Panasonic DMR-E100HS Progressive Scan DVD Player with 120GB Hard Disk
massive hard drive, excellent reliability and easy editing
I bought this unit to archive old S-VHS tapes, VHS tapes and laserdiscs to DVD, and this it does admirably.  I also bought it to time-shift weekly TV shows to HDD and at this, it is better than any S-VHS VCR I have owned (and I have owned a lot of high-end units).  As others have mentioned, it cannot dub FROM its own DVD drive to the HDD, but how relevant is this since this is probably a second player/recorder for most purchasers?  You will not be able to copy macrovision-protected DVDs or tapes either (without the appropriate third party copy enhancer box).  But respecting macrovision copyguard is pretty much the rule on all consumer electronics in the US so this should not be &quot;news&quot; to anyone.<br />Yes, if you want to archive VHS tapes or DV tapes to DVD, you WILL need a device to play back the tapes (duh).  I'm not exactly sure what the earlier reviewer was complaining about, with the &quot;lack of firewire input&quot; - the DMR-E100HS most certainly *does* have a firewire input, as well as 3 analog inputs (S-video and composite video on each).  So if you have a digital camcorder, you will be able to plug your camcorder into the E100's firewire input and make a digital copy.  Very few DVD/HDD recorders actually have firewire inputs (the new Panny E85, for example, does not have it, nor does the Pioneer DVR810), so if you are going to use your DVD recorder to convert DV camcorder tapes to DVD, then the E100 is an excellent choice.<br />Also, the SD card port is actually really cool - you can dub any material from DVD-RAM or from the hard drive directly onto a tiny Secure Digital (SD) card in MPEG (MPEG4) encoding so you can then import it directly into a PC from the card.  The unit can also read images from SD cards, as well as PCMCIA cards, which is interesting, but less useful to me.<br />My only gripes (and they are minor) are that there is limited control over the DVD menu when finalizing a DVD-R (you get a user-selectable thumbnail for each video segment, which is nice, but you can't select a custom background for the menu - just one of a list of 8 stock backgrounds; and the text labeling is a bit awkward.  Also, I have had some compatibility problems with off-brand DVD-R discs, though Panasonic, TDK, and even cheapo &quot;Liquid Video&quot; blank DVD-Rs have worked fine.  Plus both Panasonic and the cheaper Optodisc DVD-RAMs work great in this unit.<br />I love that you can use a double-sided DVD-RAM in a cartridge to fit twice as much material on the disc than you ever could on traditional DVD-R (yes, you DO have to switch sides if you use double-sided media).  I send my sister in Germany copies of several US shows and this unit allows me to put 10 episodes of a one hour show on a single double-sided DVD-RAM disc at actually very acceptable quality (one hour shows end up about 43 minutes long after editing our commercials).<br />Speaking of editing... editing out commercials, or editing home made video segments is a breeze on this unit.  Mark the start point, mark the end point, click twice and you're done.<br />As a demanding videophile with an extremely high resolution monitor (Loewe 38&quot; HDTV-cable widescreen monitor) and a penchant for recording a lot of TV, I have to say I've been quite happy owning this unit for the past 8 months.  Picture quality in XP and SP modes are better than S-VHS without the annoying tape glitches that can happen.  And the unit has a &quot;flexible recording&quot; mode that can squeeze the absolute highest quality out of the available space on a blank DVD.  It's not perfect, but it's among the cream of the crop of DVD/HDD recorders on the market today.  If you buy one... you won't be disappointed.gment, which is nice, but you can't select a custom background for the menu - just one of a list of 8 stock backgrounds; and the text labeling is a bit awkward.  Also, I have had some compatibility problems with off-brand DVD-R discs, though Panasonic, TDK, and even cheapo &quot;Liquid Video&quot; blank DVD-Rs have worked fine.  Plus both Panasonic and the cheaper Optodisc DVD-RAMs work great in this unit.  <br />I love that you can use a double-sided DVD-RAM in a cartridge to fit twice as much material on the disc than you ever could on traditional DVD-R (yes, you DO have to switch sides if you use double-sided media).  I send my sister in Germany copies of several US shows and this unit allows me to put 10 episodes of a one hour show on a single double-sided DVD-RAM disc at actually very acceptable quality (one hour shows end up about 43 minutes long after editing our commercials).  <br />Speaking of editing... editing out commercials, or editing home made video segments is a breeze on this unit.  Mark the start point, mark the end point, click twice and you're done.<br />As a demanding videophile with an extremely high resolution monitor (Loewe 38&quot; HDTV-cable widescreen monitor) and a penchant for recording a lot of TV, I have to say I've been quite happy owning this unit for the past 8 months.  Picture quality in XP and SP modes are better than S-VHS without the annoying tape glitches that can happen.  And the unit has a &quot;flexible recording&quot; mode that can squeeze the absolute highest quality out of the available space on a blank DVD.  It's not perfect, but it's among the cream of the crop of DVD/HDD recorders on the market today.  If you buy one... you won't be disappointed.