Customer Reviews

Panasonic DMR-E55K Progressive-Scan DVD Recorder/Player , Black

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Normally I don't write reviews about electronics, I'm not an electronics expert nor have I used lots of DVD recorders. I'm making an exception with this piece of equipment. I did my research (reading reviews like this one) before purchasing this machine. I'd been waiting until the price of a quality machine came down to a price I felt was reasonable. This machine has been a jewel. I needed to archive a considerable collection of VHS tapes for my personal use (over 200 tapes, most of which were in excess of 1.5 hours each.) So far I have completed over 100 transfers and made only one frisbee, not bad. The quality of the transfers is all I could have hoped for, in fact it's exceptional. For anyone who wants to move a collection from VHS technology to DVD technology I will make 3 suggestions. First, purchase the SIMA GoDVD! unit. It enhances and cleans up weak signals, you'll thank me for this suggestion. Second, get a good VHS cleaner and use it regularly. Last, don't shoot yourself in the foot using the cables that come with these units. Go out and purchase monster cables or their equivalent. Using the skinny little things that come with the unit will keep you from getting the best possible information transfer. If you're watching your dvds on the new generation of television you WILL notice the difference.

Last but not least, normally I don't believe in extended warranty contracts. With this unit I made an exception. I bought an 3rd party contract since I learned that Panasonic will keep your unit for months if you utilize their contract. The lasers in these things are pricey and in my opinion worth spending a little money on insurance. Oh, one last thing, be very careful that you DO NOT move your recorder with a DVD disc in the tray. The repair technician I spoke to regarding the contract said that this is the #1 way to screw up a DVD recorder.

As to the quality of the user interface. My wife, one of the truly great technophobes of the 21st Century was able to use this machine with a minimum of coaching. It's really pretty easy to use, but like everything it takes a little reading and time to get the hang of it.

I'm posting this review as a way to thank those of you who have posted reviews that have helped me make good purchases. What a great way for us to help each other, very empowering.

I can't comment on the longevity of this product, as I've only had it for a few days. But I can comment on the features and ease of use which are excellent. Contrary to the reviewer who said it is extremely hard to set up, I say the opposite. For the rest of us who can easily work a microwave or an electric shaver without incident, this thing is as easy as you'd want. Here's the 'exceedingly' difficult set up routine:

1. Plug in all the cables (make sure you get them in the right holes...)
2. Turn it on. You'll get a menu asking you what language you speak. Then let it go for a while and it'll set the channels and time for you.
3. Whew..we made it past that. Now to program something to record: Press the 'funtions' button and go to the 'timer recording' mode.
4. Choose the channel, ENTER, start time, ENTER, end time, ENTER, record mode, ENTER. You're done. Wow. Hard.
5. To watch a recorded program, press the navigator button and choose a recording. ENTER.
6. To watch from the beginning while you are still recording, press the Time Slip button. Then control it as a regular recording, or press stop to go back to live TV. Easy.

For the price this seems to be a great unit. The picture quality is great and it works as advertised. I don't really see the necessity of the 'feature' of being able to use double sided DVDRam discs, because you have to flip them over anyway, so it doesn't really let you record twice as long without intervention.

One more note : It says on the box that it supports DVDAudio discs, (music CDs specially split into 5.1 channels). But it specifically says in the book that they will play on this unit on only 2 channels. That doesn't really seem like support for the standard.

Overall, it is a great replacement for my piece of junk VCR and is indeed easy to use. Can't go wrong here.

I needed a unit that would both record high quality video at the two hour setting as well as decent quality at the four to six hour setting. Saw the five star rating here and knew this was the one.
I am very pleased with this unit. I am recording from a DirecTV signal and it seems as if I am watching the actual broadcast. I highly recommend this Panasonic recorder.

Bought this for my wife and in 4 days shes taped 12 movies flawlessly. The video and sound qualities are excellent. The output to the TV through the cable throughput is better than my Yamaha home theatre reciever system costing $800. The ram disks work the same as the r/w standard. I had no problems setting up the machine. I would recommend this unit to anyone with a vcr or old vhs tapes of the family. It does a great job cleaning up old tapes for archives.

This unit does everything I want it to...recording off cable tv as well as transfering my dusty and decrepit vhs collection to dvd with surprisingly good results.One of the easiest hookups I've ever experienced,super easy remote control operation and programming. You won't find a better unit for the price or a more user friendly recorder....Love It!!!

We bought this unit in December 04 and found that the pictures were badly distorted and snowy in comparison with direct TV reception. We tried every available combination of cables from audio-video to S-video to component and could not improve the condition.

