Panasonic DMRE85HS Progressive-Scan DVD Player/Recorder with 120 GB Hard Drive Recording
Great in concept, but a shaky implementation
First, I'd like to give a rave review to the Amazon return policy. Requesting a return could not be earlier, and if you use the UPS option, there is likely to be a convenient drop off location near you. <br /> <br />And I'd also like to praise the functional design of the E85HS. I found it to be easy to program, and the functions to be well thought through. For example, I was please to discover that I could stop the 'chasing playback', then resume at the stop point. Of course, as with anything, it's easy to think of additional features that would be useful, but that wouldn't stop me from giving a 4 or 5 star rating. <br /> <br />What does stop me is the reliability of the DVD recorder portion of the device. My first unit experienced a massive failure while trying to read a DVD it had just written (DVD-R, from Sony). The unit stopped responding to any control (front panel, remote) other than the on/off switch on the front panel. My second unit is only slightly more well- behaved: it will not write a DVD-R in high speed mode, and Memorex DVD-Rs written in normal mode often fail to finalize (a step necessary to make the DVDs 'more' compatible with other DVD units). I have had more luck using a DVD-RAM, but I'm not sure that these are supported by other DVD players. I also had luck with the single remaining Sony DVD-R. So, I'm going to buy and try some more of these, hoping that the Memorex media is slightly incompatible, but I suspect I will be returning this second unit as well, possibly for a refund this time. <br />