Panasonic DMR-EH50S DVD Recorder with 100 GB Hard Drive Recording
Exactly what I was looking for...
I'd been looking for quite some time for a relatively inexpensive DVD recorder that could record to multiple media and had a hard drive.  <br /> <br />I can't use a TiVo, as this thing is headed sometime soon to Canada, and TiVo doesn't work up there. There are some DVD/TiVo combos, but again, that would just leave me with a wasted HDD recorder when I headed Northward.  <br /> <br />I could NOT be more pleased. This box does everything I need it to do.  It is NOT a classic DVR in the sense that many of them are always recording constantly, allowing you to pause and replay live TV and such.  This will only do that if you're recording to the hard drive intentionally and manually playing at the same time (otherwise, it's simply not being recorded). It apparently will also do this if you're recording to DVD-RAM, but I admit I haven't tried that yet. Seems superfluous with the HD recorder. Oh yeah, it also allows you to record a show while watching a previously recorded one (on HD). <br /> <br />It has a high-speed dubbing option for recording, which is nice for the occasional shows. Normally, if you wanted to dub from HD to DVD or DVDRW, you'd be dubbing at 1:1 speed. An hour of recorded show takes an hour to dub.  High speed dubbing lets you do it MUCH faster, but has some quirks here and there. For instance, you can't record 16x9 recordings if you're in high speed dubbing mode, only 4x3. This should not, however, affect the average letterboxed video (16x9 in a 4x3 area), but I haven't tested all this out.  <br /> <br />It has several recording modes from 1 hours per DVD to 6/8.  I say 6/8 because it allows you to choose in an extra menu option whether you want the super long recording mode to be 6 hours or 8 hours.  8 hours creates some pretty horrid video, but it's there if for some bizarre reason you ever need it. 6 hours isn't actually too bad. It's not fantastic, but it's not as noisy as I was expecting by any stretch. These recording modes are duplicated in HD recording, leaving you with variable amounts of time to record shows on the hard drive. I do most shows in the LP mode which gives me something like 75 hours of recording time (far more than I really need to have stored, I think).  <br /> <br />Setting up recording is cake, really. There are several methods of doing it. You can put in dates, times, and frequency of recording like your average VCR (one thing I noted is that it does not have a M-F option for frequency... only an EVERY DAY for the closest number of days... which I've noticed doesn't seem to record on Sat/Sun). There's also a TV Guide on-screen recording setup option. A brief caveat is that many cable companies do not allow this data to be passed through their cable systems, so your mileage may vary. In my area, for instance, it works fine with basic cable (which I have), but they block the TV Guide signals with their Digital Cable service (Comcast).  I'll be sticking with basic cable.  It WILL retrieve VCR+ codes via antennae, I believe, though, giving you a way of getting these things recorded even without a friendly cable company... but I don't think you'd get the pretty TVGuide info screens and time bars.  <br /> <br />Incidentally, I was worried at first because it took more than 24 hours of the player being off for my channels to come through into the TV Guide screens the first time. It recommends that the player must be off for 24 hours to pick up the channels, and after about 28, it finally came through... by then I was panicking, but am now grateful I didn't do something rash.  <br /> <br />The remote is a little confusing here and there, but you get used to it. The buttons have some odd placements, but nothing you can't learn with a little time. It also has a jog dial that doubles as arrow keys for navigating. The jog dial is handy for editing. <br /> <br />Editing a title is a little difficult, but it's nice that the capability it built-into the recorder. You can rename a title. Cut bits from atitle (where the jog dial comes in VERY handy for making seamless transitions). That sort of thing. There is, however, no firewire input on this thing, so if you're looking for a very easy way of plugging in your home movies and recording them onto DVD, this isn't it. You're really better off with a computer and some editing software anyway, as that will make editing a little easier, and you'll get to modify menus and other such handy stuff.  <br /> <br />All in all, I could not be more pleased with this recorder. It's sleek. It does exactly what I need it to do. It has a decent-sized HD recorder, and records to a variety of DVD media as well as DVD-RAM for the bizarre enthusiast who likes that sort of thing.