Panasonic DMR-EH50S DVD Recorder with 100 GB Hard Drive Recording
Does the job, but not a totally polished performer
IMO: This machine does what it is advertised to do, namely record and play back pn the hard drive or the DVD recorder, but I'm disappointed a little because it's not quite a class act machine yet. When you push a button on the remote, it can take time for the machine to respond. The various menus to set up and use the machine are spread out over the remote control. Consequently, the machine isn't that user friendly to use. The instruction manual is the worst I have ever read. So complicated to understand. Panasonic needs to invest more money in the area of user-friendliness.  <br /> <br />Having said that, I will say that the quality of the recording is very good. At the 2-hr SP speed, the HDD and DVD recordings are essentially identical to the source material. At the 4-hour LP speed, the quality is very close to the source, good enough that the slight loss in quality is worth the doubling of time capacity. To get high speed dubbing from HDD to DVD, you transfer at the same speed rating as the original recording. Hence, if you record to HDD at SP, you transfer to DVD at SP speed, and hence the original recording must be 2 hours max in length, otherwise the machine won't let you dub at all. So to ensure your movie will make it onto DVD in high speed dubbing mode, you must ensure the original HDD SP recording doesn't exceed 2hours, LP 4 hours and EP 6 hours. If you don't need high speed dubbing, then anything is possible Record a six hour show to HDD at SP speed, then transfer to DVD at EP so that it all fits to one DVD (but beware that EP yields pretty poor image quality). <br /> <br />The machine isn't a TIVO; that is, you can't pause live material, replay it, than go back to live. You must record first (but you can play the recording while it is still recording).  <br /> <br />