Customer Reviews

Panasonic DMR-E95HS Progressive-Scan DVD Recorder with 160 GB Hard Drive

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

I have an older version, DMR-E80H, 80gig, with the old navigator (pre-TV guide), which I love.
I bought the DMR-E95H, 160 gig, tvguide navigator, mainly because I wanted more disk space. I was going to sell my older one. Unfortunately, this is so unreliable that I have kept my old one to use, and I'm stuck with this very expensive lemon. I wouldn't feel right trying to sell this to someone else.

There is a lot of good ideas and potential here, but most of it doesn't work reliably, and what does is poorly done. Many nice features in the original navigator are gone.

What do I miss about the original navigator? I works like a VCR with some cool features. You program in a show (date, time, speed, repeat, etc), you can also add a title so you always know what you recorded. You can also set it for `renew' which means it records over the old space each day, good for things like the news, it won't fill up the disk and you don't have delete things to make space. You can go in and edit any of this, say a show is on a different time one week, just go change the time, and then change it back. And if one show overlapped another, you could select the one with priority, but the other would record the rest of the alotted time.

On the new navigator, you can manually set it to record instead of using the tv guide functionality, but you can't edit after the fact. If you make a mistake, you have to start over, if the time changes, you have to delete it, set a new record program with all the info, and then do it again to put it back to the normal time after. If you just want to change the record speed, you have to redo everything. If you want it start late, because the ABC shows are all running late these days, you can't edit it, you have to start over.There is no longer a renew feature. And if the first show overlapps with the second, you only get the first and nothing of the second.

Why do I use the timer record instead of tvguide, because it's a good idea but a useless unreliable piece of junk. The booklet tells you that you can't start a show the same time another show is ending, ie if a show ends at 9Pm and another starts at 9PM, the second won't record. On occasion it does, usually it doesn't, no rhyme or reason. So I set everything to end one minute early, requiring the timer setting.

Now, if you forget to turn the recorder off at night, or you're up late watching it, it doesn't pull down the programing and when you record something you get no title. But you can't just set the title you want when you set up the recording like on the old navigator. But the tvguide system doesn't even have all the main channels... it's missing some of the HBOs, SHOtimes, Starz, etc.

The tvguide interface is crap. I have hundreds of channels, and if I were to use that to see what was on it would take all day. You can't page through the channels, you can't hold the down button and just cruise through the channels. No! You have to repeatedly hit the down or up button to go through the guide. Talk about carpal tunnel syndrome. And to make matters worse, each time you go to a new channel it changes the station being viewed and freezes up while doing so, making the whole process take longer and making it impossible to view one show while looking to see what else is on. Sometimes if you hit the buttons real fast you can go over 4-5 channels before it happens, but it still happens. They should talk to Comcast about how to do an online shedule viewer. Even their worst versions where better than this. There is no search function. You can go to the alphabetical sort screen, but if you want something at the end of the Ms, you have to go through it one item at a time, over and over and over.

All that would be bearable if the system was reliable, it is not. My old system has only crashed a couple of times in 2 years, and went into "self check" as soon as it came on. This new system (less than a year old) crashes at least once a week, and I have to force it into "self check" to repair itself, usually twice, and then turn it off and on again, in order to get it to work right for awhile. It freezes for no apparent reason, not recording but on. You can't change the channel, cause it thinks it's recording, but it's not, and it's on the wrong channel anyways. They only way out is to go through the process of holding the on (on the recorder) down for at least 20 seconds so it shuts off. Then turn it on so it starts system check fixing what ever is wrong, again. I went away for a week, and came back to find it had frozen on the second show it was to record and had done nothing after that.

I bought this for more disk space, and I've discovered it acts the most unrealiable if I use more than 100gig, which is a little more than half the disk. It also acts up more if I record and watch and delete a lot of shows, the reason you'd have it to begin with. It also tends to crash/freeze more often if I leave a disk in the dvd tray. For a couple of months I could reliably make it crash by putting a ram disk in the system, and then it did it only every other time, but it looks like it's moving into every time again.

I wrote to Panasonic, who said to take it to an authorized repair dealer, but there are none around here. I bought it through Amazon, but through one of their third parties who doesn't take returns. So it looks like I'm stuck with this crap.

I regret having recommended Panasonics to so many people I know, but that was the old style of course. To say I'm dissapointed in the system is to say the least. To say I'm disgusted that panasonic won't replace it or refund, is really disgusting.

I bought this recorder from Buy.com and it worked for about 60 days. Then the U99 code started and the unit became worthless. I wanted it replaced not repaired. Now it is in the repair shop for a couple of months. I will never buy Panasonic again. What a piece of junk!

