Panasonic DMR-EH75VS DVD Recorder / VCR Combo with 80GB Hard Drive, HDMI, SD Card, and DV Input

by Panasonic

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 14 x 17 x 3 inches ; 15 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 19 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• Shipping Advisory: This item must be shipped separately from other items in your order. Additional shipping charges will not apply.
• ASIN: B000FKKO74
• Item model number: DMR-EH75VS
• Batteries: 2 AA batteries required. (included)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (91 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #48,369 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)
  • #64 in Electronics > Televisions & Video > DVD Players & Recorders > DVD Recorders

Product Description

Panasonic, DVD Recorder/ VCR Combo, 80Gig Hard Drive

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

185 of 188 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The only one of it's kind to date, June 2, 2006

By 

PatrickG (Stamford, CT) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Panasonic DMR-EH75VS DVD Recorder / VCR Combo with 80GB Hard Drive, HDMI, SD Card, and DV Input (Electronics)

I have been holding out on buying a DVD recorder until one came out with VHS, DVD, and a hard drive (HDD). This unit finally delivers! It definitely has some cons, but this unit is the best you'll get if you want to record onto a hard drive first, edit out the commercials, and then transfer to DVD. The advantage to this method is that you can record say 2.5 hours in SP mode (2 hr mode), edit out a half hour of commercials, and then transfer to DVD. If you have to record directly to DVD before editing out the half hour of video, you would have to use a longer recording mode and therefore reducing the video quality.

Some of the things that can be improved upon:

- Consistency of auto-chapters: When copying directly to DVD, I've gotten chapter stops at 5 minutes and 8 minutes. When copying to the hard drive, there is no rhyme or reason. Why is this not consistent?

- Chapters are not maintained when copying from HDD to DVD in different recording mode: After copying to the hard drive, you can set your own chapter stops. These chapter stops are maintained when the video is copied to DVD in high speed mode (and therefore at the same video quality setting). However, if you record to HDD say in XP mode, edit out commercials, and then copy to DVD in a mode where it fits onto one disc (say, SP mode), it makes the DVD without any chapters! It should maintain the chapters that it allowed me to create. (The reason you would use this method to make a DVD is because you might not know how long the program is without commercials prior to editing them out. So you would want to copy to HDD in the highest quality mode possible)

- Loss of sound when "shortening a title": When you edit out a section of video, I have sometimes noticed a loss of sound for a few seconds before and a few seconds after the edited section. It also pauses briefly during the removed section.

- Can't copy a VHS to HDD or DVD and edit commercials on the fly: I should be able to easily play a VHS tape and record it to DVD and press the PAUSE button at the start and end of a commercial to edit it out. My old Go Video VHS to VHS deck has this simple feature... why wouldn't a brand new $500 VHS to DVD unit be able to do this? Are you listening, Panasonic?

- TV Guide built in DVR is not easy to navigate: If you want to skip ahead through 3 days of listings, it's not so easy to do. But for a DVR with no monthly fee, I can't complain too much here.

- Need to use both coax AND RCA cables: Most combo units allow you to use only the coax connections in case you have an old TV. With this unit you are REQUIRED to use both, which doesn't make any sense.

- Bad remote layout: The 'Function' and 'Navigator' buttons are too close to the directional wheel which is used for editing your videos and typing title names. The result is that you will often hit the wrong button by accident and leave the screen you were working in.

There were a few other basic features that you would expect to have, but I can't think of any other drawbacks right now. Overall, this is actually a really GOOD UNIT, certainly the only one of it's kind... I just figured I should tell you of the drawbacks to make sure you can live with them before buying it.

47 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Like Tivo Without The Monthly Fee, October 20, 2006

By 

Megan Smith (Baldwin, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Panasonic DMR-EH75VS DVD Recorder / VCR Combo with 80GB Hard Drive, HDMI, SD Card, and DV Input (Electronics)

I've been using the DMR-EH75VS recorder for about four weeks now and I love the quality of the picture, the ease of copying from HDD to DVD, and the quality level of VHS transfers (recorded LP) to HDD or DVD. This is with the unit connected to a 20 year old Sony Trinitron television with an RF Modulator. I've also used the fire wire connection to connect my Sony MiniDV camcorder to transfer footage to DVD and it worked beautifully. I would give the unit 5 stars if the manual were better and if I had successfully installed the included feature of the TV Guide listings.

First about the manual: I work as a television editor and even I had trouble with the manual. The terminology is vague and the procedures often assume a level of knowledge that is unrealistic. The glossary should make up for the terminology problem, but does not. I did email questions to Panasonic and received satisfactory answers, but the manual should be self-explanatory.

Regarding the TV Guide listings I have yet to get them. I followed the procedures from the beginning and the unit searched for them, but after the prescribed 24 hours of having the unit off (I did this several times), the unit kept telling me that it could not find the listings. I have talked to Panasonic several times, have changed configurations, then tried getting the listings a few times (which is annoying because I can't record anything during the 24 hours it's off), and finally Panasonic did a software diagnostic that they are sending off to TV Guide and they said they would get back to me.

