Panasonic DMR-E80H Progressive-Scan DVD Player/Recorder with Hard Drive , Silver
Good first genration hard drive recorder!
I'm US History teacher so I have always had a soft spot for nostalgia.  I had boatloads of home videos that I wanted backed up on DVD, for all the reasons why DVD is better than VHS.  I was always interested in getting a DVD recorder, but I wanted to wait for the price to come down.  One day I was rewinding an old tape and it snapped.  I bought this machine the next day, and I have backed up all of those videos.  The hard drive was great in terms of editing and dividing programs.  Furthermore, I have my DirecTV hooked up to this.  Like Tivo, I can record programs and watch them later, and erase them off of the hard drive.  If I really like the program, then I can store it on a dvd.  The XP mode is wonderful, but only able to store an hour of video.  I backed up all my home videos on SP mode, the next best thing, so I could store up to 2 hours.  Much like the old VHS camcorders of the late 80's and early 90's.  I don't recommend recording analog on the LP or EP modes.  However, from my DirecTV feed, LP is great for storing programs.  Furthermore, with 4 hours of storage and the ability to take out the commercials, the LP mode is great without losing too much picture quality.  It took about a day or two, but I got used to the machine and its remote.  Overall, a great machine, and good first generation hard drive recorder.  My only gripe is that I cannot record from my DVD-Rs back on to the hard drive.  But the positives far outweigh the negatives.