As I am writing this, my DMR-E95H is in continual reboot mode after I tried to burn a DVD and it apparently does not like the media. Panasonic's customer support is non-existent. They ignore emails and the toll free support number is always busy. After reading several different forums I find that I am not the only one extremely disappointed with Panasonic. Several others have unpacked their brand new unit only to find it DOA. Those who have tried to take their unit to a service center have horror stories of waiting weeks for a fix only to get it home and find that it still has problems.

When the unit is working it is slow, the menus are badly organized, the functions are awful. Sometimes one must press 'return' to leave a function, other times 'stop' is required. The program menu is a complete disaster and makes the user develop blisters to press enough keys to page through selections. This unit is simply the most horrendous piece of consumer electronics I have ever purchased.

Actually, considering all the problems and lack of support, I am considering reporting Panasonic to the Texas Attorney General and Better Business Bereau. Maybe TechTV. Heck, anyone! This is the most ripped-off I have felt in years. I paid enough for a top of the line product and am stuck with a total lemon.

Based on other reviews here, we decided to hook up the machine directly to cable and skip the cable box, sacrificing our digital channel lineup for now since we hardly watch any of those channels.

On our first attempt to download listings by hooking up the machine and leaving it off overnight, we received 7 sets of listings from our zip code, when in fact there are 9 sets if one consults www.tvguide.com. Naturally, our lineup is one of the missing two. Panasonic's tech support says they would put in a "template request" for our lineup with TV Guide and get back to us within 2 business days. Still waiting, 4 days later. Called today and got a very rude support person who said "keep waiting."

Even worse, when I performed the laborious process of setting up all the channels myself, the next time we left the machine off to download new information, it WIPED OUT all the work I had done and put it back to the "select one of these 7 lineups or no match page." The first tech support person I talked to said, "Yes, we've heard reports that this happens sometimes." There's no solution for the bug and no firmware fix. This may be a problem ONLY WHEN you cannot select a channel lineup and have to pick "No match." I don't know.

I also found online a suggestion to reset the TV Guide settings and try again "from scratch" by holding down the up and down channel keys on the front of the machine (not the remote) to wipe out the TV Guide information. DON'T DO THIS!!! Now, when I turn the machine on each morning, instead of giving me even the 7 channel lineups I saw before, it says something like, "Attempt to download listings failed. Please make sure you have the cables connected properly." This, despite the fact that nothing has changed about how the machine is hooked up. Today's tech support person said, "Maybe this is a TV Guide problem too" and would not offer any further assistance. I think there is something wrong with the machine in this regard.

One other solution offered was to "try another zip code" -- won't work for us because we live way out in the country and our cable provider is local; no other provider in a neighboring community is going to have this same lineup. And the last solution, which we will try this weekend, is to hook up the machine WITH the cable box. The tech said that sometimes the machine can find the listings on the cable box itself instead of downloading them directly from TV Guide. This sounds iffy to me because of all the people who have said the machine tries to download even with a cable box in the mix, but we'll give it a shot.

Recording works great, quality is great, and transferring taped content onto the hard drive and editing same is very easy. My overall review: If you HAVE to have a working TV Guide, buy a Tivo or a Replay. If you can use the DVR without the TV Guide as a glorified VCR, then this machine is okay.

I haven't decided whether or not to keep mine. If the IR blaster works to control the cable box, and we can at least use the cable box's version of TV Guide, I might keep it. Manually specifying what we want to record is no different than what we were doing with the VCR, and we get the advantages of the hard drive storage and the ability to transfer and edit from our videotapes.

Overall I'm disapointed though. Panasonic ought not to be selling something that doesn't really work, and without the TV Guide feature this thing really isn't worth what I paid for it.

UPDATE:
We tried hooking up the machine with the cable box. It worked, and the IR blaster of the DVR does control the cable box -- this is essential, otherwise we would not be able to program the DVR to record a certain channel on a certain date and time. However, the DVR's TV guide still does not work, so there's no such thing as "one touch recording" with this machine (at least for us). It still presents the same 7 listings every morning and still wipes out any channel customization that we had done the previous day. Panasonic's tech support has never called back. I suspect that if we COULD pick a lineup from the list, the TV Guide would work well. We succeeded in burning and finalizing a DVD that played fine in a Playstation DVD player, so that part of the functionality works as advertised.

Before you even think one second about buying a Panasonic DVD Recorder, just type "Panasonic U99 error" into your favorite search engine and you will find hundreds of complaints about software errors with Panasonic DVD Recorders. They tried to send a firmware "upgrade" through the cable signal and it ended up locking up machines and making them inoperable. When you call Panasonic and sit on hold for two hours, the person who finally answers acts as if they've never heard of the problem and they give you totally useless information. I can only hope my credit card company will honor an extended warranty, otherwise I have a $500 paperweight. AWFUL!!!!!

