Panasonic DMR-E80H Progressive-Scan DVD Player/Recorder with Hard Drive , Silver
Hard Drive is a Tremendous Value
I have been enjoying the DMR-E80H for a few weeks now.  I ordered the Panasonic E60 but it got delayed for weeks so I switched to the E80H.  Now that I am using the E80H I am very happy that I switched.  The hard drive makes all the difference because you can timer record or VCRPlus record as many TV programs as you can stand.  You only have to burn a DVD-R or RAM when you want to save something permanently or if you want to give the disk to someone else.   For any recorder w/o a hard drive you would always be shuffling DVD disks around although a double-sided RAM disk would help that to some extent.  But even when I have a program list of 10 programs or more I am still not challenging the hard drive.  For recording VCR tapes, the E80H has a nice front interface in case you don't have your VCR wired up permanently to the rear inputs.  Initially I was very nervous about recording media since I saw some reviews that said you could only use Panasonic DVD's but I have had good luck with Sony DVD-R's and you can get Panasonic DVD's online and at Circuit City.  To do the VCRPlus recording I had to find the VCRPlus Guide Channel list (tvguide.com) and program the channels in one at a time for each Cable channel that I would ever want to record from. It took me about 1 hour to program in the Guide Channels.  A nice upgrade would be the ability to download the Guide Channels but I guess this is getting dangerously close to the TIVO thing.  On the VCRPlus recording thing I noticed that when recording channels like HBO you can miss a minute or 2 at the end of the show but it is very convenient to get online and find the VCRPlus code for the program(s) you want to record and then just program the code and you are ready to go.  I have found that it is very helpful to add a title so when you have several programs in the play list you can tell them apart.  Adding titles is a little awkward as you have to move cursor over to each separate character in the title and enter them in one at a time.  A futuristic upgrade would be to provide a small wireless keyboard.  Bottom line is that I think the E80H is a good deal.