Panasonic DMRE85HS Progressive-Scan DVD Player/Recorder with 120 GB Hard Drive Recording
Tuner broke after 2 months
The sound on the tuner died after about 2 months.  Took three weeks to fix (at least it was under warranty).  Perhaps this was an isolated incident, or perhaps their quality control is lacking.  Anyway, you're on hold for a long time getting in touch with support (I gave up after 40 minutes the first time I called, took about 25 minutes to finally get through the second time).    The unit works quite well.  Picture and sound quality are good (i.e., lots better than VHS but not DVD) at the 1GB/hour setting.  Only records to DVD-R and DVD-RAM for removable media, not DVD-RW, so you're on the hook for more expensive rewritable media.  On screen editing isn't nearly as flexible as PC programs, but you can't expect much from a system with only a remote for input.    TV Guide downloaded without a hitch on my cable system (Cablevision Digitial IO in NJ).  The programming interface is a little clunky, but loads simpler than a VCR.    One gripe about playback is you can't enter a time code to skip to when watching.  You have to fast forward (you can FF up to 100x normal playback speed) to the point you want to watch, so if you manually record 3 hours of material as one big block, expect to spend a minute or two to FF to the third hour.