Panasonic DMR-EH50S DVD Recorder with 100 GB Hard Drive Recording

Other products by Panasonic

Product Details

Product Manual [4.13mb PDF]

• Product Dimensions: 13.8 x 2.5 x 16.9 inches ; 4 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 10 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B0007YFQCG
• Item model number: DMR-EH50S
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (68 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #35,792 in Electronics (See Bestsellers in Electronics)

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  #38 in	Electronics > Televisions & Video > Disc Players & Recorders > DVD-VCR Combos
  #83 in	Electronics > Televisions & Video > Disc Players & Recorders > DVD Recorders

• Date first available at Amazon.com: March 7, 2005

Product Description

From the Manufacturer
Find and Record Your Favorite Programs Easily with TV Guide On Screen
Your hectic schedule isn't always compatible with TV program schedules, so being able to quickly locate your favorite shows and record them for later viewing is important. The TV Guide On Screen™ Electronic Program Guide lets you easily find your favorite programs and set up your DVD recorder to record them unattended. Explore program listings up to 8 days in advance, searching by genre or keyword to help narrow down your choices. Once you've found what you want in the listings, simply select the program and your DVD recorder will automatically begin recording at the preset time.

Watch and Record At the Same Time
You sit down to watch this week's episode of your favorite show and realize that you never got around to watching your recording of last week's episode. Not a problem with Time Slip™, featuring simultaneous record and play. Select this week's episode in the program guide, start recording, and as it records you can watch your recording of last week's episode.

What if you set up your DVD recorder to record a movie from 8:00 to 10:00 while you're out, but dinner was faster than you expected and you get home early? With our Chasing Playback feature, you don't have to wait for the program to finish recording in order to watch it. You can begin watching the portion of the program that has already been saved while the DVD recorder continues recording the remainder of the program.

Avoid Accidentally Recording Over A Program
If you own a VCR, it's almost certain that at some point someone has accidentally recorded over a movie or show that you wanted to keep. One-Touch Record will save your favorite programs from the same fate by automatically scanning the disc for blank space before starting the recording process. No more worries that your favorite sitcom's season finale will be overwritten by a family member's Sunday fishing show.

Browse Through Your Recordings Using Thumbnails
You and your family are sure to enjoy the convenience of your DVD recorder so much that you'll have a large library of recordings in no time. Keeping track of all those programs would be difficult if it weren't for our enhanced Direct Navigator, which displays thumbnails of every program on the disc as you browse, making it easy to identify the contents of each recording.

Built-In 100GB2 Hard Disk Recorder
The massive capacity of the built-in hard disk means you'll have plenty of space to record shows for everyone in the house. Record lots of programming, figure out what you want to keep, then move it to DVD in minutes for long-term storage.

Film-Like Image Quality
The goal of any playback device should be accurate reproduction of the original content. In the case of DVDs, most of that content is film-based. Utilizing advanced progressive scan3 playback techniques and very accurate MPEG video decoders, this DVD recorder provides an image that faithfully represents the image you see at your favorite movie theater.

About Progressive Scanning
Progressive scanning, otherwise known as 480P (p=progressive), creates a picture signal with double the scan lines of a conventional interlaced picture, 480I (I=interlaced), to create a noticeably sharper image. The 480P image offers higher picture resolution and eliminates virtually all motion artifacts. Even on large screens, the progressive scan lines are barely noticeable and picture flickering is greatly reduced, so you can enjoy extended viewing without eye fatigue. Our progressive scan DVD players can handle both progressive and conventional interlaced video. In order to take advantage of a progressive scan DVD player, your TV must be capable of accepting and displaying a progressive scan signal (480p).

The Benefits of Progressive Vs. Interlaced Scanning
Standard DVD-Video players use interlaced scanning to produce a picture. Interlaced scanning combines two fields to generate a picture of 525 scan lines (480 of which are displayed). Your television projects an interlaced image by first scanning the 240 odd-numbered lines of one field (in 1/60th of a second), followed by the 240 even-numbered lines of the other field (in 1/60th of a second). So, it takes two fields to build one frame of video.
Our progressive scan DVD players have a progressive video processor, which enables all 525 lines (480 of which are displayed) to be scanned at the exact same time; two interlaced fields are combined into one progressive frame. A television with 480P component inputs can completely scan the entire image in 1/60th of a second. The result is a smoother and sharper picture with high resolution and minimal motion artifacts.

