Panasonic DMR-E30S Progressive Scan DVD Recorder
An awesome unit!
I have had this model for almost a month now and all I can say is WOW! It is very easy to use (in spite of the poorly written, confusing manual) and the discs it has created have been viewable in all 7 DVD players that I have tested, including a cheapie 2 year old Wal-Mart DVD player. It truly is as simple to use as a VCR. I have been copying home movies to DVD from my Sony digital 8mm camcorder and the results have been impressive. I wish that the unit had a firewire port(like the next higher up model, but without the ($$$) extra cost) for the digital camcorder, but I can live without it. In the normal mode(LP), the DVD is every bit as good as the outstanding picture on the camcorder (or from my DirecTV/TiVO unit), and on the longest play mode, the picture is still quite good. The picture quality on the longest mode is not as good, but unlike a VCR's extreme graniness, the picture just gets a bit softer. Making titles/chapters is a breeze as well. The only con for the device is that you can't record letterboxed video on standard DVD-R discs. Some sort of lame copyright protection I assume. You can record letterbox content onto a DVD-RAM, but these discs are far more expensive than the DVD-R discs, and usually can't be played on another DVD player. This really affects me because I shoot a lot of video on my digital camcorder in 16:9 format for playing on my widescreen HDTV, but when I try to copy the video to a DVD-R, the unit stretches the picture vertically to fill the screen. Same thing for letterbox movies. The only gotcha is to make sure that you are using the correct media. All DVD-R discs aren't the same. The discs were over three dollars at my local CompUSA, but I have found them online for much less than a dollar each shipped! Don't hesitate to buy this unit. You won't regret it.  Buy it and enjoy!!! Do some internet searching and you can find a really great price.