Panasonic DMR-E55K Progressive-Scan DVD Recorder/Player , Black
GREAT recorder in the low price class
I'm overall very pleased with the picture quality. The variable bit rate encoding is just terrific and the source filtering does quite a good job on ugly VHS tape sources. An especially useful feature is an adjustable quality mode. You tell it how long, like a 2 hour 18 minute movie, and it records with the maximum quality that will just fill the disk. The ability to edit when using DVD-R media is extreemly limited. All disks get a standard menu format with slots for half a dozen titles per page. You can set the preview thumbnail and the title name. On DVD-R media you can't set chapters or edit out anything (like commercials). Chapters are automatically created about on 5 minute boundries, or if you press pause during recording. A title is created each time you press record. After recording a DVD-R, you need to run a finalization process which makes the disk compatable with most DVD players and prevents any further writing. You can set the disk, before finalizing, to play the first title, bypassing the menu (which may only have one title on it). The device does not write to DVD-RW, DVD+R or DVD+RW media. DVD-RAM media (either with or without a protective case) can be used, and greatly expands the editing capability. Unfortunatly DVD-RAM media is not supported by most DVD players, although it did work in another fairly new Panasonic DVD player I own. DVD-RAM also does not work in many (most?) computer DVD drives. DVD-RAM does allow better than VCR functionality though, but does cost more than a VHS tape (but has better quality that a S-VHS tape). Using DVD-RAM media, it's super easy to cut out commercials or other undesirable material. You can also make playlists which allow assembling sequences of scenes into a new virtual title. You can set scene boundries very easily, just play the video and hit a button on the remote. Using pause/slow allows fairly accurate scene positioning. I can also verify the copy protection system prevented recording when trying to record from a commercial DVD played in another DVD player as a source. This was the case for both DVD-R and the DVD-RAM media I used. Some brands of DVD-RAM are supposed to allow a single copy if the original content producer allowed it, but don't know how you can tell if this should be allowed from a specific source. I record most things from a 3 year old DirecTV TIVO source, instead of using my VCR. If you need to edit content to put on DVD-R media, this is not the machine to get. For serious editing, I use a computer. For cutting out commercial from a weekly TV series you want to keep, one of the DVD recorders with a hard disk might be a better choice, as I assume you can edit before writing to a DVD-R. Tests I've read say DVD-R media is the most compatable with DVD players, so think DVD-R media is the one to use. I have 20 year old VHS tapes, so assume I will collect DVD-R's for 20 years.