Panasonic DMR-E75VS Progressive-Scan DVD Recorder/VCR Combo
See it at Amazon.com for $175.00Average Customer Rating
(3.5 out of 5)
Amazon Customer Reviews
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(4 out of 5)Great machine. Very happy, overall
POSTED 09/27/04:
I purchased this unit about three weeks ago and so far, overall, I have been very happy with it.
Below are some things I really like and dislike about the Panasonic VCR/DVD Recorder.
LIKES:
1. DVD-RAM: CHASE feature. With this feature, similar to a DVR, you can start watching the program that is being recorded before it has finished recording OR you can watch another program on the same disc. Chase also allows you to pause live TV, backup to see something again, etc. Chase mode even works when dubbing tapes. If you are one of those people, like me, that is constantly backing up the tape to see/hear something again, this will save wear and tear on the VCR.
2. DVD-RAM: 1.33x playback. It speeds up the audio, but doesn't change the pitch. Not really suitable for movies or dramas, but it does allow you to quickly watch news and documentaries. With this feature and skipping commercials I can watch an hour long documentary in just over 30 minutes.
3. DVD-RAM: Easy trimming and editing of recordings allows you to cut out commercials and make more room on the disc. Shows can be divided too and chapter marks added.
4. DUBBING: Easy and clean dubbing VHS to DVD. Just cue and pause the tape and then when you hit DVD record it starts the recording and unpauses the tape at the same time. Only a couple frames of the paused image get recorded. Commercials can be removed this way too if you want to take the time. VCR on-screen messages are suppressed when recording, so you don't have to worry about a "PLAY" becoming part of your recording. I actually find this manual method of dubbing better than the ONE-TOUCH dubbing option, which doesn't give as much control. This also works for DVD to VCR dubbing, but the procedure is a bit more complicated.
5. You CAN record two shows at once, one to the VCR and the other to DVD. However, you can only do one TUNER (Channel ##) recording at a time, so one or both recordings must be via AV inputs.
6. Remote control of the VCR and DVD is mostly the same.
7. The clock seems to keep accurate time, having gained only about 3 seconds in 3 weeks.
8. VCR: A VP recording speed which is 5x longer than SP and doesn't look much worse than EP. With VP speed you can record 13h 20m+ on a T160 or 16h 40m+ on a T200. Not compatible with most other VCRs though.
9. VCR: 35x search mode. Clean picture with little noise too.
10. VCR: Super fast Rewind and also a Jet Rewind, both take less than a minute to rewind a T160 tape.
DIS-LIKES:
1. No digital zoom on DVD Player. I have poor vision and the zoom feature on my last DVD player allowed me to see small print without getting closer to the TV, so I really miss the zoom feature!
2. The manual is confusing and dis-organized (see 02/19/05 update), but it is also complete so I suggest reading it from cover to cover.
3. No frame advance on the VCR, just pause and slow motion. And the slow motion is awkward to use.
4. Many features only available on DVD-RAM. (Do download the manual from Amazon and look at the RAM DVD-R, etc. headers to see what recording formats each feature supports.)
5. CD-Audio playback is too loud and muffled and sounds terrible, at least on my TV. It could be my TV, but output from DirecTV as well as TV, DVD, VHS and MP3 playback from this unit all sound great on the same TV.
6. Quality of LP and EP DVD recordings is really bad during scenes with smoke/steam/fog. Scenes with fast motion also cause some digital artifacts too. However, these could be problems with all DVD Recorders in general and not just the Panasonic.
Anyway, despite the above problems I am really pleased with this unit. The pluses definitely outweigh the negatives. Unless something better comes on the market I would get another one if I needed a second VCR/DVD recorder
** UPDATE 02/19/05: **
Having used this unit for several months now I just want to add that I still find it to be an excellent machine. The Time-Slip (simultaneous record and play and chasing playback) have changed how I watch TV. I rarely watch a program live anymore, or when I do, I wait until it is about 1/3rd over so I can watch it in chase mode and skip the commercials.
The flexible recording mode has been wonderful for recording programs and copying tapes to DVD-R. Flexible Recording calculates the necessary bitrate to fit a recording on a disc at the best possible quality. Many recorders limit you to fixed rates, such as 2 or 4 hours. With FR, if a program or tape is 2 hours and 10 minutes long it can be recorded at near SP (or 2 hour) quality instead of having to be recorded at a noticeably lower quality. While Flexible Recording is not available for One-Touch Dubbing, it can easily be done manually. Just tune to the "TP" (tape) channel before starting Flexible Recording.
I've found that many commercial tapes can be copied. Don't assume like I did at first that none can. Use a DVD-RAM disc or scrap DVD-R to do some test recordings of all your tapes and see which you can backup to DVD-R. More than 50% of the tapes I own can and don't give the copy protected message.
For time-shift recording I recommend you get some double sided DVD-RAMs in cartridges. The cartridge protects the discs from dirt and dust which can cause write errors. While you do have to flip the discs to use the other side, a double sided cartridge takes up no more room than a single side cartridge or two single sided non-cartridge DVD-RAMs.
If you need to record more than 4 hours and can't change discs and don't want to record to DVD in EP mode, you can use the VCR too. VHS may be a step backwards from DVD, but VHS-SP looks a lot better than DVD-EP. The VHS recording can then be copied to another DVD-RAM for editing.
Regarding the manual, if you buy this unit then be sure to download the manual from Amazon. You can then use the PDF viewer to search for the feature or function you need to learn how to use. Trust me, it's a lot quicker to fire up the computer than trying to find what you want to know in the printed manual.
