Panasonic DMR-E30K Progressive Scan DVD Recorder
My Pet Dinosaur
I bought this from Circuit City in 2001, priced at $499. I wanted to preserve old VHS home videos & save new ones. I really didn't want the hassle of trying to do this on a PC. Learning new software & installing new drives isn't what I call a challenging weekend. Yes, this machine is picky about which discs it will record. Fuji DVD-R's are likely to crash in the middle of recording. TDK's are about 50% likely to burn. I had to order Panasonic discs to get a better percentage rate. Please remember, the DVD RAM you use will probably only work in this machine. They are best suited for timer recordings you will not want to keep. This unit also does not playback many formats modern DVD players now accept. If you have relatives that send home DVD's from their PC, they probably won't play on this machine. Nor will CD-R's or MPEG's. Lesson learned? I spent a weekend installing a DVD burner in the computer & learned how to copy from VHS. I mostly use this unit to switch aux. audio inputs to my antique stereo.