Home > Consumer Reviews > Panasonic DMR-EX77 - 160gb Hard Drive DVD Recorder - With 1080P Up-Conversion & Freeview - Silver

This DVD recorder is superb. We have found the picture quality is better from a recording onto the HDD than the actual picture on the tv.
In answer to one of the reviewers that you cannot see the channel number while recording, all you have to do is to switch the unit on while it is recording and you will see the information you need, even an elapsed time counter. This does not interfere with the recording.

Another review stated that you cannot record one digital channel whilst watching another. This is untrue. Because we have both a digital tv and a digital recorder, you can do it. We tried it and it worked.

I would highly recommend this dvd recorder.

After checking the reviews of other HDD recorders I opted for this model, arrived in a couple of days, set up in a less than 10mins, connected to my Panasonic LCD TV with an HDMI cable, great picture quality from the instant recording mode, only gripe at the moment is it is very slow during the warm up when it has been in stand by mode, would recommend the EX77 anytime.

I bought this unit a few weeks ago. It turned up next day and worked (mostly) without any problems. Set up is easy. Recording to DVD can produce some strange results particularly if you want to watch the DVDs on a computer, but a consistent and sensible solution was found.

My only problem is that the television does not automatically switch between 4:3 and 16:9 formats with this unit. It does with my older freeview box. Recordings played back from the hard drive do switch automatically even if the delay between recording and playback is only a minute or so (ie playing back while recording)

An email to Panasonic technical support has not been answered in two weeks. A call to Panasonic UK customer support advised that this is a known issue but of course it is not the Panasonic DVD recorder that is the problem even though the television switches automatically with a Thomson freeview box. Panasonic suggest that you need to manually adjust the television each time the format being received changes.

Apart from that - amazing.

this is an excellent machine fine player.idiot proof to set up.but be warned if you have a large collection of divx to dvd movies you may have problems with playback.

Received this machine Friday (less than a week since order) and now (Monday)am very happy with it.

Instruction Manual - Complicated in places - but I am getting to grips with it. The terminology is not the greatest, and I am confused at parts, but overall I now have a good grip on most features.

Freeview - I am in deepest darkest Dorset and as a result I cannot receive Freeview and this DOES NOT have a Analogue Tuner - I did know this when I bought it and accept that for the time being I am losing out on its functionality. I am therefore limited to Sky freeview through its AV2 input.

Pause Live TV - You can watch what you record and pause it whilst it is still recording only. Therefore no quick buttons to press to set this instantly if the telephone rings etc - unless you are anticipating it.

Recording - To offset my disapointment with the Freeview, I have worked out now that I can set my Sky freeview Planner (with Autoview) and if you have things configured correctly with the unit set to 'External Link', then the unit will automatically record those programmes - this gives me the same functionality as the Guide recording planner from freeview on the unit - but did take me most of the weekend to figure out how.

Overall - I am still learning, but got exactly what I wanted, whilst still remembering I am missing some of the functions. Very Pleased...