  Once I found out the machine only accepts DVD-R (not DVD+R) for recording, which I thought was not adequately explained in the manual, every brand I've tried has worked- Sony, TDK, Panasonic and a very cheap generic brand. <br /> <br />The only caveats: <br />Initially I had a little trouble with the TV Guide messing up which required resetting the device- the default was for that to come on first thing.  Once I changed the setting to only bring up the TV Guide when I pressed the button, I haven't had that problem anymore.  The biggest down side is that sometimes the tv guide listings don't load and that the machine must be off for them to do so.  Having said that, it's only been an occasional problem and you can completely avoidthat using the timer recording instead (the only downside to the timer recording is that the name of the program doesn't appear on the thumbnail screen- but of course you can add that manually).  I have had the U99 message pop up a small handful of times over the year.  At first I would unplug the machine and it would reset, but then I discovered you could hold the power button down for about a full 20 seconds and it would reset. <br /> <br />The default setting for recording is EP.  This is really too low quality for most people.  You can see and hear it just fine but the resolution is very low and so you won't get crisp images.  I reset mine to one setting higher and it's perfect for me and I still get plenty of room for a huge number of shows.  <br /> <br />Overall, based on my personal experience, I can highly recommend this machine.  It has performed very well and I am mystified why this type of device hasn't become more popular.  It has far more flexibility than a DVD recorder without a hard drive or the DVRs like Tivo or the ones you rent from cable companies.  I can't imagine watching tv according to 'whatever's on' or making sure I watch my 3 or 4 favorite shows when they air.  It's by far my favorite electronic device I've ever purchased.