Panasonic DMRE50S DVD Player/Recorder , Silver

I have used this recorder extensively for over a year with no problems whatsoever.This is an excellent and easy-to-use DVD recorder for those of you who intend to use this as a way to transfer your old non-Macromedia copyright protected VHS tapes to DVD or as a way to record programs off the television. It has a very quiet fan and is fairly easy to use. Some people have complained about the remote, but I think the remote is fine.The flexible recording speed (FRS) feature is great and rare on the lower-end DVD recorders. It allows you to record for a specific amount of time. Many recorders including this one allow you to record at one, two, four and six hour settings. The problem with squeezing six hours of video onto one DVD is a major sacrifice in quality as you increase the amount of video on the DVD. The four-hour setting is similar to VHS quality. I do most recording at the two-hour setting as I see little-to-no difference between this and the one-hour setting. What makes the FRS feature on this model so helpful is it allows you to record for a more specific amount of time. For example, if a movie is two hours and seven minutes long you can set the time for this exact amount as it will not otherwise fit on the two-hour setting and the four-hour setting will result in a significant loss of quality.This unit allows you to enter titles by keying in letters, numbers and symbols via the remote...a little tedious, but still a nice feature. The unit is also one of the more attractive DVD recorders and has a sleek look to it.As far as the negatives of this unit:1.) There is no firewire connection (IEEE port) so if you use a mini-DV or HI-8 Digital camcorder and want to transfer your video to DVD it will not be done digitally. You can still use the RCA composite or S Video jacks, but this is not as good as using a DV firewire port.2.) It has no hard drive. This is not a big deal with me as the DVD recorders that come with hard drives are overpriced. It is counter-intuitive that I can buy a quality 80 GB hard drive for my computer for $30 on sale; however, it seems most DVD recorders charge a minimum of a $100 premium for a tiny hard drive. I store everything on DVD-Rs anyway since I would hate to lose data as a result of hard drive failure. This is also one of the relatively few models that allow you to record on DVD-RAM disks in addition to DVD-R disks. Good if you are not sure you want to keep something as you can keep rewriting on a DVD-RAM disk. The only catch is you will need another player / drive capable of reading DVD-RAM (or another DVD recorder) if you want to then transfer video you decide to keep.3.) This machine is quirky about the type of media it will accept. I recommend you stick with media manufactured by Taiyo Yuden. This includes Panasonic DVD-Rs and the Fuji DVD-Rs made in Japan. Be careful, some of the Fuji DVD-Rs are made in Taiwan and are not Taiyo Yuden. You can also pick up non-branded Taiyo Yuden DVDs from a variety of e-tailers. Using cheap media on this recorder will cause the recorder to lock and enter recovery mode. It is very difficult to get the media out of the player as there is no pin release like you find on many other drives. You can easily find a 50 pack spindle of Taiyo Yuden manufactured DVD-R for under $20 if you shop around / wait for sales.4.) When the recorder finalizes a DVD-R for playback on all other DVD players, it creates a very simplistic title menu with a blue screen and yellow bars. I prefer other recorders that provide you with an actual thumbnail of the video clip in each chapter created.

Ok

It works well when it feels like....You Have to be careful what DVDrs you buy.It only works with the most expensive ones!If you buy TDK or something cheaper it will record for 10seconds and shut the unit off....Then to get the damn disc out it is hell.It keeps saying recovery and will not let you stop or eject.Another thing it is not consistent.Only 2\3 of the discs it creates will work on other DVd players???Go figure.If one works why wouldn't they all?One more thing if you record in 6hour mode just throw the disc out.My VCD recorder does a better job at MPEG1 no joke.

The guy that had this was a super heavy smoker!! We don't smoke. As soon as we opened the box itwas an overwhelming smell of smoke. Had to blow it out and wipe the unit done before we could put it inour house. But it does work. Guess that's something.

I bought this DVD recorder for the sole purpose of transferring my home videos onto DVD. I was concerned at first that it would be rather complicated to achieve this...boy was I wrong. For me, it was a simple as plugging the camcorder into the front loaded set of audio/video ins (SVid and standard RCA). I pushed play on the camcorder and record on the DVD player. 2 hours later, I had a DVD copy of my video! I have found no issues with DVD playback capability. The DVD played on my Xbox, my computer DVD drive and the kicker, an 8 year old RCA DIVX (yep, that is right Divx) player. It was simply fantastic!Now for the breakdown:The Good: Looks sleek, recording is a breeze, no apparent compatability issues with my other DVD players. With Tivo, this beauty really shines!The Bad: The remote. Not very ergodynamic for the hand. The buttons are rather small, with more buttons hidden by a slide out compartment.The Ugly: Initial setup into an existing home entertainment center. This piece of equipment wants to be the main hardware that you run all of your audio and video through. I have DirecTV, Tivo (seperate units)and a A/V receiver. The initial setup screen wants you to plug in your video source directly into the back of it. Well, thats not really possible/practical with my setup. In other words, it wants to be like the old VCR days where you take your signal and run it into the box. For me, Tivo accomplishes this and I don't need to have my cables running from the satellite to this to TIVO or whatever. That being said, this unit will not complete the auto set-up where it detects all of your channels etc. You must have this plugged into your main video source in order to take advantage of the timed recordings and the VCR+ features. So, everytime I shut it down, when I restart it, it goes back to the initial setup screen and I have to cancel out of it.For the piracy enthusiasts out there: good luck. This is not a DVD copier. It will proudly display it's inability to record since the source has copy protection on it. Although I'm not sure how it knows this (it can even detect it on VHS tapes)you can't use it to copy your DVD movies or VHS movies. Now I'm sure there is some workaround or other gadget you can buy to decode that stuff, but for me, I don't want it for that.All in all, this is a sweet piece of hardware for my entertainment system. I have no problem recording from the satellite or from recorded Tivo programs that I want to save on to DVD.Oh, and by the way, even with Super Saver shipping (free) this baby was on my doorstep in FOUR days!