Home > Consumer Reviews > Panasonic DMR-EX95 - 250gb Hard Drive DVD Recorder & VCR Combination - With 1080P Up-Conversion & Freeview - Silver
Panasonic DMR-EX95 - 250gb Hard Drive DVD Recorder & VCR Combination - With 1080P Up-Conversion & Freeview - Silver
Average Customer Rating
(4.0 out of 5)
Amazon Customer Reviews
Most Helpful First | Newest First | + Share81 of 81 people found the following review helpful:
Quality Piece of Kit
(5 out of 5) by David R. Bishop on Sep 12, 2007 (Plymouth, UK)I have had one for a week, and I am very pleased with it.
The build quality is very high. It was a surprise to see it was made in Slovakia, which is not a country I associate with high-tech manufacture. Maybe it is time to change my perception of that land.
It is a boon to have so much in one box, DVD, VHS, HDD, Freeview, even an SD card slot. It has done away with three machines, and cut down on the snake's honeymoon of mains, ariel and scart leads. This is a good way of justifying the expense to a houseproud partner!
It is fairly easy to use. The instructions are easy to follow, and it has 'contextual intelligence'. By that I mean, if you insert a pre-recorded DVD, it assumes you want to play it, if you insert an SD card, it asks if you want a slide show or to copy photos to the HDD.
One potential problem with this machine is that it only has one tuner. If your TV is analog and you aren't planning to upgrade it before the switch off, you will lose the facility to watch something and record something else when they switch off the analog transmitters. You have to be a bit canny to make sure you are future proof. I am OK with it, my telly has integral freeview.
It can copy to and from any of its drives, but will not touch copy protected stuff like pre-recorded DVDs and tapes.
I am happy with the machine. I would say its main facilities are the 'all in one' nature, the quality and the huge HDD.
The build quality is very high. It was a surprise to see it was made in Slovakia, which is not a country I associate with high-tech manufacture. Maybe it is time to change my perception of that land.
It is a boon to have so much in one box, DVD, VHS, HDD, Freeview, even an SD card slot. It has done away with three machines, and cut down on the snake's honeymoon of mains, ariel and scart leads. This is a good way of justifying the expense to a houseproud partner!
It is fairly easy to use. The instructions are easy to follow, and it has 'contextual intelligence'. By that I mean, if you insert a pre-recorded DVD, it assumes you want to play it, if you insert an SD card, it asks if you want a slide show or to copy photos to the HDD.
One potential problem with this machine is that it only has one tuner. If your TV is analog and you aren't planning to upgrade it before the switch off, you will lose the facility to watch something and record something else when they switch off the analog transmitters. You have to be a bit canny to make sure you are future proof. I am OK with it, my telly has integral freeview.
It can copy to and from any of its drives, but will not touch copy protected stuff like pre-recorded DVDs and tapes.
I am happy with the machine. I would say its main facilities are the 'all in one' nature, the quality and the huge HDD.
198 of 202 people found the following review helpful:
Absolutely no regrets about this purchase
(5 out of 5) by N. Evans on Nov 15, 2006 (Devon, UK)Excellent piece of kit, does everything I want and more. Picture quality is good, comes with clear, informative instructions. The remote and menu structures are precise and intuitive. Setup was a breeze, I think the only input from me required was name and address, which can be stored for identification following theft (good idea) Integration with our Panasonic LCD via HDMI is great, it means that mostly we only use one remote all the time. This is a superb item for either technophobes and technophiles, very highly recommended.
48 of 49 people found the following review helpful:
After 4 months
(5 out of 5) by Difficult_2_Please on Oct 27, 2007 (UK)Still delighted with this.
Yes it's a shame it doesn't have two tuners, and USB would be better than SD (which I don't use), I can't get it to read MP3 from a DVD-RW, and I agree it would be nice to be able to record two things at once (I can't help pushing things). But considering how flexible it is, it is fairly easy to drive, the quality is good and excellent value. It's playing my CDs (including the MP3s), archiving my old VHS tapes to DVD (trimmed & tidied), and regularly used in 'chasing playback' mode to skip commercials and pause the TV.
Yes it's a shame it doesn't have two tuners, and USB would be better than SD (which I don't use), I can't get it to read MP3 from a DVD-RW, and I agree it would be nice to be able to record two things at once (I can't help pushing things). But considering how flexible it is, it is fairly easy to drive, the quality is good and excellent value. It's playing my CDs (including the MP3s), archiving my old VHS tapes to DVD (trimmed & tidied), and regularly used in 'chasing playback' mode to skip commercials and pause the TV.
60 of 65 people found the following review helpful:
nearly perfect
(3 out of 5) by D. D. on Aug 24, 2007 (uk)Ok so it has a harddrive and dvd recorder and video recorder, but panasonic seem to be going backwards instead of forwards, I have a panasonic dmr-es30v which is a dvd recorder and vhs recorder in one and with this you can record from tv onto vhs and from satellite onto dvd at the same time, or tv onto dvd and satellite onto vhs at the same time, but with this one you can only record on video or harddrive or dvd, it won't allow you to record two different programmes at the same time, so I will be sticking with my Panasonic dmr-es30v.
23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
Something to be aware of
(1 out of 5) by Mr. John Richardson on Feb 24, 2008 (UK)I bought this item just over a month a go as an anniversary present for my parents.
After they had unwrapped it at a family gathering I plugged it all in etc but got a message of 'HDDERR' and the DVD just opened. Thats the sum total of my experience!!! Totally embarassing.
I researched this very carefully but had not heard of such problems but when I went surfing again, a couple of similar things cropped up with reference to the Samsung HDD disk being temperamental.
I didn't buy it from Amazon but a company called Cheap Telly (yes, the name does rather sound iffy in hindsight). Apparently, according to Panasonic, you have got 28 days from their despatch date (not delivery date)in which you would get the unit replaced. Even thought I didn't plug it in until the 28 days had passed they are now saying that I will have to take the unit for 'repair'. It's outrageous!!! My parents surprise was completely ruined and they add insult with this.
I'm still negotiating with Cheap Telly but for the price I paid (still over £400)And because of the name of Panasonic, I expected much better things. Amazon are usually excellent in this respect from my own experience so you should have better service if you buy from them
Others here have enjoyed the unit so it may well be worth purchasing. Just beware and make sure that you check yours as early as possible as the customer service from Panasonic isn't really what you would hope for.
After they had unwrapped it at a family gathering I plugged it all in etc but got a message of 'HDDERR' and the DVD just opened. Thats the sum total of my experience!!! Totally embarassing.
I researched this very carefully but had not heard of such problems but when I went surfing again, a couple of similar things cropped up with reference to the Samsung HDD disk being temperamental.
I didn't buy it from Amazon but a company called Cheap Telly (yes, the name does rather sound iffy in hindsight). Apparently, according to Panasonic, you have got 28 days from their despatch date (not delivery date)in which you would get the unit replaced. Even thought I didn't plug it in until the 28 days had passed they are now saying that I will have to take the unit for 'repair'. It's outrageous!!! My parents surprise was completely ruined and they add insult with this.
I'm still negotiating with Cheap Telly but for the price I paid (still over £400)And because of the name of Panasonic, I expected much better things. Amazon are usually excellent in this respect from my own experience so you should have better service if you buy from them
Others here have enjoyed the unit so it may well be worth purchasing. Just beware and make sure that you check yours as early as possible as the customer service from Panasonic isn't really what you would hope for.