Customer Reviews

Panasonic DMR-E30K Progressive Scan DVD Recorder

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

These other reviewers who "BASH" this machine didnt take the time to find out what "works" with this machine. Many DVD-R'S wont work with this machine..Thats a fact. However I buy RITEK DVD-R'S by the case (500 Blanks) at a time and they work fine almost all of the time. Once in awhile you will get a "U11" error after recording less than 1 minute and the machine will go into "Recover" mode...Once this happens simply hit the OPEN button once and wait for the disc to be ejected..This takes about 20 seconds. SImply re-insert the Blank DVD-R and the problem will go away. Sure it's a pain...once in awhile but I have burned over 1500 DVD'S with AMAZING results and I can deal with the quirkiness. In this day of technology many things are Incompatible with one another much Like PC Software was in the 80's to Mid 1990's...You cant expect to buy something thats "Cutting edge" anymore and have it work with anything you feed it..Sometimes you have to do some homework on your own....

I just bought this DVD recorder a week ago and am very pleased. I use Tivo with Direct TV and was filling up the Tivo with shows I wanted to save. With this I have already copied most of them onto DVD and freed up most of the space on the Tivo. It was easy to setup and very easy to use. The documentation looks a little daunting but once you just start doing it it is as easy as a VCR.

I bought one of these for about $550 almost two years ago and I use it steadily, although markedly less now that I also have a TiVo. This unit works well, is easy to use, and, at least in my case, has never "screwed up" in any way.

The DVD-RAM discs that it uses for re-writable media are excellent if not well-accepted by the masses. The discs allow the recorder to record and play simulataneously which is amazing and very useful. DVD-RAM discs also allow you to erase specific recordings or even parts of recordings (like commercials) without having to erase the entire disc. That erased footage is then available as free space on the disc.

It can also use DVD-R discs which are inexpensive and are compatible in just about all DVD players but are not erasable.

The recordings are good, especially in XP mode where you can get just 60 minutes on a DVD. SP is 2 hours on a disc and is acceptable but go any lower than that (LP for 4 hours or EP for 6 hours) and the quality starts to suck pretty bad. It's fine for TV shows, though, and the sound is not affected by the slower recording speeds.

The only two things I do NOT like about this model is 1) that it has no DV input so recording from a digital video camera is not quite as crisp as it would otherwise be and 2) that it automatically generates a god-awful-ugly startup menu on all DVD-R recordings you finalize for playback in other players. It's really nasty looking and it takes a long time to peck at the remote control to enter titles for your recordings. I guess there is a third thing. You can't add arbitrary chapter breaks in the DVD-R recordings; it automatically creates a chapter break every 5 minutes which is pretty annoying when you'd rather create chapter breaks in logical places on your dubbed home videos, for example.

Overall good recorder and I give it three stars. I like Panasonic equipment but this particular model could have used a little polishing. Buy it if you see it for $300 but don't pay more than that. 4-14-2005

While I suspect there are those who could hook this up and start recording moments after removing the unit from the box, it took me a better part of two evenings.

Having survived the steep learning curve, I can say that I'm extremely happy with this unit. Now that I know what's going on, recording is easy and painless. Creating titles for individual tracks and for the DVD itself is also easy (though it can be tedious -- you have to navigate around an on-screen menu of capital letters, small letters, numbers, and punctuation signs).

Right after I recorded my first set of shows to dvd (I used DVD-R), I took the disk to four other different dvd-players and all worked great. I have not tried the DVD-RAM format, for while it appears to have the ability to create image menues (like you'll find on many professional dvds), it is reportedly much less compatible.

I've only had the until 3 weeks, so there's more testing and trails to go; but, thus far I feel it was worth every c-note.

