Home > Consumer Reviews > Panasonic DMR-EZ37VK DVD-Recorder/VCR Combo with ATSC Tuner Black

I bought this to copy my old VHS tapes to DVD. Right out of the box I did thirty in a row without a hitch. Easy to use when you get the hang of it and perfect for my purpose. I also use it as a recorder for taping from TV and timer et al works just fine. I am happy with it.

This is the 2nd Combo DVD/VHS recorder I own, and it lacks 2 good features of my 1st unit: (1) when copying from VHS to DVD (or visa versa) you cannot skip over commercials so they are also copied. (2) you cannot determine the length of copied movie.

This unit plays and records VHS and DVDs and you can copy from one to the other. Playback is quiet and there's no annoying hum like some machines have. It's easy to operate (although I did find the set-up instructions confusing.) Programming scheduled recordings is simple and if you do make a mistake, a message pops up to tell you what's wrong.

The buttons on the remote are clearly marked and easy to use. This is a reliable machine and I'm pleased it, but I recommend shopping around; it is priced much lower elsewhere.

I wanted to convert my vast VHS library onto DVDs, so I purchased this unit in October and quite easily was able to accomplish this goal. The video and sound quality of the DVDs is even better than on the original VHSs. I used Maxell DVD-R and had zero problems.
Now I am using the unit to timer-record my favorite weekly TV programing onto DVD-RW. This way I don't miss any episodes while I'm at work. I very much like the ease of the timer recording menu.
My only suggestion to make this unit a 5-star item would be to re-write the manual. Most of my answers were in there, but not easy to find sometimes. Too much of sending you back and forth to another page. In general the manual is too much "you can" and not enough "how to."
Still I am 100% satisfied that this unit did exactly what I wanted the unit to do: make DVDs of my old VHS tapes.

I bought the recorder because it had the digital tuner. A lot of these recorders do not come with tuners.
Pros
Easy to use
Can use most types of DVD media
Does not look or feel cheap
Tunes over the air HD channels
Does the job

Cons
Slow to channel surf (You can press the channel up several times before it moves up.)
It can get confused when switching from DVD to VHS to fast (It once locked up so the only thing I could do was unplug it)
The status information sometimes randomly displays while watching DVD's
(No big deal but you already know that you have a DVD in the drive and that it is playing, why tell me when I did not ask)