We assumed we had a defective tuner in the DVD. Sent it to the Panasonic shop and were told it was OK. Only then did we find that locating the DVD next to a VCR was the source of the problem.

After we separated them, this unit worked perfectly and does everything it claims to do. Thought our experience might help someone else.

This machine is awesome. I am in the process of archiving all of my old VHS tapes to DVD. One piece of advice, when you are finished recording go to Function > Disk Setting > Finalize so that you will be able to play this in a regular DVD player. This thing is worth much more than what you will pay.

I'll try not to repeat what everyone else has written and instead share tips or another POV if my experiences were significantly different from others. I will say, like so many, I'm happy with my DVD recorder (happier tonight) and it's pretty easy to use once it's been set-up. Note, I've only used my recorder to record VHS tapes and all my suggestions and examples are based on this.

1. EXAMINE THE DISC BEFORE USING: Make sure there are no blotches in the recording layer & no smudges, dust, or scratches on the disc. Don't toss it if the blotch is along the outer rim, just don't record to the maximum allowed time. And one little itty-bitty spec of dust can stop your recording effort -- take the disc out, blow off the dust, put it back in, see where recording left off, and start recording again from that point.

2. ERASING LARGE BLOCKS: I find that I cannot truly erase great blocks of recorded material. I notice that with 30+ minute chapters, the disc will SEEM to erase, but that space is not re-opened to other recording. If I'm recording a movie, I don't even review anymore to see if it's worth finalizing, because I can't erase it anyway -- I simply finalize it and check it out later. Other than with home movies, I don't sit and set chapters, so usually I am dealing with large blocks of recorded material.

3. RECORD A BUFFER. Before your real project, record about 1 minute of nothing on XP or SP. Some reviews I've read suggest that a disc won't finalize if you fill it completely. This may be true. I've taken their experience to heart & haven't had any problems with finalization. It doesn't matter what you record as you will erase it before you finalize.

4. FUJI FREEZE??? I, like another person on this forum had trouble with FUJI discs. They wouldn't finalize. I threw them away, but I may have been able to salvage them (see 9).

5. 1-4x ONLY??? One reviewer suggests that this recorder will only be happy with 1-4x speed discs. I have used Philips 1-8x, Memorex 1-8x and TDK 1-4x and had (mostly) no problems. Fuji 1-8x, problems. I've only used DVD-R single-sided discs so far.

6. CABLE MATTERS. Another reviewer had problems setting up and became very frustrated. YOU WILL RECOGNIZE HIS REVIEW BECAUSE IT LOOKS AN AWFUL LOT LIKE THIS LINE! 1 star. If you look at the setup instructions, it shows how to set-up with a splitter -- to split the cable signal from either the VCR or TV to the DVD recorder. When I first turned on the DVD recorder, it was looking for that cable signal so it could set-up the channels and it would not let me do ANYTHING until that was done. I did not have a splitter, so I (eventually) moved the cable's cable to the DVD recorder, let it set-up, and then put it back on the VCR. The instructions don't tell you this, but I guess the other 22 people who wrote reviews either split their cable signals or figured out what I did.

7. DIAGRAM NOT FOR EVERYONE. If you have an older model TV or VCR, you should only use the diagrams for hints -- you may not match wire for wire, plug for plug. The instructions are pretty weak, so some of your set-up will have to be experimental or intuitive, especially, if like me, you don't have the latest model VCR and/or television. Plus, the diagram assumes VCR use and is only of the tiniest help if you're not using one, though probably initially you will.

8. STUCK ON A SCREEN. It is easy to get "stuck." You can't simply stop or turn off the recorder if you're using a particular function like Direct Navigator or are in one of the menu screens. You can press those buttons until Doomsday, but unless you exit those screens properly, you're not going anywhere. I ended up unplugging my unit after one lengthy button-pushing session -- this was before I got edumicated.

