Home > Consumer Reviews > Panasonic DMR E55EBS DVD Recorder

The E55 is a smart looking machine that can record on -R or RAM discs, and is whisper quiet in operation.

There are RGB Scart in and outs and if you have only 1 RGB Scart on your TV or, like me, an NTL cable box with only 1 RGB Scart out, you can connect the cable box to the TV via the E55, which passes on the signal to the TV even when in standby mode.

There are 4 recording modes: XP(1 hr), SP(2 hr), LP(4 hr), and EP(either 6 or 8 hrs - not both). I can't tell the difference between 1 and 2 hr, so I always use the 2hr mode purely to get more on the discs. The 4hr and longer are only really useful for emergencies. I think 6/8hr is worse than VHS.

I use DVD -R discs for recording, and saving, films. There is a very useful flexible recording mode (FR) which fills the disc in the time specified. Eg. If you want to tape a 2:20 minutes film, instead of having to use the LP 4hr, you can use FR 2:20 mode, which obviously will be a lot closer to 2hr quality than 4hr.
If you shop around you can pick up Panasonic brand -R discs for around £1 a disc.

The RAM discs will be used for recodings that you do not want to keep. There are plenty of editing options and the time slip function is very easy to use. However, most of the functions you won't use. Eg. You can cut out all the adverts in a recording but it is far simpler to just hit play, then fast forward through them.

One option I do use is the play back before the recording has finished. If you really don't want to miss a program, hit record at the start, then play the recording. If you have small child that goes into tantrum mode, or want to get a cup of tea, you can hit pause and start again whenever you want. And of course, if you are more than 3/4 mins behind the "live" program, you can fast forward through the adverts.

I was a bit worried about reliability, having read so many reviews of all kinds of different makes (well Philips mainly), that crash and generally act up, but I have had no problems with this one. I've tested all the branded discs and all work correctly.

Note: It is very important not to get dirt or smudgy fingerprints on the surface of the disc whilst recording, or this will occasionally crash the machine. Probably when you least want it to happen.

Fine piece of kit.
RAM discs give similar functionality to a hard disc recorder, albeit at 4.7GB a time, and these are the key to why this is such a good system for the money. The RAM discs give you the chasing playback facility and are completely reusable. The feature whereby the machine will fit the recording to the available space for best quality is handy too. Finding what you want on a disc is simple with the Direct Navigator which gives thumbnails of every item recorded. The VCR is still plugged in but hasn't been touched since DVD recorder was first used. The quality and convenience advantage of this system over a VCR makes the VCR seem about as desirable as a black and white TV. Incidentally you can in fact copy from RAM discs onto DVD-R on a PC (or just edit on a PC) but you do need a multi format DVD writer with RAM capability (I use an LG 4082B which works fine, although the RAM to DVD-R copy process using the LG supplied software is a bit slow). With the RAM discs you find yourself recording stuff on a "just in case" basis, reviewing it quickly and then either watching or erasing. Editing using the DVD recorder is a bit more tricky than on a PC, but it's there if you want it, and it's probably a matter of getting used to it. Only minor gripe is that the machine is supplied without any media - chucking in a Panasonic 4.7GB RAM disc would have been nice, but it's still worth the 5 stars.

I just got an E55 two days ago and am still getting to know it, but so far it seems very promising. Recording quality at SP (2 hours per disc) looks identical to live broadcasts, so I doubt I'd have to use the even-better XP (1 hour per DVD). LP (4 hours) strikes me as somewhere between SP and LP on my VHS (which is itself a Panasonic and admittedly unusually good), whilst EP is bearable - and since I can't perceive a difference between the 6 and 8 hour versions I'm opting for the 8-hour variety (which is new on the current models). All these times are for single-sided DVD-RAMs and DVD-R's - you can double it for a double-sided DVD-RAM, though you have to get up and flip it over yourself! I ordered some DVD-RAMs from Panasonic's e-shop as they seem very cheap there and they arrived within three working days. For me, the DVD-RAMs are preferable as I mainly record TV programmes and then delete them after watching, and the longevity of DVD-RAM vs the RW versions of DVD- and DVD+ is impressive (100x the re-recording ability according to the specs)- plus there is loads more functionality (recording and playing back different programmes at the same time, playing back the recording currently underway, etc.). I think some of the latest DVD-R/RW and possibly DVD+R/RW recorders are starting to offer some of these features with RW discs, but I think the way they then have to record makes the disc less universally compatible than normal for those formats - and they still won't have the ability to be re-recorded as many times as DVD-RAM. Panasonics don't support DVD-RW discs but they do record to DVD-R if you need compatibility with most other players and recorders - but the speed of some processes at beginning/end of recording is reduced, and lots of the really nice features of the recorder are unavailable with them. With DVD-RAM, the E55 seems to operate pretty much as though it has a hard drive - though of course the capacity of a DVD is much smaller than an HDD so you need to have multiple discs in use.

