Customer Reviews

Panasonic DMR-EH55S DVD Recorder with 200 GB Hard Drive, HDMI, SD Card, and DV Input

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Note: After a week, so far, so good. Originally gave this 4 stars...would give it 4.5 if I could. I was gonna drop the rating to 2 or 3 stars if the TV Guide features did not work well, but I'm getting to like it a lot.

Why did I buy this product?

1) Picture quality.
It was time to upgrade my DVD player. I heard HDMI capable players did a pretty good job of "up-converting" DVD pictures to close to HD quality. It also supports digital audio (TOSLINK) to my A/V receiver, which does not have HDMI.

VERDICT (UPDATED): Very Good.

- Recently got and installed HDMI (to TV) and optical digital audio (TOSLINK to A/V receiver).

On HDMI Video, my father had claimed his Panasonic does a nice up-convert job. It is a *slight* improvement over component video, but it does a nice job. My test case was "War of the Worlds", which is shot a bit rough and grainy. Picture was much better on HDMI and new DVD player. Ditto for 2nd test case, anniversay DVD of "JAWS".

On digital audio, can't say the TOSLINK is any better than my coaxial digital, but it handles 5.1 surround from DTS or Dolby Digital very well (it also looks cool - red fiber optic - and sure beats old analog Dolby which is what I had to put up w/ temporarily).

P.S. at my father's recommendation I got HDMI and TOSLINK A/V cables online at prices about 1/3 to 1/5 what you might pay in stores for "name brand" cables. I must say he was right. The cables were very good quality and they work perfectly.

P.P.S. (off topic) it was a challenge to figure out how to enable the HDMI input on my Mitsubishi WD-52525 on my own. Mitsubish TV support was *very good* (as has always been my experience).

2) Free TIVO or TIVO-like service.
My cable company is rich enough. The idea of paying an extra $21 / mo (cable box / dvr, digital service fee, dvr fee) as an "improvement" do recording stuff to my old DVD player/recorder was not appealing. Panasonic unit uses the *free* TV Guide service.

VERDICT: Good, unless you just *have* to have TIVO

- I have many friends who have and *swear* by TIVO; from what I have seen, it has a nice remote, great interface, including the "sliding time bar" feature (you TIVO guys know what I'm talking about). You TIVO addicts will find the interface and functions lacking in the TV-Guide / Panasonic combo. In fact, many rental DVRs from cable companies don't stack up well to TIVO either.

- *However*, as long as your cable operator passes along the TV-Guide signal to your DVR, I have found the *free* TV-Guide programming service is pretty good (I have Cox Cable and it works fine w/ TV-Guide). For the first time, I can search for all Sci-Fi movies for the week and decide if I want to record some of all of them to the hard drive, then burn to DVD if I want to keep them. Also, watching playback / fast forwarding / skipping commercials is definitely easier w/ something recorded to hard disk than a DVD+/-RW.

3) Home video use and format compatibility
- My old DVD recorder uses DVD+R and DVD+RW; I have some old VHS to DVD home movies and wanted something that could still play them and I wanted to be able to still use my remaining DVD+R and /RW discs.
- I have also multiple digital video / picture cameras - some using MiniDV and some using mini SD cards. I wanted the option of transferring recordings to DVD w/o necessarily having to do use my PC all the time.

Verdict: Very Good..so far (partially Incomplete)

- I watched my old DVD +R home movies and they work just fine (whew!). Apparently this handles, DVD-RAM, DVD+/-R, and DVD +/-RW. This also supports recording for the hard drive to dual layer +/- DVDs....so pretty much all the current bases are covered, format-wise.

- Have not tried the Firewire or SD card inputs yet, but as with my old DVD recorder, I expect no problems w/ transfer and recording to DVD. Apparently, you can also do some minor editing on the hard disk source prior to burnign to DVD...usually this is kludgey, but nice to have once you learn how to do it. Makes for better home movie archives w/o "junk".

Any downsides?