9. SAVING FAILED FINALIZATION!!! BEST TIP OF ALL (I think)! Remember the buffer chapter -- saving about 1 minute before you record your other project(s)? Just today, I had two non-Fuji discs fail to finalize. When finalizing, there is a blue screen that comes on and a bar which shows the progress as it slowly "fills" from left to right. That bar is half-filled whenever my finalizations have failed.. It's frustrating because you can't undo a failed finalization -- you can't erase, you can't reuse the space, and in all likelihood you've spend over an hour or more recording something. I decided to try something when the second disc failed tonight. As usual, before finalizing, I had already erased the 1 minute buffer. I had always assumed, based on what I've read, that once the finalization failed, the disc was unusable--"coasters" or "frisbees" as some call them. Tonight, I hit the stop button. The recorder showed that I had 1 minute of recording time. I recorded 30 seconds of whatever, and went to finalize the disc, expecting that if it worked at all, it would only finalize the 30 seconds (I was just testing). As finalization began, the screen shows both the thumbnails for my movie and the 30 second blip (normally, the failed finalization effort shows a black thumbnail). When the finalization was done, both had been saved! I was able to view the movie too, even on my PC. Fluke? I wondered, so I tried it with the first disc that screwed up, and Voila! It also finalized the whole disc. So try this before you toss out those FINALIZATION FAILED discs. And also, when you do make that 30 second blip, record a blank screen -- I now have an obnoxious commercial which pops on after my movie is over. By the way, the discs I used tonight were Memorex -- I had recorded about 10 projects previously with no problems.


HELP, PLEASE? I noticed the vibrancy of the colors is dimmed on the DVD recordings. It doesn't matter what compression I use, XP, SP, LP (I don't use EP) -- the colors simply aren't as bright on the discs as on the VHS tapes. I noticed this right away when taping an animated feature, and compared all later and found it to be the case on all my recordings. On some, the fade was barely noticeable, on others more so. If anyone has a solution to this, I hope you post a review.

One last thing -- don't throw your VCR out too soon. If you get discs that absolutely won't work with your Panasonic, you'll want the trusty VCR as a backup recorder for your TV shows. My VCR has never been picky about the brand of tape that went in it.

Overall, I'm pleased with this purchase -- it's economical, relatively easy to figure out, and records well at XP, SP, and LP (I never use EP), depending on the quality of the original recording. I'd buy another, but I'm reluctantly giving it 5 stars (4.5 would better), because 1) I have no idea why finalizations fail and my heart stops every time it happens, 2) color vibracy is an issue, and 3) the instructions can be confusing -- I had to set-up by trial and error, abandoning the instructions after about 30 minutes. Still, for the price, it can't be beat.

NOTE: In step 9, it may be necessary to turn off the unit completely & let it reboot before you can erase or record on the saved little space to try this save. I forgot to put that important information in. Sorry.

I have had this player for several months and had nothing but good experiences uses it. I used Sony, TDK, and Panasonic blank DVD-Rs. Recently I purchased some new TDK blank DVD-Rs and had my first problems. The unit was flaky and would not record most of the time, while giving the Self Check indicator for several minutes. I read a review below and it mentions that 8x discs are not recommended for this recorder. The TDKs I bought are 1x-8x speed, so that appears to explain my problems.

I had used the Sony DVD-Rs mostly for the past several months and went back to them for this reason. However, a couple of days ago, I inadvertently bought a box of 1x-8x again, as I never really even paid attention to the record speed. The great news is that these new 1x-8x Sony DVD-Rs are every bit as stable and viewable as the older 1x-4x version of the same Sony DVD-Rs I was previously using. Therefore, I highly recommend going with the Sonys, as I have never had one lockup on dozens of DVD recordings using them, whether the speed of them is 1x to 4x or 1x to 8x. If you can find Panasonic DVD-Rs, I would assume they would be safe also. When the discs are compatible, the player is the best $250 investment I have ever made. For the money, there is no better performing DVD recorder out there.

I've had this machine for only a few days now and it rocks. Set up was easy (it helped to be able to read the manual on line prior to receiving the unit)and I was recording within the first hour. No doubt the instructions are a bit complicated but if you know how to use a VCR and have just a bit of tech know-how, it's really a breeze.

The only drawback I can see is that you really can't use a DVD-RAM anywhere but in this machine. Plus the DVD-RAMs are expensive and you can't really share the recordings with friends. On the other hand, it's the DVD-RAM that opens up the possibility of watching the program you're currently recording, time-slip, and editing. It's perfect for recording (and then erasing) things you want to watch once or twice and then get rid of.

However, the DVD-R recording is just as easy (without the possibility of using the extended cool features like time-slip and chasing playback) and if you want you can easily do some further editing on your PC if you'd like. When using DVD-R, just be sure to "Finalize" the disc so it can be shared with other DVD players.

Another slight negative of the machine is that it won't playback DVD+Rs, so if you have those in your collection, you'll want to hook up antother DVD player to the system (which is very easy to do). I have my VCR and old DVD player hooked up through this unit and everything works flawlessly.

I've already and easily started copying some of my old videotapes to DVD-R. I haven't yet hooked my Hi-8 video camera but I'm sure it will be just as easy.

This machine, for the money, is the best on the market. It not only matched my expectations, it far exceeded them.

I love this thing!