Advantages of Progressive Conversion
Line doublers are used in other high-end home entertainment systems to provide progressive scanning. These may be stand-alone devices or incorporated into a digital TV. Impressive as they may be, our progressive scan DVD players' in-player progressive conversion has three big advantages over line doublers:

• 1) High precision and stability
  A DVD-Video disc mastered from a film holds all the data necessary to produce an accurate progressive image, whereas an external line doubler must take hints from the video source to determine the source material and frame allocation.
• 2) All-digital conversion minimizes signal degradation
  Since the signal from the DVD-Video disc is digital, progressive conversion can be performed digitally inside the player. Signal quality is protected until it leaves the player's analog output. In contrast, a stand-alone or in-TV doubler first receives information from the analog output of the source device then converts this analog signal back to digital for processing. Finally, it must translate the signal back to analog before outputting it. All this back-and-forth translation is much more likely to degrade the signal.
• 3) Processing is optimized to DVD-Video's high image quality
  Line doublers built into digital TV sets are designed to work with a variety of video sources, so their settings are not necessarily ideal for DVD-Video. The progressive conversion of our progressive scan DVD players is optimized for the high resolution and low noise of the DVD-Video format. This enables the unit to preserve DVD-Video picture quality for display on all screen sizes, from direct-view CRT to projectors.

Product Description
Panasonic DMR-EH50 DVD Recorder offers all the benefits of the DVD-RAM format, like simultaneous recording and playback, random access, Chasing Playback, on-disc editing, and multi-format data compatibility that lets you record TV programs and still pictures. Now, with expanded multi-format recording and playback capability, the DMR-EH50 also lets you enjoy all your DVDs, no matter which format you choose. The DMR-EH50 also adds DVD-RW (video format) and DVD+R recording, and DVD+RW playback capability, for enhanced compatibility with personal computers and DVD players. An integrated 100GB Hard Drive allows up to 170 hours (approximately) of internal storage of your favorite videos for easy access. Want to store or see digital photos? There's also an SD SecureDigital memory card reader to read photos recorded on a compatible digital camera or camcorder. At only 2.5" high and 17" wide, you can easily add the DMR-HE50S to your collection of home-theater A/V components. Virtual Multi Encode System enables LP mode recording with the same 500 lines of horizontal resolution as that in the SP and XP modes Optical Digital Output for dts and Dolby Digital Decoders Smart Wheel user-friendly remote control to quickly find recorded programs and start playback faster than ever (200x quick search and fast-forward smooth search.) One-touch record capable Inputs/Outputs - Audio Video Input - LINE (pin jack) x 3 / S-Video Input - S connector x 3 / Audio Video Output - LINE (pin jack) x 2 / S-Video Output - S connector x 2 / Component Video Out / Optical Digital Audio Out (PCM, Dolby Digital, DTS) Unit Dimensions (W x H x D) - 16-15/16 x 2-1/2 x 13-13/16 / Weight - 9.92 pounds Silver Finish

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

244 of 247 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Machine!, May 28, 2005

By	Audiophile "Retired" (Bay Area, California) - See all my reviews

After researching for a DVD recorder with hard drive for several weeks it became apparent that this new model coming out would be worth waiting for. I had almost settled on the E85HS model but after reading the reviews it seemed it had a lot of problems and was pretty limited to the types of disks it would record to. This new model has solved all that with several more types (read specs) to record to. The TV GUIDE downloaded just fine and works like a charm. I haven't recorded too much just yet (only have had it for a week) and have had no problems with it freezing up. The TV GUIDE editing works well and you need it as the stations on my system came in random order. I just rearranged them and turned off the channels that I didn't want. This device can certainly replace TIVO that is for sure. Be sure to follow the intructions about giving it time to download the TV GUIDE stations. It needs to be left off (standby) for at least 24 hours. I had to play with it for the first day or two so it took me a little longer to get up and running. Also, the manual is a bit daunting but I found by playing around you could figure out most of the remote functions. As you can tell, I didn't get this machine to convert VCR tapes. I wanted something that could replace my converter box from my cable TV company (RCN) and have TIVO capabilities. This unit does that magnificently. I am now using my converter box upstairs with another tv so I can tune in music channels and use the "on demand" channel. However, this unit will work with the converter box with the included IR Blaster so it is a very versatile recorder and tuner box. I'll come back later and add addtional information about my recording and editing experience.