- HDTV on my 52" is stunning; non HD signals vary from poor to mediocre (good enough). This unit does not have an HD tuner and total time would be limited (even w/ 200GB HD). This is most notable on sports event where HD is stunning. On standard digital cable, the results are good enough (for now).

- Every DVD remote should have a button to instantly access the top menu.

OVERALL:
This unit is great if your needs are like mine above and you are not a TIVO fanatic. I paid $420 for this unit, which is fair value (aside from the DVD playback, the other functions will probably pay for themselves in about 8-10 mos. - faster if I end up not buying 2-3 DVD movies because I was able to find / record them using this unit).

I expect prices may continue to drop. If you could ever get it for about $100 less, it would be a great deal and that alone could warrant 5 starts vs. 4. If my TV-Guide experience over the long haul is bad (i.e. incorrect timing, problem w/ updated information), then this would drop to 2-3 stars.

Wild card: cable companies have been rumored to be working on playing back recordings from a single DVR to any TV in the house. This would be a nice capability that would really threaten commercial-based TV and gives really lets you watch what you want, when you want, how you want. Duplicating this yourselve would currently require a lot of know-how and $$$$. This would give DVR rental a unique benefit...Of course, this capability would be only available to cable customers for another "additional fee"... ;-)

Pansonic: Good. No glitches, reliable, and many features, with some serious limitations.
Phillips and Polaroid (these two units are identical for reviewing purposes): Inexpensive and has some great features. However, half-baked software is buggy, glitchy, feels klunky, missing essential features, and crash prone resulting in trashed DVDs. However I have heard from one person who reports that his unit has updated software and works better.

This review covers three DVRs for comparison purposes:
Panasonic DMR-EH55S (200 GB hard drive) (Most expensive)
Phillips DVDR3455/37 (160 GB hard drive)
Polaroid DRM-2001G (80 GB) (least expensive)

Here are some of my observations on these three DVRs. I would call the Phillips and Polaroid "half-baked" and I returned them and would not recommend them. The Panasonic is nice and I recommend it, but it's not perfect.

In my review, strengths are marked with a +, weaknesses with a -.

Panasonic DMR-EH55S
Over all opinion: Great. Reliable, high quality and studded with features, although missing some no-brainers. After daily heavy use for several years I can tell you: it works perfectly all day everyday. I've had only two glitches: the DVD spindle gets dirty and it fails to write DVDs*, and it sometimes aborts recordings after 10 seconds with an unexplained "error**." Probably the best available at this consumer level price point, but unfortunately has many limitations that reduce its usefulness to a heavy editor like myself.
*SYMPTOM of this problem: grinding noises from the DVD drive and fails to finalize the disk. SOLUTION: open the unit and clean the spindle with 97% alcohol. Don't touch the middle hole of DVDs inserted into the unit. WORKAROUND: Use DVD-RAM, which is easier for the unit to write and doesn't need finalizing.
**No solution found yet.

Many of my comments are critiques as to how things could have or should have been done better, drawing on my experience as a software engineer. Since Panasonic has discontinued making hard disk DRVs these critiques are kind of pointless since I'll never have a chance to send them my comments to help them improve later products. The comments might give someone insight in to how some other DVR got it right.

+Text entry is very good, with great use of the remote control buttons to allow hot key shortcuts for various operations and screen positions. It's a clever system and fast and fun to use.

+Remote control is strong and the unit responds to its commands without fail.

+The scrubber for finding an edit point is great.

+The manual is very good, 77 packed pages with detailed technical information on all aspects of operation. It's much better than the "user friendly" Sony manuals that avoid tech talk. It also carefully lists the many limitations of this unit and the technology, including what burn speeds you can expect.

+The on screen TV guide is da bomb. It's far superior to the scrolling cable channel we have been watching for the last ten years. In spite of reviews here to the contrary, it worked perfectly for us, setting up with just few easy questions, one minor glitch requiring a glance at the manual, and then video nirvana. It finally makes it possible to reliably set programs for a recording device. I love it!

+The fan is whisper quiet.