I bought this from Circuit City in 2001, priced at $499. I wanted to preserve old VHS home videos & save new ones. I really didn't want the hassle of trying to do this on a PC. Learning new software & installing new drives isn't what I call a challenging weekend. Yes, this machine is picky about which discs it will record. Fuji DVD-R's are likely to crash in the middle of recording. TDK's are about 50% likely to burn. I had to order Panasonic discs to get a better percentage rate. Please remember, the DVD RAM you use will probably only work in this machine. They are best suited for timer recordings you will not want to keep. This unit also does not playback many formats modern DVD players now accept. If you have relatives that send home DVD's from their PC, they probably won't play on this machine. Nor will CD-R's or MPEG's. Lesson learned? I spent a weekend installing a DVD burner in the computer & learned how to copy from VHS. I mostly use this unit to switch aux. audio inputs to my antique stereo.

I love my DMR-E30 Panasonic DVD recorder. I would have liked to buy one with built-in hard drive, but was cost prohibitive. Good buy for those who don't want to put out the extra money for the hard drive.

I love this recorder. I have made hundreds of DVDs on it and I am extremely pleased with the results. The quality is excellent. I thoroughly recommend buying this product.

If you're wondering what it feels like to repackage your brand new DVD Recorder without ever seeing one pixel of video and your first ever blank DVD-R disk trapped inside then, boy, is the DMR-E30K for you. This machine promply ate the first writable disk I put into it and refused to eject it. Only after several hours of trial and error did I discover the MAGICAL SEQUENCE of unplugging, powering up/down, and ejection button pushes to free my disk. If Panasonic is interested I will sell them the SEQUENCE so they can include it in their user manual. Small price to pay to save untold customers a similar ordeal, I would think.

When I did finally get DMR-E30K to burn a disk the video became garbled half way through when played back on my other DVD player. Eventually it locked up my standard DVD player altogether (a Pioneer DV-333--well known for their ability to playback almost anything). I sacrificed three disks to this fun little experiment just to make sure the Panasonic DMR-E30K was truly disfunctional. These disks ranged from inexpensive compUSA brands to high end Memorex's. I can report that the DMR-E30K does not discriminate when it comes to disappointing across multiple brands. But don't worry, if you don't know the MAGICAL SEQUENCE you'll never get to the point of having to worry about this...

Beware!

I bought a dmr-e30 on 4/15/03 and initially I could not have
been more pleased. I was copying years of video tape onto DVD
and everything was right in my world. But on the evening of
5/03/03 I started to record and realized I was on the wrong
channel and hit stop within 1 minute, THAT dmr-e30 never worked
again. I hit stop, the unit basically powered itself off and when
I turned it back on it displayed "RECOVER" and after a few moments displayed the normal screen. I pressed the open button and the unit powered itself back off again... the "RECOVER"
sequence started again when I powered back on. I called Panasonic
support and I think in the overall scheme of things I am dumber
than I was before I called. I was not able to
find anyone who could tell me what "RECOVER" meant? Wha... it's
a message programmed to display on a product you sell???
Anyway in my diminished state I took the unit back on
5/04/03 and recieved a shiny new dmr-e30 to replace the broken
one I had. This unit worked until tonight... Again I started a
recording but stopped it within 1 minute. Now I'm in the same
HELL I was previously, I can't eject the disc, I can't do anything with this unit. I have ZERO faith in the dmr-e30, it's
failed on me twice within 45 days. I only hope that I can return
this and get a credit so I can buy a DVD recorder from another manufacturer.

I was so excited when I purchased this unit. In less than two years it broke down. Panasonic customer service is atrocious and they refused to replace it. I had to buy a new one from them (at a discount but still). As of yet I haven't received the new recorder even though I paid for it. Trust me, you don't want to have to deal with Panasonic customer support. Talking to them is like talking to con artists. I recommend Sony because when something goes wrong with their equipment, at least they're helpful and polite. I know that because when my Playstation 2 broke down after five years, Sony replaced it without any fuss.

The weird thing is when I brought my DMR-E30 to a repair place (that Panasonic recommended to me), they told me that it's common knowledge that these units barely last two years and you can't repair them because replacing the parts is more expensive than buying a new unit.

Also like several other reviewers I was surprised how many disks don't work on this recorder. There were so many times when I had to return DVD-r disks back to the stores where I bought them because DMR-E30 didn't play/record them.

Anyway, after spending probably twenty hours on the phone with Panasonic's customer support, my advise to you is not to buy anything from them.