7/7/05 update: I finally got around to editing and dubbing a TV recording to DVD. It was a very easy process overall. The only thing that slows you down is trying to read the instruction manual. Once you are on the editing screen ("Shorten Title" as it is called) it is pretty intuitive and with a little trial and error it was a pretty fast operation. Now my son-in-law has a commercial free copy of the Eagles concert. One thing to remember is if you want to utilize high-speed dubbing you need to turn it on before you start. This means even before you start recording a program. Once it is recorded without high-speed dubbing you are stuck with a dubbing time equal to the length of your recording. Panasonic recommends that you set that option to off unless you know you want to dub a program at high speed. They don't say why. Even though this wasn't the primary reason to buy this recorder for me it really seems to do the job and would be great for converting VHS tapes to DVD. Finally, don't forget to finalize your DVD so it will play on other devices. There is a prompt for it so it really isn't a problem.
As a follow up to my primary review, I am loving the recording of TV programs on the hard drive. I record and watch movies that I would never have bothered with because of the commercials. The TV GUIDE makes it very simple (push one button)to record. With the on screen menus you don't even need the book to use this function. The normal (SP) speed gives you 44 hours of recording time and I can't tell the difference between it and the orginal TV program in picture or sound quality.
Overall, this device has exceeded all of my expectations.

50 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Issues you don't see in previous reviews, October 10, 2005

By	Booboo Tutball - See all my reviews

The EH50S is my second Panasonic DVD recorder, the E80H I got 18 months ago worked so well that I decided to buy a second unit for my other home.

I won't repeat the comments you can read elsewhere, but I will discuss the couple issues that have not been mentioned before.

If you plan to perform editing on this unit (such as editing out commercials before archiving to DVD), you will need to do a lot of fast-forward/fast-backward/pause/play maneuvers to skip over the unwanted parts. In the EH-50S, each press of the fast-forward will take you to a higher speed, and there are a total of 5 levels (2x,10x,30x,70x,200x). Naturally, you want something faster than 2x or 10x while searching forward/backward (30x and 70x are good choices) to seek out the commercial breaks to edit them out. The typical key press is to hit fast forward 3-4 times successively to get to the higher speed, and hit play/pause when the unwanted part begins/ends so you can locate the specific points to begin/end editing.

That is where the problem with this unit lies - when you press fast-forward/backward multiple times successively, it queues up your key presses and it can take over 6 seconds after the last key press to get to the speed you want. It will not execute any other command such as play/pause/stop until it is finished with the queued commands. So it is a guarantee that you will always overshoot the point you want to stop if you engage high speed search. 6 seconds may not sound long when you read this, but if you are in 70x speed, even 3 seconds is overshooting the stopping point by 3+ minutes of programming, I can assure you that you will swear at this recorder more than once per edit. As a result, if you edit often, you do not want this recorder (Interestingly, the old E80H, with the latest firmware, provides almost instantaneous responses). Unfortunately, Panasonic never released a newer version of the EH50S firmware since its release.

This problem is not related to the new hard-drive "sleep mode", as the drive is already spinning at full speed when you edit. I work in computer hardware/software for 20 years, I believe it is the result of poor firmware design. Hard drive sleep mode as a way to improve durability is a marketing gimmick, its true value lies in reduced power consumption and heat generation. A typical consumer-grade hard drive provides a 600,000 hours of mean-time-between-failure (MTBF), that is 68 years of 24x7 non-stop operation! You have other problems to worry about if you are still using the unit in 2073. (The commercial grade drives is in the 1.4+ million hour range, but surely that's not what Panasonic put in the unit).

In LP mode, very fast motion of contrasting color objects (like a person dancing in colorful clothing) can cause an image breakdown: the affected area turned into big blocky shapes. This is rare, but the problem was not in the older model. The LP mode in the EH50S is supposed to equal the SP mode quality in the E80H, but it is perhaps only true in programs with little transitions. With sports program, LP is useless. You should only use LP mode for something that you don't plan to archive. I definitely consider this the second show-stopper for this recorder.

