Panasonic DMR-E60S DVD Player/Recorder , Silver

by Panasonic

Product Details

Product Manual [3.21mb PDF]

• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 16.9 x 3.1 inches ; 12.8 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 15 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• Shipping Advisory: This item must be shipped separately from other items in your order. Additional shipping charges will not apply.
• ASIN: B00008IP5M
• Item model number: DMR-E60S
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #235,644 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

Panasonic's fourth-generation DMR-E60S DVD recorder sports many of the features and technology benefits people expect from digital recording and merges them with a user-friendly interface and an unexpectedly low price. In addition, you can store and view digital photos using the unit's onboard SD/PC card slot, and a DV input terminal makes it easy to transfer images from a digital camcorder directly to DVD-RAM. A playlist function grants easy editing without the need to use a PC.

The DMR-E60S's joint support of DVD-RAM and DVD-R media provides the best of both worlds: DVD-R for the highest compatibility (letting you share video recordings with virtually anyone with a DVD player) and DVD-RAM (for rewritability and benefits like Time Slip, chasing playback, and simultaneous play and record). DVD-RAM offers the perfect solution for recording and re-recording favorite programs--over 100,000 times on the same disc.

The feature-rich DMR-E60S offers the benefits of progressive scan (for use with high-definition and HD-ready TVs), MP3 playback, enhanced time-shifting, instant access, and on-disc video editing. When connected to home theater components, you'll enjoy playback of multiple digital entertainment formats, including DVD Video, CDs, and audio CD-R/CD-RW discs. With instant recording onto a DVD disc, there's no need to have to find blank space, as with a VHS tape. Just press record and the unit will automatically find space on the disc, much like a computer's disk drive. Panasonic's Time Slip feature lets you replay a scene recorded earlier while a program is still in progress, without disrupting the recording process. And chasing playback makes it possible to watch from the beginning a show whose recording is still in progress. It's also simple to transfer favorite VHS tape recordings to space-saving discs, and personal movie libraries and family videos can be archived, preserved, cataloged, and accessed.

Product Description

Silver Stereo Advanced Virtual Surround Sound (V.S.S.) 1 year warrantyPanasonic DMR-E60 is a Progressive-Scan DVD Video Recorder with built-in SD and PC Card slots that records to DVD-RAM and DVD-R disks. PRODUCT FEATURES T

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

118 of 118 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars WOW! Very pleased!, October 10, 2003

By 

owlberg (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Panasonic DMR-E60S DVD Player/Recorder , Silver (Electronics)

I've been extremely happy with the DMR-E60S so far, since I have tons of digital video that I want to archive, and was not about to sacrifice that sweet digital source quality to a standalone DVD burner with S-Video or (perish the thought) analog-only inputs.

I connect my Sony camcorder with the DV cable into the front DV input, pop in a DVD-RAM (if I am just doing a straight-to-disk dump) or a DVD-R (if I want to create a basic navigation menu, finalize for playback as DVD-Video, etc), and start recording. The quality of the transfers is fantastic (when using brand-name DVD media) and the finalized discs have played back smoothly and clearly on both my standalone Pioneer player and my computer's DVD drive. To these eyes, the DVDs I've created so far are about as close as one can get to making an identical copy of the source. No artifacts, no pixel drag, no hesitations, nothin'.

If you're familiar with connecting a VCR to a TV, and know your way around your digital camcorder, it will take you (I kid you not) fifteen minutes to get this up and running. It's THAT simple. I had a finalized DVD ready to test within an hour of removing the unit from the box. The manual is reasonably well written, but the instructions most tangible to this device (the ones specific to RECORDING) do not exactly jump out at you.

I do suggest spending some time with the documentation just to acquaint yourself with the unit's on-screen options display. It's a fairly easy menu to follow, but learning about the available options ahead of time will make the experience smoother (hunt-and-peck won't be very rewarding here).

The remote control provides access to the most common and most useful operations, so you won't be spending all your time hovering over the actual unit trying to get something done.

Naturally, creating elaborate menus and doing sophisticated edits (as can be done on a computer system with the appropriate software) are beyond this device's capabilities. But it is possible to create a basic menu of entries on a DVD-R prior to finalizing, and for my purposes that will do just fine (NOTE: this unit was previously rated as 4 stars because I was under the impression that a menu could not be created on DVD-R. Further experimentation showed that this IS possible, and so this unit gets the extra star).

To be certain, if your source material is primarily from analog sources, or from a standard broadcast source (cable or satellite TV), there are cheaper units by the same manufacturer that may be better suited. Be warned that making recordings at a low-quality setting (anything less than XP or SP) will disappoint the lines-of-resolution counters out there (grin).

If you're shopping for a DVD-based VCR (in other words, you're less interested in resolution quality and more interested in exploiting DVD's generous storage capabilities), again, keep shopping.

However, if your primary goal is to transfer video from a digital source to a DVD, you insist on pure digital-to-digital quality, and you don't have the time or interest to do computer-based DVD recording, then THIS is the DVD recorder for you, hands down.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Can You Say "BROKEN"?, January 20, 2004

By 

Gerald L. Kropp (Berkeley, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Panasonic DMR-E60S DVD Player/Recorder , Silver (Electronics)

I sure wish I had the fantastic experience other reviewers had with this unit.
I won't address the features or picture quality. They're fine.

The problem I've had is it breaks.

I got mine in 9/03. It is residing in my local Authorized Repair facility. For the third time. Here are the details:
1. Firewire input failure. Repaired.
2. Remaining inputs failed. Repaired.
3. It's 1/19/04 as I write this. The unit has been in the shop since late Dec. '03 with its latest hissy-fit. This time it refused to burn-most of the time-and when it did the disks came out hotter than fresh asphalt and wouldn't finalize. The repair guys tell me it is taking so long because they cannot get the necessary part(s) from Panasonic.

I've complained to Panasonic via their website. Twice. They reply with a canned (read meaningless) reply within a couple of weeks. They don't seem to be terribly interested.

My advice: consider another brand.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good except for one thing, March 15, 2004

By 

Michael Wolaver (Wauwatosa, WI United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Panasonic DMR-E60S DVD Player/Recorder , Silver (Electronics)

I purchased this DVD player back in November and it has done everything that I have needed it to except play JPEG disks. What really gets me is that is $70 players can do this but this expensive one does not. I know it has other ways to load pictures, but it would be simpler for my application if it could play JPEG disks.