+The manual warns you that high speed burn will be louder than normal. For me it's not bad. The high speed burn usually sounds like someone running water in the sink, with loud portions sounding like an electric shaver.

-In some disappointing passages, the manual points out that although this unit is "compatible" with 16X recording speed disks, "this is not the copy speed." (However, in many cases it can get better than 16x speed if you record at lower quality.) The manual also points out many other limitations such as: you can not record to the SD card, movies can not be played from the SD card, the Firewire port can only be used with digital video equipment and not computers, pre-recorded DVDs and even some of your own burned DVDs are copied to the hard drive only in real time*, the advanced feature "flexible recording" fits the highest quality footage possible filling all DVD space but only burns in real time, the system is not smart enough to juggle overlapping record programs and will just drop earlier programs even if there is only a small overlap, it can not play DIVx files while recording other programs, it can not play still pictures while recording other programs, you can not rename/delete/edit/divide titles while recording other programs, it will drop scheduled recordings if you have the unit busy editing photos, finalizing the high speed burn may take four times longer than estimated on the finalize screen HUH? and various other limitations. I don't want all that...just make it work!

-Multi-tasking challenged. You can't edit any previously recorded tracks, not even renaming them, while the unit is recording. You can't even watch tracks while high-speed burning a DVD with finalize, which is silly, since you can watch without finalize. What's in this thing, an 8080 microprocessor? During high speed burn with finalize it won't even play TV from the tuner! This is a serious limitation for me, greatly reducing the utility of this expensive device*. Even the useful (and hidden) "create chapter" screen is unavailable during recording.
*Not being able to edit tracks while the unit is busy recording is a real disappointment. It's a nasty cycle because the more you record, the more you need to edit but then the more often the unit is busy recording. The only editing function available during record is to mark chapters, and that's a partial life saver. You can shift some of your editing time into setting chapter marks around your "cut" and "save" segments. Later when the unit is free you can use these as guide marks to make your editing faster.

*Here's a super useful "create chapter" hidden function. While viewing tracks in the track listing, select a track for editing and go to "sub-menu" and then "view chapters." The DVR will bring up a screen and show each chapter mark on the track as a thumbnail. Since you can't set the thumbnail snapshot for chapters, this view is not as useful as it sh/could be. Now cursor over to any chapter and then go to "sub-menu/create chapter." This will bring up a useful preview screen. Below the preview will be the familiar program timeline, but a bonus here is that all of your chapter marks will be indicated on the timeline. I wish all the other preview screens, especially "shorten track" included these track marks, and they should. Seeing your entire program with the chapter marks all at once is useful. You can scan through the program and set new chapter marks or delete chapters. If you want to delete a chapter mark, "exit" the preview screen and you will get back to the chapter thumbnail view. Select a chapter, go to "sub-menu," and there is a "merge chapters" button there.
* Here's a useful way of editing (like cutting commercials) that is not obvious. The normal way of cutting the commercials is to use the "shorten track" function. To do that, you scan to a commercial, hit "start," scan to the end of the commercials, hit "end," then hit "shorten now." You click "confirm," wait several annoying seconds, then do it all over again until done. It's annoying to have to do it one by one. Here's how you can do them all at once. Go to the hidden timeline with chapter marks function mentioned above. Scan through your program and set chapter marks before and after all your commercials. Double checking your work in this view is easy until you're sure you've got it right. Then "exit" to go back to chapter thumbnail view. Now you can select each chapter you want to drop by selecting it with the "pause" key, one chapter at a time. Once you have them all selected you can go to "sub-menu" and then "delete chapter," and it will delete them all in one swipe. It's very good!

-Copies pre-recorded DVDs (and some others) to the hard disk (HDD) only in real time and with loss of a generation. The Pioneer DVR also copies in real time, I assume also losing a generation. I think what they are doing here is playing the DVD and routing its signal through the analog circuitry to allow any copy protection scheme on the DVD to confuse the input circuitry and cause that brightness fading in and out and color shifting. This is another serious limitation for me since I like to consolidate my home movies and etc. I make sure that I will not have this problem with my home movies by using the DVD-RAM or whatever. If this limitation bites you it's a disaster.
*The DVD-RAM avoids the real time limitation, so using that for your own editing purposes is a work around.

