Panasonic  DMR-ES40VS VHS / DVD Recorder Silver
This is a good unit
I have found this unit to work very well. The instruction book <br />can be a bit confusing, but this is a complex machine doing <br />a complex job. READ (do not browse) the instructions. Keep the  <br />booklet handy until you are familiar with the machine. I am  <br />having excellent results with 'Sony' and 'Memorex' DVD+R discs. <br />DVD-RW, DVD-RAM will not play back on other machines. That is <br />because many other DVD players are not designed to read those <br />forms of media. They will play fine on this unit. You MUST <br />finalize the disc. The screen will prompt you to hit the \\"enter\\" <br />button when this is done. If you don't, you will have to unplug <br />the machine and let it reset. User error, not machine error. <br />2 hours of information does fit on a 2 hour disc. If however <br />you insert to many chapter breaks you will get \\"unable to  <br />finalize\\" message. Again user (not machine) error. Each chapter <br />break burns up space on the disc. I don't recommend the other <br />record modes. I also don't recommend 6-8 hrs on VHS. Simply <br />reduces the image quality too much. It will not record copy  <br />guarded material and it is not supposed to. If you have old  <br />tapes that are important to you, or old VHS movies that are not <br />available on DVD and you want to save them. This machine does <br />that. When finalizing the disc, keep it simple. You won't be <br />able to access specific scenes with out chapter breaks, but  <br />the \\"next\\" button bumps the disc forward about 5 minutes, or <br />fast forward to a selected scene. This still beats video tape. <br />Over all play and record quality on this unit is excellent  <br />for both DVD & VHS. Sound quality also excellent. The lack of <br />high-speed dubbing...Well you are going from VHS to DVD. That <br />is like expecting high-speed from vinyl (or 8-track) to CD. <br />There are limitations to the source media (video tape.  <br />