Panasonic DMR-E80H Progressive-Scan DVD Player/Recorder with Hard Drive , Silver
Still works for me...
This is a follow-up to my January 2004 review of this product. After 3 months of use, I'd give it 6 stars if I could. The unit has been rock solid, and having successfully burned more than 50 DVD-R discs (without a single failure), I have to classify this as one of the coolest pieces of electronics I have ever owned. It does exactly what it claims to do, and it does it very well.<br />Some reviews mentioned &quot;poor&quot; or &quot;blotchy&quot; picture quality, and even compare the quality with that of analog video equipment like a VCR. Talk about apples and oranges... Of course, in special cases MPEG compression will result in some unwanted artifacts, but I have not found this to be an issue at all. On the contrary, the MPEG encoder built into this unit does an admirable job (in real time!), especially in comparison to the slow and lower quality MPEG encoding found in most digital video software packages. The video quality is excellent, and with XP or SP recording is very nearly indistinguishable from the original source material (and MUCH better than on my expensive VCR from 5 years ago). And, unlike analog recordings on VHS tape, the quality does not degrade with time or use.<br />And yes, the unit does not change channels on a cable box. For me, not a problem - if I want to record a digital-only channel on cable, it's easy enough to program the cable box to switch channels at the appropriate times. But I am surprised that people go out and spend this kind of money on equipment without doing basic product research up front, and then complain about a &quot;missing feature&quot; - please! This is not a Tivo. It's something a whole lot better than that.