-Will not pause live TV! Instead you have to start recording and then chase playback. That's an odd oversight on Panasonic's part and a sorely missed feature.

-When you divide or edit a track you have to do it in a small preview screen. That's silly, sacrifices a lot of usefulness, and so needless. They sacrificed screen space for useless stuff, including a useless title bar at the top, another one on the bottom, useless edit/divide preview windows, and huge on screen buttons for "divide" and "preview" operations. I like to edit and divide my programs while watching them, but since Panasonic has a special screen for editing/dividing, where the program is shown only in a small preview window, I have to view my program once, then go back and edit or divide it later. If you edit much video you know that editing time is a big problem, e.g. another reviewer mentions fifteen minutes to edit the commercials out of a one hour show. If you record many shows, that's hours of editing. So a needless time waster like this edit/divide screen is a problem. For me, this needless limitation is a fatal flaw. Today I had to bite the bullet and watch America's Funniest Videos in the preview screen because I just can't afford to watch a one hour track twice to get my edits. Also another problem, the system recomputes your track location with each edit. That's bad because it makes it impossible to have any idea of an edit decision list (EDL), where you might jot down approximate times of things you want to save or cut. Because it recomputes all times with every edit, what used to be at the one hour mark of your program will change.

-Does not show program length nor time remaining while viewing a program. The current track time is displayed on the front panel and available on screen.

Regarding the Phillips and Polaroid DVRs:

These two DVRs are similar. They may be the same machine. They use the same operating system and the on screen menus are all identical in the two units.

General comments first and then I will comment on the differences in the units.

+Tracks are easy to select for burning to the DVD

+As you select tracks for burning it shows you how much room on the DVD you have left.

+It's always recording, so even if you don't hit the record button until halfway thru the show you can still get the whole show.

+It pauses live TV and this feature is full featured and effective. Live TV behaves just as if you were playing back a disk with pause, rewind, slo-mo, and fast forward all available.

+Does not delete edits, but simply hides them on playback. When you write out to the DVD it does not write the deleted portions. This would allow you to go back and rethink your edits. Panasonic deletes them immediately. On commercials this is probably no big deal but on home movies it might be useful to keep those deleted scenes handy in case you change your mind.

+Allows editing tracks while recording a show. Since the machine is always recording it must support this feature, so it's not surprising, but it is way handy since we keep ours recording shows almost all the time and I am a heavy editor also. If I could only edit while not recording it would be hard for me to get it done. What is surprising is that my more expensive Panasonic DMR-EH55S does not support this feature.

+Technical support is good. I called them twice, got through to someone and they gave intelligent answers.

+Dividing tracks works well, unlike the Panasonic. It's easy to simply select "divide" instead of "view," and then divide the track at your stopping point for today and then you're ready for next viewing to start where you left off.

-Takes 15 annoying seconds to boot while you miss the kick off of the super bowl.

-fluorescent display is small with only medium readability from across the room.

-There are not many buttons on the front panel

-Track titles are only 10 chars - that's not enough

-The operating system is primitive, buggy, missing many useful features and has a generally clunky feel, as if they programmed only the bare minimum features required to allow operation. For example, holding buttons down on the remote will not repeat the key. This feature is sorely needed when inputting text with the on-screen keyboard because it's torture to have to keep repeatedly pressing the buttons on the remote to scroll from one side of the keyboard to the other. Another example, the editing screen has a bug where you hit the edit button to start an edit and the prompt correctly displays "hit edit to stop editing." Then you search forward to find the end of the commercial and you hit edit and it slices out that portion and the prompt correctly displays "hit edit to start [your next] editing." That's not a bad system, but the OS has a bug in it so that if an edit is started, when the info screen goes away it comes back incorrectly displaying "hit edit to start editing" when it should say "hit edit to stop editing." However, the edit feature still works correctly in spite of the display. But this can be confusing enough to make you forget where you are and make you exit the edit screen and start over.

