Panasonic DMR-E80H Progressive-Scan DVD Player/Recorder with Hard Drive , Silver
Exactly what I was looking for
I had been debating about getting a TiVo or just a regular DVR unit. Then I came across this Panasonic unit and said goodbye to TiVo! <br />I read the other reviews here and was a little concerned about the ones that said the manual was hard to follow. I went to the Panasonic website and downloaded the PDF of it to check it out for myself before I bought it. If you're even remotely tech-savy, you'll have ZERO trouble following it. It does do a lot of cross-referencing, but that's only because of how interrelated all the systems in it are. It's got A LOT of options, so it does take a while to absorb it all. But if you just have a little patience, you shouldn't have any trouble figuring out this unit's capabilities. If you have any doubts, just do what I did and go to Panasonic.com and read the manual before you buy it yourself.<br />The other complaint that I read in reviews here was the harddrive failing. Well, I bought my unit at Best Buy and got the extended warranty they offer which completely covers ANY malfunction. I buy most of my electronics from them because of that very warranty. So, if I do have a problem like the others mention here, all I have to do is drive 5 minutes down the road to have it repaired and pay nothing!<br />I've been using this unit for a few days now and am very pleased with it's performance. If it's something you think you're going to want to keep and burn to DVD, just set the record quality to XP and the quality is the same as the original TV broadcast. I set the VCR Plus+ system up today to try it out. Coupled with TVGuide.come, which gives all VCR Plus+ Codes in their listings, setting up a recording is as easy as entering a 2-8 digit code in one step. If it's a series you'll be watching, just set it up to record daily or weekly to the Harddrive and you're set! Sure it might not be as simplified as TiVo has made it, and you will have to pay attention to a rescheduling of your shows. But you're not paying a monthly fee and doing essentially the same thing in the end! AND you can burn things you want to keep to DVD WITH the commercials edited out!<br />Only reason I'm not giving it a 5 is because of the missing firewire port. Still don't understand why they couldn't put in this one when the units below (DMR-E60S) and above (DMR-E100HS) it have them. Would've make it a lot easier to interface with portable digital video recorders.<br />In the end, all I was really looking for was something to let me set up recording shows I won't be home for in the evenings during the week without having to make sure the tape I put in has enough space left on it. With 17 hours at super-high quality recording and DVD burning/editing to keep things I like and free harddrive space, I'll never have that worry again!