Best Electronics Purchase Ever Made
Written: Jan 11 '03 (Updated Apr 08 '03)
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Pros: Wonderful for archiving tapes. Multi-tasking. Very stable and quiet.
Cons: Entering titles and editing capabilities at a primitive stage.
The Bottom Line: I HIGHLY recommend this unit if you need to archive a lot of tapes, or if you record a lot of TV and don't want an accompanying subscription service.
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| videokilled's Full Review: Panasonic DMR-HS2 (40 GB) DVD Recorder |
Great product. Great design and operational concept - well thought out and very stable and solid performance.
I record a lot of TV and also have a lot of tapes to archive. With this unit I can record TV while either watching another channel or watching the 1st part of what I am recording or watching a DVD that I have rented.
I can set it to record a show at 7 in the morning (to the hard disk), then start dubbing several saved parts of shows to a CD-R and then go to bed. 2 hours after the dubbing is done (actually after inactivity - you can also set this to 6 hours), the unit will turn off to save power (and will still record the show in the am).
Another thing I like is being able to set the unit to record something else WHILE it is recording something - very nice. And everything is very fast - if you see something on TV and want to record immediately, then press record, then set a timer starting NOW (for same show) to set the off time - the unit takes over recording it in a timed manner, leaving you to go about whatever else - watching something else or setting more timers. Try doing that with a VCR.
I have finalized about 50 of the Memorex DVD-Rs so far and they have all been perfect and have played fine on other DVD players.
Standard industry copy protection is strictly enforced on this unit, but other than that you have a lot of flexibility going from HD to RAM and back and from HD to DVD-R.
The editing is primitive, hopefully future units will allow you enter titles more easily (and use cut and paste type functions as well) and will provide more editing options (effects for instance). The editing that is there is solid - shorten program and divide program. I don't use markers much since that goes away when finalizing. Playlists might be useful (for reordering scenes that you have already recorded or repeating something), but I find just using the shorten function (to remove unwanted material) and divide program are all I need before finalizing to DVD-R.
The manual is not bad and reflects exactly what this thing can and cannot do. As with anything this sophisticated, you have a lot to learn once you open the box.
Dubbing from a VHS has been a breeze - I have my VHS in line right before this unit coming from the cable, so I have both coax and RCA from the VHS to this unit, therefore I dub from the VHS on "L1".
The "Direct Manager" allows you to easily see what you have recorded - what day you recorded it and on what channel, along with the title you entered.
There is an erase button on the remote - press that while you are on a program and then arrow left and enter to confirm and boom - it is gone and you have more room on your hard disk.
I've had the power crash a couple of times since I've had this unit (when I was present). It said "recovering" on the panel for about 20 seconds and then it was as good as new with no loss of recorded material on the hard drive.
A VERY solid piece of electronics.
Note (added 01/14/03): I would like to be able to comment more on the video recording and playback quality, but I'm using an older Sony TV, so I would look to other reviews for this. However, I will say that I'm pretty picky about the quality and am satisfied with how this unit records and plays back. I usually use either XP or SP recording mode for recording and XP or FP (FP is somewhere between XP and SP and uses highest quality that will fill the disc) when dubbing.
Please note that above I mention "being able to set the unit to record something else WHILE it is recording something." This makes it seem as though I am saying you can record two programs at once. This is NOT possible. What I am really saying is that you can SET timers for other recording times, view your timers, watch a DVD, and other things while the unit is recording one program. (And this functionality is very important to me - to be able to have the unit recording and then set timers and catalogue DVDs you have already burned, etc.)
Update on media - I have now used three or four different kinds of media (Maxell, Memorex, no-name from a bargain spindle, etc.) and have not had any problems recording or reading on other players (have tried two other players).
Have had a few more local power outages - one while this thing was burning a DVD-R. Only thing that was lost was the one DVD - just had to start it over again. I even filled up the hard disk by accident yesterday and it did not hurt anything - just had to do more archiving.
Note: I have my "power-down after X number of hours" setting set at 2 hours. And this does not kick in until after the unit has finished burning something that may be longer than two hours. In other words the unit gives top priority to finishing a burn regardless of settings that you can make. I am not sure the manual makes this clear.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 750.00
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Epinions.com ID:
videokilled
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Reviews written: 1
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