-The info pop-up screen is really annoying. It's giant and it's never there when you need it and always there when you don't. There's no way to turn it off or on permanently. Especially when you are viewing something frame by frame - it's maddening.

-Text is slow/torturous to put in, made worse by the weak remote control.

-The machine crashes and locks up, sometimes without provocation, and you have to unplug it to get it going again.

-The machine crashes and trashes the DVD when trying to append tracks to a non-finalized DVD.

-remote control is weak and that's really annoying when you are editing text. You have to be close and at small angle from the sensor.

-Does not show new track time after you edit out the commercials.

-Only allows 9 characters per DVD track title.

-It has a manual, but it's not very good.

-It has a useful time shift buffer, but its interface uses arbitrary buttons on the remote, there is no on-screen help, and sometimes you have to use the hidden "hold down the button for 3 seconds" technique.

Now to highlight some differences:

Polaroid
+Has a way handy feature to jump to a specific time in a show. You just hit "go to" and then enter a time like 35 minutes, and it goes to it.

+DVD burner on this unit seemed faster than on the Phillips.

-Earlier version of the operating system - has bugs, features that don't work, and missing needed features

-No progress indicator as it burns to DVD, and you can't watch the program as it's burning

-Manual is rougher.

-Fan on this unit is too loud.

-A bug in the OS prevented me from entering the tens digit of a recording program start time.

-Lack of cursor keys prevent navigating a DVD from the front panel.

-Scrubbing function to find an edit point is bad and increases editing time.

Phillips

+Has an updated operating system with some welcome enhancements and bug fixes. More stable, but still crashes and trashes disks.

+Will show a progress indicator as it burns the DVD.

-Has a T/C (time code) button to jump to a specific time in a track, but it does not work.

-DVD burner on this unit seemed slow.

Got it last week, and I love it. This is my first experience with a DVD recorder. Easy to set up.

I have not tried recording on a DVD yet; I am too excited to just use it as a VCR. All the programs record on the 200G HD (2-4 days worth of video), and I delete them after watching it. The TV Guide feature is great, especially to program the recording. BTW, it also works as DVD player.

Easy to skip commercials! I record the shows even if I am home at showtime; I start recording them, and start watching it 20 minutes after a one hour show's start time. This way I can skip the commercials and "chase" the show. This also allows you to pause "live" TV, or rewind if you think you missed something. I believe that's how "TIVO" works also. My cable company was offering something like that for a $20 monthly fee, plus it had no DVD recording feature.

It lets you "edit" the commercials out of a show, so if you want to put your favorite show on to the DVD without the commercials, it is possible. I plan to do it with music videos.

The only thing that was a disappointing was the LED Display in front of the player. From today's advanced standards, it looks primitive (80's style), and the light stays bright even at night (no auto dimming). For a $450 price tag, they should have updated that.

I use this as a VCR replacement, and it offers most of what I would expect: better recording quality, ability to hold lots of stuff on the HD for time-shifting. It has the ability to copy things from a DVD-R that it created back onto the HD, an important feature that some DVD recorders lack.
My complaint is with its programability. It allows you to select a show for recording every day or every week, but it sometimes fails to record because its TV guide system has incorrect information and it sometimes loses programmed requests entirely. I've given up on that and now program it to record only based on time. That seems reliable, but if you start one minute before the show it mislabels what it records.
Overall, just what I was looking for, but frustratingly close to perfect.

I purchased this DVR about six weeks ago and am 98% happy with it. At the rate I'm using it now, I will have got my money's worth if it lasts two years.

The TVGuide programming works great. It took a day to load up two day's worth of programs, and the next day had downloaded all 8 days. Every once in a while it will have a program gap of a few hours (i.e. not listing the names of programs 4 or 5 days in the future), but that never lasts long.

I've tried everything it can do--recording at different qualities and in different ways, burning to DVDs, connecting to a DV camera, copying off a SD card, taking videos off previously recorded DVDs--and have had no problems. I've had two shows that recorded sketchy, but otherwise no problems with quality.