To be fair, I started off when I first got the unit with Cablevision and a Scientific Atlanta cable box, and last week I switched cable services and now have Verizon Fios fiber optic television service with a Motorola cable box. With both boxes, Panansonic had me reset the unit, adjust the settings and turn the unit off for 24 hours. I still don't have listings, but I hold out hope.

In the meantime, in between testing for TV Guide listings I have done many manual recordings direct to DVD and direct to the HDD, and am very happy with those functions. If you have problems manually setting up a vcr for programmed recordings and you can't get the TV Guide listings either because of the type of cable box or satellite service, think twice about getting this unit, because manually setting up programmed events might give you trouble.

Previous comments about the remote and the menus are ligitimate. It takes a little getting used to them, but if you're not a techno-phobe they shouldn't be a problem. Getting rid of the commercials can be tedious, but once again when you get how it's done, that's not a big deal.

Though free Panasonic help has been available online and by phone, the technicians I've dealt with have ranged from fairly knowledgeable to not so much.

In closing, after all these problems with the listings and the manual, why don't I give this unit a lower rating? The reasons are because the quality of the picture is really fabulous, the ability to record to a hard drive and delete commercials as well as come in on a program that's already started and watch from the beginning while the machine tapes the whole show is really great and I'm getting a big kick out of that, and I love that I can do all this without paying a monthly fee.

So even if I never get the listings because they are not available with my service, I'm still happy with the unit and will either manually set up recordings or attempt to use the VCR+ option. If I finally do get the TV Guide listings, I'll write a supplement to this post, but overall the DMR-EH57VS is a really great unit.

40 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Converegence Deck, October 3, 2006

By 

N. Santiago (San Bruno, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Panasonic DMR-EH75VS DVD Recorder / VCR Combo with 80GB Hard Drive, HDMI, SD Card, and DV Input (Electronics)

Several people have written excellent reviews of the Panasonic's ability to edit and record TV, in addition to VCR-DVD archiving, and I suggest looking at those reviews below. I would just like to add a few comments on my, so far limited, experience with this deck.

-HDMI upscaling is very good, and in my opinion is as good as my stand-alone Toshiba DVD player with HDMI upscaling. In addition, all video is upscaled to the format of your choice, and is a nice feature. Because of this, I found video playback of recorded shows to be of excellent quality. Very close to actual broadcast, if not the same on certain channels.

-TV Guide setup was simple, and asked for your postal code. The deck takes around 24 hours to get guide data, and I recieved 2-3 days of programming after about 18 hours. You must also periodically place this unit on standby in order to recieve updated TVGOS content, which is sent over the cable during late evening, and early morning hours, from my observations. My setup: analog cable directly fed into the Panasonic deck (no cable box), HDMI out to HD-ready TV. After reading the manual, TVGOS is not available to everyone, please be sure to check with your local cable co. just in case, if this feature is important to you. In additon, do not autotune this deck for channels, doing so loses the TVGOS capability, unless you do not want TVGOS.

-DVR capabilities: excellent video quality, TVGOS does a decent job of organiziation of channel listings and recording que. Recorded shows are shown as thumbnail videos and is a very nice feature of this unit. You can watch any thumbnail video saved on the HDD. The deck also has VCR+, but I do not use this feature, however some you propective buyers may like this feature.

-The deck is silent. the fan is quiet, there is little to no noise (just HDD noise at startup) emanating from the unit at all. very nice to see imo.

-The deck can record when in standby mode, thereby conserving power consumption, again a nice feature.

-The manual is not an easy read. Very technical, however this deck is not for the average user. Be prepared to spend some time reading certain parts of the manual in order to setup this deck properly.

-You can watch a DVD movie or VHS movie while simultaneously recording on the HDD, in additon to watching HDD content you have previously recording while the deck records. Nice feature, and for me, was a must have.

-This deck has high speed DVD burning built in, and allows for 1h-2h of content to be burned in 20 min or so. One caveat: For example, if you have high speed recording set to "on", you can burn a DVD fast, but you cannot record in dolby audio, nor widescreen. Therefore if you are recording a show (say CSI in widescreen) and you have this unit set for high speed recording, the picture will be in 4:3 format on the DVD. Something to consider.

-This deck cannot simultaneously output digital audio from HDMI and Toslink. you are made to chose one or the other. If you want Toslink, the unit disables Audio from HDMI, and vice versa. Not a big problem, but an annoyance when I want to watch a DVD movie through my DTS decoder (that does not have HDMI inputs).

-This deck has component inputs for recording, but only supports 480i (normal NTSC) and 480p (enhanced TV). so if you wish to record HD content, you are out of luck. I recorded OTA HD content in widescreen into this deck and found it to look and sound excellent, even though it was recorded in 480p.

-Last but not least, This deck is not constantly recording to the HDD, therefore TiVo-like features such as pausing live TV is not possible with the touch of a button. You must first record what you are watching to use the pause feature. I own a TiVo box and I love its capabilities, and the fact that anyone from young to old can use the TiVo interface within 30 min to an hour, but I don't like the monthly fees. If you are like me, and wanted to break free from the monthly fee, then I highly recommend this deck.