Panasonic DMRE85HS Progressive-Scan DVD Player/Recorder with 120 GB Hard Drive Recording
From lemon to lemonade!!!  UPDATE (DVD Techie please read)
PREVIOUS REVIEW.... <br />I would love to give this machine a high rating because I think it probably deserves it but I just can't....at least not the unit that I got.  The features are fantastic, the picture quality is great and the high speed dubbing is superb.  The finalized DVD-R disc even played on my other DVD player that is only supposed to be able to play the +r/+rw discs.  So why the 2-star rating?  Well the darn thing would freeze up EVERY SINGLE DAY and had to be reset.  One day it had to be reset 3 times.  When I would try to use one of the menus like the navigator menu or the programming menu it would lock up at least once a day.  A couple of times I had to go through the entire \\"initial setup\\" before it would work.  Once it was reset it would always work great once again but it would only last until the next day.  This was EXTREMELY aggravating and shouldn't happen right out of the box.  I had a similar problem with a TiVo unit that I used to have and eventually it led to a hard drive failure so I'm not waiting around for that to happen.  It also didn't download any of the TV Guide On Screen service information even after 6 days but that was something I could have lived with.  Like I said in the title I'm pretty sure I just got a lemon.  I'm sending it back and Amazon is sending me a new unit ASAP.  Hopefully I can give the next unit the 4 or 5 stars that it deserves. <br /> <br />UPDATED REVIEW...... <br />In my previous review for this item I suspected that I had probably received a lemon and my suspicions were correct.  I first gave it 2 stars because it wasnt working correctly and I now give it 4 stars.  After notifying Amazon about my defective machine they sent me a new one 2 days later and it works GREAT!!!  I absolutely love the machine and have no problems with the new replacement.  The only reason that I didn't give it 5 stars is because of it's limited disc format.  You're only able to record on DVD-ram or DVD-R discs.  The DVD-ram discs aregreat for re-recording, editing and even watching a show from the beginning while its still recording but they dont play on most other machines so you can't record something for a friend on this type of disc.  If you want to record something to be played on another machine you can use the DVD-R discs but the only problem with that is they can't be re-used.  Once you record on them and \\"finalize\\" the disc thats it.  So I wish they had made it possible to use one of the \\"RW\\" discs which are more compatible on other machines than the ram discs.  Other than that my only suggestion would be to make it possible to scroll faster or skip through the channel listings instead of having to scroll one channel at a time.  You cant even hold the button down for continuous scroll, you have to hit the button to go through each channel on the listing page.  One feature that is nice is that you can rearrange the channel listings in any order you want so that the channels you would most often like to check are right at the top of the list. <br /> <br />DVD Techie, your machine is doing almost exactly what my first one was doing.  I would suggest that you return it and get a new one.  When you run the setup make sure that you TURN THE MACHINE OFF FOR 24 HOURS like it says in the manual.  I think this is an important step even though it also says that you can use the machine during this time period.  Just turn it off and leave it for 24 hours and hopefully you wont have any problems.  My new one works great and I love it.   <br />