This is the first review of a product I have ever written but felt I needed to warn others. DON'T BUY THESE THINGS....THEY ARE JUNK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My unit has to be unplugged at least once a week for a reset due to a lockup. It won't even eject the disk at times because it is locked up (especially since the automatic firmware upgrade was made). I have spoken to Panasonic about the issue and as others have stated, they know nothing about these problems. They suggested I hold down the channel up and down buttons simultaneously to perform resets. That doesn't work and why should I have to perform "resets" in the first place. I literally have to unplug this piece of junk and let it reset. If anyone out there is a lawyer who deals with class actions, I would be willing to sign up. Anyone else??????????

If you want to buy a quality DVD recorder look to Pionner and not Panasonic.

I bought this DVR with the full knowledge of all the problems people have had with it. Just do a google search on Panasonic U99 (there are websites dedicated to the E85 and E95 problems). But I thought enough time had passed and Panasonic had fixed all those problems, so it couldn't still be an issue. WRONG.

I've had the box 6 weeks. In 6 weeks I've only had one successful programmed recording. I've had to reformat the hard drive about every week (not on purpose). I've upgraded the firmware (they do have good instructions on how to do this on Panasonic's website), done hard resets (hold down the Channel Up and Down keys simultaneouly till it shuts down), unplugged it, etc. BTW, the production date is 05/26/2004, so they may have fixed the problem with newer models. One of the many websites I mentioned will tell you how to view your production date and firmware version.

Of course, the 3rd party seller (through Amazon) has a 30-day return policy, and it's too late to return it. I called Panasonic, and they do have a 1 year warranty. They have referred me to one of their service providers to fix it. But we'll see how long it takes me to get a new or different model.

I want to love this DVR. The TV Guide feature works perfectly (although it is a little bit of a pain to change the channel sorting). The recording and playback functions are easy to use, and overall I would be extremely happy with the product. Except for the morning after, when I'm ready to watch my recorded shows, and it says "An error has occurred". Then when you hit enter, it shuts down and when you turn it back on it wants to Format your drive.

UPDATE: The service center performed a firmware upgrade too, so I was skeptical when I brought it home again. But it's been working almost flawlessly. Just this week (after about 6 weeks of no problems) I got a U99 - actually my first. And it still had all my recordings on the hard drive. After just powering it off and on, it seems to be working ok. I record regular shows every week, and burn off to DVD once in awhile, and I can't really complain anymore.

I bought this based on the glowing review in "Sound and Vision."

The machine is supposed to work with your cable converter box. I have never been able to get it to work with my Scientific Atlanta converter box. Technical support has given me contradictory explanations, with some telling me that it does not work with my box, and another telling me that it is supposed to.

The machine is supposed to set its clock by a PBS station. Because I cannot set it up to work with the converter box, this does not work. Unfortunately the clock runs slow, and loses a minute a week. You must re-set the clock manually.

If you attempt to record anything on the hard drive onto a defective DVD, the entire unit shuts down, and you have to go through set up again. According to their technical support, there are a lot of bad disks out there. They say not to purchase those on spindles. They have no explanation for why a bad disk causes the machine to shut down and require going through the set up procedure.

I have made numerous calls to technical support. Everytime I have called I get a recording that they are experiencing unusually heavy call volume, and a recommendation to call back at a later time. Wait times of about an hour are typical.

In frustration, I sent them an email, asking them to call me at work and explain why I should not post my poor experiences with the product on Amazon. They sent me a reply telling me that I had to call them.

Given the large number of people on this site with similar experiences, I understand why they were not worried.

If you are looking for a set top dvd recorder, look no further than the E95-HS. Feature packed, this recorder has nearly everything you could ask for, as well as being user friendly.

Although there isn't as many editing features as you'll find on a PC authoring program, this product has everything you'll need to transfer old Beta, VHS, MiniDV, etc. to DVD. This is a must to preserve memories that are deteriorating day by day.

The 160 gig HD is a must. I couldn't imagine not having a hard drive of this size. It will store over 36 hours of material on XP, which is my primary recording mode.

You can schedule tv programs using the tv guide feature, or by manually selecting the start and stop times. Contrary to popular belief, it is compatible with digital cable boxes.

This model features one touch recording and play list editing, which allows you to move chapters in different orders to customize your dvd.

I would recommend getting a signal booster for your cable though before recording television, as well as using high quality cables to get the best picture possible.

I researched these recorders on line for a few weeks before settling on this unit. I'm not unhappy with my decision. I will say that this is NOT a device for a novice. I've had some problems with programing, and downloading the TV GUIDE listings to the point I needed to call Cust. Service. After 75 mins on hold, I was helped, and my problems have been solved, but the manuals are not the easiest, so the 75 min hold time was worth the wait. Worth the wait are the total operations of this unit, it's smooth, fast, versatile and if you buy it correctly, one of the best buys on the market. I gave it 5 stars, EVEN with my start up problems because this IS a great machine!