The thumbnail display of recorded programmes in the Direct Navigator (6 show on a screen at a time) is impressive looking (not vital, but it looks great!) - when you highlight one, it actually plays, with sound. Also, if the recording is longer than a minimum duration (unsure, maybe 15-30 mins?), it records and displays the name of the programme in addition to the date and channel - otherwise, just the date and channel.

Another review above ("Excellent DVD recorder, but with a design flaw", June 7, 2004, by A electronics & photo fan from Bodmin, Cornwall, United Kingdom) mentioned a problem of the E55 switching their TV over to the channel the DVD was recording for about 9 seconds, when the E55 finished recording. I spotted mine doing this, and eventually remembered I'd seen it here. So I thought I'd mention a fix I found, in case it helps that reviewer or anyone else who was worried about it. Everyone's setup is different, you may not even get this problem, or if you do, my fix might not be relevant. Anyway:

My TV is a Sony, which has Smartlink - compatible with Panasonic's QLink. This gives clever features like "Direct TV record", the ability for the E55 to go into standby if you put the TV into standby, etc. etc. This facility is on the E55's output SCART and the Sony TV's primary input SCART, and works if the SCART lead is one with all its wires connected. Now, having read that RGB output gives better picture quality (though it's great anyway), I turned that on in the E55's setup menu to see if I could see any difference, and wasn't sure, but left it on. Next time I switched on the E55, I noticed it changed the channel of my TV over to the DVD's channel (AV2, "DVD" - like my Panasonic S35 player always did. With the player it was only mildly annoying as you only switch it on when you're about to play a disc!). However, with a recorder, I *really* only wanted it to change over to the DVD channel if I pressed play or brought up an on-screen menu on the E55. I then discovered that it was also doing the aforementioned 9-second channel change syndrome (again, over to the DVD channel) when the E55 finished a recording (including with the timer). There'd be a few seconds of the channel that had just been recorded, then a blank screen, and finally the TV's own channel would return. Really irritating when you're trying to watch TV and another channel suddenly buts in and then blanks the screen to boot, for almost 10 seconds!

Well, all this went away when I returned the E55's setup output to "Video (with component)", which is the default anyway. It now acts exactly as I'd want, like a VCR, without disturbing the TV except when I feel it should. It turns out my TV's Smartlink SCART input (recommended for attaching your primary recorder to) is NOT RGB-compatible (though its secondary one is, but that doesn't have Smartlink!). So, I don't know if it's just using the RGB output of the E55 that causes this invasive channel changing, or if it's using RGB into a connection that doesn't really "like"/understand it, but maybe this info might help someone. I could know for sure by swapping cables around, but why mess with fragile SCARTs? And anyway, I can't reach around the back of the TV without moving it and it's way too heavy to move easily!

Hope that helps/encourages someone, somewhere.

I did consider buying a cheaper DVD recorded until I read about the benefits on DVD-RAM on this machine and I'm glad I paid the additional amount. DVD-RAM is a huge leap above other formats and allows to you operate the DVD much like a hard-disk recorded, just at half the price and with interchangeable media.

DVD-RAM allows you to:
- Start watching a program while you are still recording it.
- Pause live TV.
- Watch one program from the disk while recording another.
- Select programs on the disk from an on-screen menu.
- Record and delete programs in any order from the disk.

I would fully recommend paying the extra money to get the DVD-RAM feature, it is well worth every penny spent on it.

I did a lot or research into DVD recorders before my buy and realised that RAM with it's time slip feature would be great. I have not been disappointed. I bought this last week and it FANTASTIC. The time slip feature is superb, quality brilliant, very easy to use and programme. It is so quiet in operation and even automatically records the name of the programme you are recording.

Coming from a VCR, all quality modes are pretty good. I keep it in LP (4 hours on a single sided disk) which is fine.

One thing I noticed was that because I have Sky, and a signal splitter, I had to fiddle with the sequence of coaxial cables (what goes into what first) and scart leads to make my whole system work the way I want it to work. E.g. when I recorded BBC1, I couldn't watch sky - hence I needed an extra scart lead to link the Sky box directly to the TV.

One tiny downside is that I can never lend a recording to anyone, as few people have a machine that can read RAM - but how often would I do this anyway?

A great buy. I love it!