Panasonic DMR-ES20K DVD Recorder
Great recorder for use with Tivo
I needed something to offload my Tivo recordings onto and searched the various reviews for a good quality unit that would record and play in multiple formats. Rather quickly I narrowed it down to Panasonic (Sony had some attractive offerings but I am concerned about their obsessive digital rights management and so they were taken off my list) focusing on their ES10S model but found that it had been replaced by the ES20S. Some Googling revealed that the most significant differences appeared to be in fewer outputs on the newer model plus the addition of a cooling fan. Since I was planning on rather limited applications this was not an issue so I popped for the ES20S. After having used it for 3 weeks I must say that I am impressed overall with recording of DVD-R and DVD-RW discs. I also found that I did need to read the instructions to obtain the results I desired - most specifically finalizing the disc after recording so that you can play it in most any other player. I now prefer recording with the DVD-RW in the 4 hour format and can usually get 2 Tivo movies on one disc that play well on my laptop. The remote is very good and can be coded to operate with my Sony XBR WEGA TV. I would have given it five stars if the user interface had been a bit more intuitive but overall I am very pleased and would purchase the same recorder today if I had to do it all over again.