Panasonic DMR-E80H Progressive-Scan DVD Player/Recorder with Hard Drive , Silver
pretty good but can be even better
good things about this player:<br />1) fairly easy to use.<br />2) can record all the programs you want into the hard drive and then edit, and record any program or even your playlist of clips into a DVD-R.<br />3) can record a program and play another one...  or record a live program and play from the hard drive.  that way, you can pause live tv... although you cannot directly pause live tv if not recording, which tivo can.  (probably due to patent issue).<br />the improvements can be:<br />1) even when you record the programs to a DVD-R in high speed, it takes about 50 minutes to write it.  it seems like it is similar to 1x if done on the computer DVD-RW.  50 minutes is too long... consider if it is 4x, then it would take only 15 minutes... the fastest burner right now is already 8x... so 4x should be tried and built into this machine<br />2) it won't ask you whether you want to finalize the DVD-R.  You need to change to DVD-R mode and choose finalize yourself, which could have been an automated function when you write the dvd-r.<br />3) say if you record a 2:30:00 program, and you want to edit out the extra 1, 2 minutes you set for the recording at the beginning and at the end, it is time consuming:  you can divide the program into 2, skipping the first 2 minutes easily.  but to divide the program into 2, skipping the last 2 minutes, you need to fast forward all the way to the end.  so you need to sit there and wait for the program to fast forward a little by little.  and then you can divide the program at the end.  it would be much simpler if there is a \\"go to end\\" button.<br />all in all, pretty good recorder.  much easier to use than the Philips DVDR75.