On the bright side, the dubbing speed is very fast. In LP mode, it can dub a 60 min video in less than 2 minutes (assuming you have the right disks), which is up to 8 times faster than the older model. It also allows you to view regular program during dubbing, while the E80H forces you to watch a blue status screen until dubbing completes (which can take a long time depending on the length of the dubbing materials).

Panasonic took some cost cuting in the EH50S, the control on the units is fewer than in the older model, the display is cheaper and less sophisticated. The brush metal overlay on the older remote is gone, replaced by a full plastic design. But the unit also costs a lot less, so you get what you pay for.

I have cable without a cable box, TV Guide works as advertised.

The recorders is sensitive to power interruption, it displayed a U99 failure message intermittently after a power outage. I reformatted the hard-drive and the problem disappeared. In this respect, it is no different than a computer.

Overall, the flexibility to archive to four disk formats is a big plus for me. I hope Panasonic will release a firmware update soon to fix the image breakdown issue and improve the response of the fast forward/backward keys, as well as the general key press responses. If they fix these two issues, then I would recommend the recorder wholeheartedly. In the current state, I believe the EH50S is a couple steps back from designs that is two generations older, which is a huge disappointment.

However, if you rarely edit and just use the unit to record/time-slip programs, then you shouldn't be concerned about the slow key-press responses.

If you edit, I give this recorder 1-star, you will learn to hate the EH50S, so look elsewhere. If you don't edit and records at SP or higher speed, I give it a 5 star.

I bought the EH50S because of the positive experience from the older E80H. Now with the sluggish EH50S, I will not buy another Panasonic recorder unless they can prove that the future model is indeed better.

After the release of the EH50S, Panasonic came to a screeching halt in releasing new hard-drive-based recorders since early 2005. It became the only new model with a hard disk drive, a far cry from the previous lineup (their two higher end models are of the previous generation). I wonder if Panasonic realized the flaws in the EH50S and is delaying the release of newer and higher-end models.

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellant DVD Recorder with Hard Drive, October 19, 2005

By	W. Uncapher (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This has to be one of the best deals in DVD Recorders with Hard Drives. Excellant picture quality and sound. Even if you use standard video and audio cables. I prefer Monster Cable S-Video and Opitical audio cables. It was relatively easy to hook up and use. To all the above critics out there, read the darn instruction manual! I have DirecTV satellite service, so I don't have the ability to use the TV Guide for recording programs. Yes, it is possible to record your programs manually (similar to setting the timer on a VCR). If you just follow the instructions for those that don't have TV Guide service available with their cable or satellite provider. You must also do one additional step and that is set your satellite receiver timer to come on when you want to record your program. Believe me this little inconvenience is worth it, the picture quality is as good as the satellites. Also, to the person that said there is no clock on the unit when the power is off? Wrong!!! Did you bother to read the manual at all? Panasonic put a lot of energy saving features on this unit (great if your in California, I guess). The clock is one of them. You can set it to be Bright, Dim or Off, when the unit's power is turned off. Saving wasted energy. Also to the person that complained about slow response time of the Hard Drive, etc. Panasonic also incoporated other features into this unit one is for energy-star complience, the other is to save unnessasary wear and tear on the components (e.g. Hard Disk Drive). I think it's commendable on their part! They are trying to make a quality unit that will last. They back it with the best warranty around full 1 year parts and labor. All competitors are only 1 year parts and 90 days labor, that's a mear 3 months, then you're footing the bill! I also commend Panasonic for making the unit in Singapore and not communist CHINA! Although all major manufacturers are making some things in China, most are very poor quality, only making it through the warranty period if you're lucky. A good friend of mine is an engineer at SONY - Pittsburgh television facitily. They manufactuer large screen t.v. sets there. He says,that engineering is the most important of course, but where electronics are made is equally as important! He claims that Chinese manufactuers use lower qualty components, so their products are not going to last as long. He says, a lot of other asian countries still us top quality components in their products. A lot of which are made in JAPAN, then sent to lower cost labor counties for assembly. Not true in CHINA, they usually make all the components there to keep cost down and profits up. I truly believe that you can't go wrong buying the PANASONIC DMR-EH50 DVD Recorder with Hard Drive. Also amazon.com was excellant. UPS had it to my front door in an unbeleivable 2 days, using super saver shipping. Way to go! They also have the best price by far.