I think the most surprising thing about it is how easy it is to connect and use. My wife, who is only moderately tech-savvy, already has it mastered. She can quickly record programs, edit out commercials, and burn to DVDs. I'm not sure about the complaints about the complexity of the instruction manual since I found it to be fine.

There are one or two things I wish it did, but they're mild complaints (and may actually be possible). I'd like to do things like "Record this program and replace it with the new episode each day." I wish it let you permanently adjust how it lists the programs (e.g. by name instead of date recorded). However, I'm sure every other DVR on the market would have one or two small things that I don't completely like.

Overall, an amazing purchase. I have never owned a DVR, and it has completely changed the way we watch television. I suddenly realized that the TV has always been in control, but that things have now changed!

I did alot of research before purchasing this product, and I have to say it is everything I hoped for and more.

Everything has worked exactly as advertised.

In addition, I can record from another DVR from DirectTV, which gives me twice the flexibility and functionality.


It records to DVD extremely fast, and the menus are very simple.

Hook up took less than 1/2 an hour.

The TV guide is simple, easy to use, and set up in the 24 hours it said it would.


With the Direct TV set up, I think this may be the perfect set up for an NFL junkie like me.

Everything about this purchase was rewarding: 1)We bought it at the best price (right here) 2) J&R Music had it to us in 1 day (though we only paid for reg.ground svc) 3)the set-up was as simple as could be (we were able to use HDMI) and 4)The unit does everything it's supposed to easily and un-complicatedly (really important to us, since we're beyond the age where new technology is easily understood), to include the on-screen TV Guide function which makes recording TV programs unbelievably easy.

Over all not a bad machine,there is 1 major problem,you can not open or close the the disk by remote control.Also if you are waiting to begin recording the macine turns itself off if it sits idle for more than 5 minutes,which means for manual recording you better not begin the process any earlier than 5 minutes otherwise when you press record you will find out the machine is not even on.

It would have gotten a 4.5 had there been a choice and since I know people are overly critical, I'll be overly rewarding.

I have only been able to use it for a few days now. So this is going to be sorta of a preliminary review and will update after I have tried out more things.

Pros: 1) If the TV Guide ability works, it's quite awesome - 8 days in advance of programmable listings and user friendly! I probably would have sold it on ebay right away, if it didn't and been forced to go my cable providers DVR, which has a montly subscription. 2) No subscription fees per month. 3) Recording to a HD quality from non HD quality. (Although, the TV I have the dvr on isn't HD and my bedroom tv, which is I haven't tried it on there yet.) 4) Huge harddrive. I put it on the 2nd best quality and that gave me 92.5 Hours of recording (that's like 92 HOUR long shows!)

Cons: 1) Little pricey, but you can make up the costs from recording your own dvds, saving time, and knowing you're not being stuck from the cable companies or TIVO monthly fees. 2) to NITPICK, not as swift as my friend who does subscribe to the cable co's dvr - lots of button pression and no quick ways of doing it. 3) another NITPICK, I didn't like how I couldn't use it for 24 while the TV Guide service updates, and takes almost a whole week for it to update all 8 days of listings.

Overall: I don't know of a way to know if your cable company blocks the TVOGS to know in advance, but if you can use the TVGOS, then this is a great peice of equipment. I had heard people complain about the owner's manual, which is a little 'deep'. (It's definately not a Dell - for all those who love their beautiful well illustrated guides that are easy for the idiot's idiot.) But the manual (while i haven't used a lot of its functions still) it not too hard to understand if you're patient. ITS VERY MUCH WHAT I WAS LOOKING FOR IN A DVR AND I ENJOY PROGRAMMING IT AND USING IT.

Just received and started to use this recorder. So far it combines the best of HDD and DVD recording.

Install was straight forward if you have hooked up other recording devices before.

The Gemstar/TV Guide in my area is out-of-date due to Comcast -> Time Warner swithover. Hopefully, in time that will be taken care of.

The options for burning to removeable media are tremendous.

Will post more info with more expierence with the product.