Home > Consumer Reviews > Panasonic DMR-E100HS Progressive Scan DVD Player with 120GB Hard Disk

I bought this unit to archive old S-VHS tapes, VHS tapes and laserdiscs to DVD, and this it does admirably. I also bought it to time-shift weekly TV shows to HDD and at this, it is better than any S-VHS VCR I have owned (and I have owned a lot of high-end units). As others have mentioned, it cannot dub FROM its own DVD drive to the HDD, but how relevant is this since this is probably a second player/recorder for most purchasers? You will not be able to copy macrovision-protected DVDs or tapes either (without the appropriate third party copy enhancer box). But respecting macrovision copyguard is pretty much the rule on all consumer electronics in the US so this should not be "news" to anyone.

Yes, if you want to archive VHS tapes or DV tapes to DVD, you WILL need a device to play back the tapes (duh). I'm not exactly sure what the earlier reviewer was complaining about, with the "lack of firewire input" - the DMR-E100HS most certainly *does* have a firewire input, as well as 3 analog inputs (S-video and composite video on each). So if you have a digital camcorder, you will be able to plug your camcorder into the E100's firewire input and make a digital copy. Very few DVD/HDD recorders actually have firewire inputs (the new Panny E85, for example, does not have it, nor does the Pioneer DVR810), so if you are going to use your DVD recorder to convert DV camcorder tapes to DVD, then the E100 is an excellent choice.

Also, the SD card port is actually really cool - you can dub any material from DVD-RAM or from the hard drive directly onto a tiny Secure Digital (SD) card in MPEG (MPEG4) encoding so you can then import it directly into a PC from the card. The unit can also read images from SD cards, as well as PCMCIA cards, which is interesting, but less useful to me.

My only gripes (and they are minor) are that there is limited control over the DVD menu when finalizing a DVD-R (you get a user-selectable thumbnail for each video segment, which is nice, but you can't select a custom background for the menu - just one of a list of 8 stock backgrounds; and the text labeling is a bit awkward. Also, I have had some compatibility problems with off-brand DVD-R discs, though Panasonic, TDK, and even cheapo "Liquid Video" blank DVD-Rs have worked fine. Plus both Panasonic and the cheaper Optodisc DVD-RAMs work great in this unit.

I love that you can use a double-sided DVD-RAM in a cartridge to fit twice as much material on the disc than you ever could on traditional DVD-R (yes, you DO have to switch sides if you use double-sided media). I send my sister in Germany copies of several US shows and this unit allows me to put 10 episodes of a one hour show on a single double-sided DVD-RAM disc at actually very acceptable quality (one hour shows end up about 43 minutes long after editing our commercials).

Speaking of editing... editing out commercials, or editing home made video segments is a breeze on this unit. Mark the start point, mark the end point, click twice and you're done.

As a demanding videophile with an extremely high resolution monitor (Loewe 38" HDTV-cable widescreen monitor) and a penchant for recording a lot of TV, I have to say I've been quite happy owning this unit for the past 8 months. Picture quality in XP and SP modes are better than S-VHS without the annoying tape glitches that can happen. And the unit has a "flexible recording" mode that can squeeze the absolute highest quality out of the available space on a blank DVD. It's not perfect, but it's among the cream of the crop of DVD/HDD recorders on the market today. If you buy one... you won't be disappointed.

Not only does this unit play all 5 DVD formats (DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, DVD-RAM) but it also supports 1-4x DVD-R media and 1-3x DVD-RAM media!! This means that you can high-speed dub onto DVD-R at 4x and DVD-RAM at 3x!! I've been running this unit for a month now without any problems. If you can tolerate the high price than this unit is the one to get. Otherwise I would suggest the Panasonic DMR-E80H but it won't play back those DVD+R/RW discs nor will you obtain the 4x DVD-R speeds or 3x DVD-RAM speeds but the price is a lot cheaper.

This machine just made all my other 4 VHS Recorders obsolete! I have Satellite-Dish, Cable-TV, 1 security videocameras, and my Sony DV Portable Rec/Player connected full-time to this machine! And it works like magic. Everything is a snap, if you follow my advise: Download the User-Manual in advance, and start reading it so you know how to handle the machine the moment it arrives at your home.
I did that, and using high-light markers, I've converted the nerd-like Manual into a very useful one.
Why didn't someone invent this machine in the 80's or 90's? I am in the process to dub a lot of Betamax tapes onto DVD. I also recommend to put a UPS-Power Supply on this machine, so if any power-blackout occurs, your contents are protected.
I think, we should be grateful to Panasonic, that they did NOT get into bed with that awful "Tivo" platform. If you can setup a Satellite dish yourself... then the setup for this Panasonic machine will be no more difficult.
Now, after exactly 1 week, even my wife can already handle the time-shift recording, entering title, cutting out commercials, and 'managing' the program files on the HardDisk.
Again: Download the User Manual, and read it thorougly BEFORE you purchase the machine. You will then understand it completely.

I have had this unit for about 6 months and I absolutely love it. I have successfully used it for the following:

- Setting up the HD to record TV shows like a TIVO without the monthly fee. For example, there are reruns on every weekday afternoon of an old show I like and I have set up my unit to record from the same channel at the same time every weekday. I also automatically record Saturday Night Live every week while I am out. Although the DMR E100H is not able to control the channel switching of a cable box (for instance, you are away for a week and want to record 5 different programs which all come on at different times and on different channels), there is an easy work-around for this. Almost all cable boxes nowadays allow the user to separately program the cable box (with the remote usually) to switch channels according to a timed schedule for many weeks in advance. So once you have programmed the DMR E100H to record what you want it to and when, you must then program the cable box to channel switch with a corresponding schedule (the cable companies built this capability in originally to facilitate VCR recording of cable TV). This practice is not quite as easy as using a TIVO, but is still very simple to do (sounds more complicated than it is I am sure) and no monthly fee is necessary.

- Backing up VHS tapes onto DVD - I have transferred all my old VHS tapes to DVDs with great results. Clearly, you need a good VCR for this as well.

- Backing up DV tapes onto DVD - great for preserving home movies.

- High speed dubbing of HD content onto DVD. This is a fantastic feature, but this HD content must first have been recorded in "high speed DVD" mode (this must be manually switched on in the "Setup" menu - no reason to ever switch it off after this). For example, you may program your unit to record an HBO movie onto your HDD at a certain time. You can then edit slightly to trim off anything unwanted in the beginning and the end and then make as many DVD copies (in high quality - SP mode has been very impressive to my eye) as you wish at high speed. A two hour movie on your HD can be copied at high speed to a DVD-R and finalized in less than 20 minutes.

- Making copies of DVDs. Note that you will need another DVD player as the input, but I have been able to make excellent copies of existing DVDs (even copies of commercial DVDs can be made if you have certain available devices which counter copy protection - obviously such copies are illegal other than for personal use (acceptable under "fair use" laws).

- Looking at pictures I have taken with my digital camera on my big screen TV. I simply take out the compact flash card from my camera and plug it into the DMR E100H (I did need to buy a $10 adapter to do this - the compact flash card inserts into the adapter which mimics a PC card and is then inserted into the PC Card slot of the DMR E100H (SD cards can be inserted directly).

Pros
- Good compression quality in real time
- Burn upto 6 hours of video on one DVD-R
- Fast forward upto 100x while diving and shorting programs
- DVD-R has good compatibility with all of my DVD players

Cons
- Cannot record date/time information with DV connection
- Cannot dubbing finalized DVD back to HDD to burn more copies
- Cannot play DVD+R and DVD+RW (I couldn't play them on other players either)