Panasonic DMR-E10 Progressive-Scan DVD-RAM Recorder and Player
I think this unit is terrific
I bought one of these machines in September and liked it so much I bought two more, for two other TVs in the house.  I can't say enough good things about it.  It works very simply, just like a VCR, only with DVD quality.  (No more tracking problems on VHS or S-VHS tapes!)  DVD-RAM is great for time-shifting and creating play lists, which basically let you easily re-arrange scenes of the original recording, so you can play back without commercials or play back scenes in any order, etc.  You can then transfer that to DVD-R for permanent archiving (if you have 2 units, one to play DVD-RAM, the other to record DVD-R). There is, however, no digital-to-digital connection so to do this you have to use analog outputs/inputs but the quality is still superb.  Despite your first impression when you look at the instruction book (it looks complicated) it's very, very simple to use the machine.  I don't know what some of these other critics are talking about here, rating the machine so low. I just love it.