** UPDATE 10/6/05 **
The manual says that timer recordings cannot be executed on both DVD and VHS at the same time and that timer recordings can not overlap. However, I discovered recently that this is not true. Two timer recordings can be made simultaneously, provided they are not from different channels. You can record L1 and L2 at the same time or a combination of either L1 or L2 and a tuned channel.
I've also discovered that if you are recording to DVD-RAM and are not playing a title then hitting Time-Slip will begin playback at 30 seconds from the end of the recording. This is a useful feature when you have the TV on in the background and have one of those "What was that?" moments. :)
(4 out of 5)SOME BRIEF OBSERVATIONS:
1) Contrary to what the reviewer states, the unit does not contain twin tuners (at least not the one I got). You can only record one channel at a time (either on the VHS or DVD side).
However, you can record on one while playing on the other.
2) The unit does not have a RF Modulator - so you cannot connect it to your TV's antenna terminal, only via the direct input jacks (assuming your TV has them).
Panasonic does this with all their DVD Recorders. (Really chinchy of them.)
3) Be forewarned - you cannot make copies of your store bought VHS and DVD movies that are copy protected (Macro Vision).
Also, there is no audio volume control that would allow you to compensate for tapes that are too loud or too low.
4) The new EP speed of 8 hours is backward compatible on older 6 hour machines. The quality is about the same as the 6 hour so you are effectively getting 1/3 rd more on the same DVD-RAM disc.
All in all a pretty good machine, assuming you understand its complexities. The manual is quite elaborate and may at times be hard to follow. The remote is quite good and preset to Control Setting #1. It and the machine can be changed to #2 or #3 if you have other Panasonic DVD Recorders and wish to avoid a conflict.
(3 out of 5)a so so recorder
- got mine thru buydig.com, $367 total, free shipping, took only 2 days to get to CA from NJ. very good buying experience. the unit I received is brand new.
- the documentation is horrible in terms of organizing the information. just had to dive in and learn by trials and errors. Seemed like a lot of nifty features (e.g., chasing playback) are only available when recording media is dvd-ram. this sucks since dvd-ram is not supported widely as dvd-r.
- easy one-touch-transfer from vhs to dvd. however recording via this procedure created a lot and I mean a lot of titles. I think it created one title for each pauses & stops signals that were on the camcorder which were later got transfered to the vhs tape. During the playback of this recorded dvd, there are annoying repeats of video and audio in between transition of the titles which last about half a second. I called Panasonic tech support and was confirmed that this unit didn't have the "seamless play" feature which would have eliminated these "hiccups".
- I used the external line 2 (located in front of the unit) to connect my hi-8 camcorder and transferred my home movies to the dvd-r disks. With this method, only 1 title was created. Can't create chapters out of it unless the used media is dvd-ram (was also told by the Panasonic tech support). One dirty fix is to stop the recording whenever I want to create a new tittle out of the whole tape, so if my 2 hours Hi-8 tape transfer was stopped and re-recorded for 8 times at the time of my choosing then I would have 8 titles to edit such as creating names/labels for the title thumbnails) instead of a single title.
- used dvd-r 2x (comp usa brand) - seems to work ok. However when I attempted to use a 4x dvd-r Platinum brand, the unit went into the self check mode, shut itself off and on after recording only for about 30 seconds. Not sure if this is a problem with this particular brand of dvd media or the 4x media in general. the documentation says it supports up to 4x media.
- has only S-video and regular RCA inputs, no firewire or usb for mini-dv camcorder transfers.
- the built-in tuners can only go up to 125 channels so using its remote control to tune digital cable channels (up to 1000 channels) is not optimal.
- playing back the recorded dvd-r disk on my dvd-rom drive in my computer is a problem. None of the disk can be read. However I can view them on my other stand alone dvd players (go-video, circuit city's AMW brand). I exteneded the recording time on 1 dvd-r to record more than 3 hours of video. the result is pretty grainy, bad. and the stand alone dvd players can't read it at all, except for the unit that burned it.
- Not sure if other stand alone dvd burners are any better but if I had to make my purchase over again, I wouldn't choose this unit for its lack of features on dvd-r media and limited playback supports of other dvd formats (dvd+r, dvd +/-rw, etc.)
- I would rate this unit 3 out of 5 base on my expectation and personal experience with it.
(4 out of 5)DVD-Rs must be finalized
I just purchased this DVD/VCR recorder yesterday from Circuit City, spent several hours and ruined one VHS tape and one DVD-R trying to figure out the one touch dubbing process. I finally made a DVD that played back in this machine, tried it in my other two DVD players and couldn't make it work. I called Circuit City; the helpful salesperson went over the directions in the manual with me, and I realized I hadn't finalized the DVD-R. I did that, and now the DVD works in my other DVD players. The reviewer who was frustrated because the DVDs didn't work in his other DVD players did not follow directions, which specifically state that the DVD-R must be finalized in order to play in other DVD players. I think this machine is going to be just what I need for transferring family videos to DVDs.
(5 out of 5)Works great
No idea what the guy from Bethesda was talking about. I've had this for about three weeks now and it works great. No problems at all. This is just like using a VCR but you can record more stuff and/or at higher quality. Be sure to get good blank DVDs, though, as that makes a difference in quality and storage shelf life. If you don't need the VCR go with the Panasonic models without VCR and you can save some money. (Although, good VCRs are hard to find these days, so if you have lots of VHS tapes this one is perfect.)