Panasonic DMR-EH50S DVD Recorder with 100 GB Hard Drive Recording
Great Video Quality but Extremely Complicated to Operate
First I need to say that I used to teach radio - TV productions and ran a TV production studio. So I'm not the average home user. Yet I had to spend an entire day (from morning until night) just setting this up and getting the basic functions to operate. The remote is totally non-intuitive, and you will need a highlighter and a pen in order highlight sections of the manual and put notes into margins where instructions are vague or misleading. Here's and example: \\"Hit the \\"blue\\" video button...\\" Where the !@XZ is the \\"blue\\" video button? There are no blue video buttons to be found anywhere on the remote and all controls function from the remote. Another example of the confusing instructions can be found where it tells the user how to change the video picture quality but neglects an important step in the process. You have to hit \\"DISPLAY\\" on the remote first before you can find the page with this on it. I stumbled on it accidently by randomly hitting buttons.  <br /> <br />I started with a DVD recorder without a hard drive and it was a huge mistake. After ruining 10 disks right off the bat, I took the unit back and paid three times the price for this one. I think its worth it. But I predict it will take about 6 months to fully understand it. <br /> <br />One other irritating feature is that the recording copy protection is so sensitive that if you have a videotape that has any glitches that upset the sync pulse momentarily, it turns the copy protection on and prevents you from continuing the dup process. SHHESH, they are so damn scared that someone might copy a DVD. Get over it!!!