Panasonic DMR-E80H Progressive-Scan DVD Player/Recorder with Hard Drive , Silver
Worked perfectly for nearly 3 years
I recieved this unit for Christmas in 2003 and have been very pleased with it up until recently. I used it mainly to record TV to the hard drive, edit those programs and transfer them to DVD. I have also used it to transfer VHS to DVD. I found setup was a breeze and the machine is quite user friendly. I was using the hard drive and making DVD's in no time. Unlike many comments here, I used the hard drive feature daily and have not experienced one single problem with it. It has never failed or wiped out any of the programs I have recorded. I also never had a problem tranferring to DVD. In the near 3 years that I have used it it has never locked up or produced one bad disc. I tend to stick to SP mode when transferring and found the picture quality to be excellent. I was convinced this machine was perfect until... I was playing a normal commericial disc, it was working fine and then all of a sudden it started spinning really loudly. The disc sounded as if it were grinding. I quickly popped it out. Went to try it again and the same thing happened. Tried several other discs... same thing. Now it will not read any discs. The hard drive is still working nicely but the DVD bit is useless. I guess like many have said, the unit seems to work great up until a certain point. I gave it 4 stars for the few great years I got out of it. However, I would have hoped, for what I paid for it, it would have lasted a bit longer.