Panasonic DMR-E55K Progressive-Scan DVD Recorder/Player , Black
stock up on 4x DVD-R discs while they are still around.
There are many reasons why this machine is a good purchase. The price is good, Panasonic brand name reliability (and customer service) is not bad-definitely better than cheaper Chinese/Korean made machines with poorer service. The recording functions are simple. If you can program a VCR this would be no problem. The playback quality is solid (both video and audio). I had no problems with recording until I started using 8x DVD-R discs. THe manual notes that it can record using 1-4x DVD-R discs. I started with 4x discs. Everything worked fine. Now with the new dual layer and 16x dvd-recorders for the PC in the market, it is getting harder to find slower discs like 4x. First I thought why would the speed of the disc matter. To my surprise, they do (at least for this machine). It would stop recording in about a few seconds followed by \\"self-check\\". I've bought 3 brands of (fuji, maxell and verbatim) 8x discs. None worked. I went back to Maxell 4x discs and it works fine. I've seen this problem noted on some AV forums online. So I guess I gotta stock up on the 4x discs before they get discontinued. Too bad, this recorder (or at least the one I happened to have bought) does not seem like it'll last more than 2 years for me. Feel free to let me know if you had any luck recording on the 8x-16x.