Panasonic DMR-E80H Progressive-Scan DVD Player/Recorder with Hard Drive , Silver
Very Good recorder - I tried a couple
This is perhaps my most-researched electronic purchase.  Thanks to others<BR>who have left reviews. I spent days researching and concluded that this recorder certainly met my needs and was the best of the three I considered (Sony, Philips and Panasonic). The others did not have hard drives... a major consideration. The comments on the user-unfriendliness of the Philips, and the difficulty with the manual,pursuaded me to return the Philips unopened. I did try the Sony, and although I generally have a positive opinion of Sony products (notwithstanding recent headaches with my expensive Sony Vaio computer), I found the quality of the picture from the Panasonic better than the Sony, and the Panasonic offered a hard drive for about the same price of a Sony without a hard drive.<br />So, Pluses:<BR> - the hard drive<BR> - superior picture quality<BR> - ease of use (the Sony may be slightly better here)<BR> - price<br />Minuses:<br />- no firewire or iLink input ( that was really cheap of Panasonic to omit this on this model while including it on some of its other models)<BR>- Sony plays DVD+R and +RW as well as -R and -RW, but records in -RW and -R; Panasonic records in DVD RAM and -R and plays these two. (I have not used the RAM disk but the DVD -R works very well in my two other Sony DVD players and my Sony computer. Not in my older HP computer).<br />Overall, I wanted a recorder primarily to save my old VHS and Hi8 tapes to DVD and, when I have more time, do some basic edits of some tapes. ( I did not buy this primarily for TV recording, but the \\"Tivo-like\\" time slip feature that allows you to \\"rewind\\" a show while it is on live, while the recorder continues to record, is a definite plus over the others.) I have transferred over 10 Hi8 and VHS tapes to DVD -R without problems. I frankly think that this machine is much simpler to use than my PC's DVD burner.  The Panasonic's picture quality is very good. I am very satisfied with the product. I was very concerned about the alleged loss of quality when one dubs from hard disk to DVD -R. Allegedly, the transfer goes from digital to analog to digital, but I think subsequent comments from others dispelled that concern well.  Thanks to the many consumer reviews I read, including on Amazon, I am quite happy with my purchase of this DVD recorder. Incidentally, Amazon does have very good prices on that product.