Home > Consumer Reviews > Panasonic DMR-EX77EB-K - 160GB Hard Drive DVD Recorder - With 1080P Up-Conversion & Freeview - Black

Quick delivery from Amazon-arrived as expected. Lots of mixed reviews here that got me wondering if I had bought the right item (should I have bought a pure PVR?). Other reviewers concerned about stuff like pausing Live TV and twin tuners.

I had a play with the EX77 last night; you can pause live TV; yes you do have to start recording first, then press play and you are seeing the recorded playback-which you can then pause/resume and even rewind. I also found that you could play from the hard drive whilst it is recording another program. I have recorded on LP and found the quality to be very good, hardly distinguishable from normal freeview.

The program guide is good, though a little bit cluttered - recording from here is incredibly easy; the program guide shows programs for the next seven days.

The unit is fairly quiet - with the TV switched off you can hear a gentle hum, but nothing to be concerned about. I bought this for the bedroom - but set up in the lounge to test it - now I want another unit for the bedroom. I am not fussed about this player not having DivX - I prefer to buy/rent DVDs; the Panasonics that have the Divx playback do not have record.

As I have had this for only a couple of days I haven't learnt to use all of the features yet - but so far so good.

I've been looking into hard drive recorders for quite a while. By the time I bought this, I had a good idea of what I was after. Integrated freeview was particularly important to ensure greater ease of use and compatibility, with a dvd recorder to burn permanant copies of stuff I decided I wanted to keep (knowing that otherwise my hard drive will eventually become full - forward thinking!).

Auto-set up made installation a breeze, and I have not yet been disappointed. One of my small concerns was not having video-plus to quickly set up recording - but found that I had overlooked using the digital electronic programme guide - setting timer recording is a breeze, only need to find the programme in the guide and press enter, and that's pretty much it (beside a few tweaks if needed).

I've also surprised myself with some features. I plugged my playstation 3 in the front of the machine's phono sockets, the result being able to record my friends making idiots of themselves using the Eyetoy Game and a camera! Going to make a nice DVD of these clips and send to my friends as a surprise to make their day! I've yet to try using the DV port to put the contents of my DV camera onto DVD, which is another thing I was looking for.

Well worth every penny I spent - despite not having tried everything! Good price for such a quality product, jam-packed full of features, with a relatively simple interface and remote. I'm confident this won't disappoint many buyers. Thanks Amazon for yet another great buy, with super-fast free delivery!

A previous comment said it doesn't perform like a PVR. that's because it isn't a PVR! it cannot automatically buffer like Sky+ because it was never designed to. and the "Time Slip" function on the Panasonic is nothing to do with Pausing Live TV, Time Slip on this machine is only a fancy name for being able to advance through a recording in 10-minute increments (e.g. if you stop watching a 2-hour movie half way through, instead of fast-forwarding to get back to the point at which you left it, you can jump ahead to 50 or 60 minutes (or however many you want). It doesn't say it can Pause Live TV, so a buyer shouldn't be upset when they discover it doesn't have that feature.

if you want an automatic buffer and PVR functionality, then buy a PVR or get Sky+!

and yes, the lack of divx compatability is a licence issue, Panasonic felt that the UK wasn't using this medium as much as other countries, so saved on paying the licence and omitted it from the UK models.

and another reviewer said it was something out of the dark ages because you have to press the button on the unit itself, to automatically record for 30, 60, 90 or 120 minutes. it is made like that so you don't accidentally alter the recording period if you press something on the remote without knowing it (you might be manually recording a movie or sporting event, but unknown to you, you might have pressed the button on the remote which will stop the recording in 30 minutes. having it only work by pressing the button on the unit itself, you can't mess up a manual recording).

if a little research is done beforehand, and you download and look at the instruction manual in PDF format, you won't be disappointed or under the wrong impression of what a machine like this can do.

PS, no dvd recorders outside Japan have twin digital tuners, so don't be harsh on the Panasonic for not having them, they're all like that. the most you can currently get are just 1 digital and 1 analogue tuner, but the analogue tuner will be redundant in a couple of years when the analogue signal is switched off anyway. the Panasonic doesn't have an analogue tuner, but it's no big loss as the analogue signal in my area is very poor.

my tip is to go for the EX87, the 250GB version of this same machine, as you can never have too much hard disc space. ive owned the 77 and it was fantastic, but sold it to buy the 87 and love it, i recommend it to everyone, as long as you don't need to play divx material on it.

This is great DVD recorder to get. I bought it so I could ditch Sky and get Freeview instead (which is built in) and save the monthly fee. Not being technically minded I had a few problems getting all the cables sorted out but once installed correctly it works a treat.

The menus are easy to use. You can record direct to the hard-drive or onto a blank disc. If you want to keep a program it can be transferred from the the hard-drive onto disc. At the moment I only seem to be able to do this at playback speed, which is a bit slow. However that could just be because I haven't worked out how to use it correctly yet!

Its easy to switch back to analogue (whilst it still exists) if I need to and in all honesty I don't know how I managed without this device now.

Did a lot of research before parting with my cash. I needed a Hard drive as well as DVD recorder that had to be easy to use. The freeview tuner came as a bonus. It is a simple machine to set up and controls are in logical place. Twin tuners would be an advantage, but I already have a freeview box so I can still watch one channel whilst recording another. Excellent picture quality at LP. ELP gives a picture quality like a video, so still very watchable.

Highly recommended.