Excellent low-mid price range DVD burner, with one weakness.
Written: Jan 04 '04 (Updated Mar 19 '04)
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Pros: Great progressive scan component video quality, recording is easy and generally good quality.
Cons: Does not play DVD+R media, remote has annoying door covering some frequently-used buttons.
The Bottom Line: Great DVD recorder that should easily replace your VCR. Progressive playback is great, and recording is both easy and of good quality. No DVDplusR playback, though.
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| gamercubed's Full Review: Panasonic DMR-E50M DVD Recorder |
With set-top DVD burners becoming affordable, we decided to take the plunge. We already have a DVD+R burner on our computer (more on this later), but we wanted an easier way to convert our old VHS camcorder tapes to DVD. After doing quite a bit of research, I decided that for the price the Panasonic DMR-E50 was the best. Some lower-end burners had less than great progressive scan output, and for us that functionality was important. Of course, higher-end decks like the Philips DVDR80 (a DVD+R burner, by the way) are better (the Philips featuring a Faroudja processing chip that delivers pristine progressive-scan video), but for what we were willing to spend, the DMR-E50 seemed the best option. From what I have experienced so far, this decision was a wise one.
Video quality out of the DMR-E50 is great. We have an older wide Plasma TV, and the 480p component signal coming out of the DVD player looks terrific. I couldn't notice anything to complain about, though I suppose trained pros might find it lacking somewhat when it comes to complex diagonal lines or something (such as the waving American flag clip on the Digital Video Essentials DVD. I ran that clip with our player and could not notice anything unsatisfactory.) Interlaced (S-video and composite) playback is perfectly fine as well. Sound outputs are as you'd expect from a higher-end player: optical and coaxial digital, plus the typical stereo RCA jacks. I use the optical connection and everything sounds great. In short, I'm very happy with the deck's playback capabilities.
Obviously, since this is a burner, playback isn't the only issue here. I must admit I haven't burned much with it yet, but having played around with some DVD-RAMs, I was able to easily record TV with no more effort than with a VCR. I also tested the various record quality settings side-by-side. The XP (high quality) and SP (normal quality) record modes each fit about 1 and 2 hours per disk respectively. I don't see any reason to use XP as I couldn't notice it being any better than SP. LP (long play - 4 hours) is acceptable for lower-quality source video (VHS), or if you don't care about losing some detail. It's not too bad, but you can notice some MPEG box artifacts. I found EP (extra long play - 6 hours) unacceptable for anything you want to keep long-term. It's still watchable, so it'd be ok for recording a TV show that you would later erase (by using a rerecordable DVD-RAM). I would not, however, use it for much else. The MPEG artifacts are very noticable and everything looks fairly muddy. Thus, SP is good for recording video that you want to look just as good as the source material, and LP is acceptable for VHS backups and other content that you don't mind losing a bit of quality. XP seems unnecessarily wasteful of disc space, and EP is bad enough that I wouldn't burn anything permanent with it. There is also a "flexible recording" mode that adjusts the quality to fit a user-specified length of video on the remaining DVD space. I have used this a few times and it works well.
As I mentioned above, the recording interface is easy to use. DVD-RAMs provide fast access for the player, so it is possible to watch recorded video on a DVD-RAM while it is being written to. Chapters are automatically created whenever you stop and restart recording (for both DVD-RAM and DVD-R). I wish there was a way to hit a button and create a chapter point without stopping the record process, but perhaps that's too much for the burner to do at once. If you don't want to create a new chapter, simply pause record instead of stopping it (and then resume recording when you're ready). The menus that the DMR-E50 creates for your burned disks are simple but get the job done. Before finalizing a DVD-R disk, you can name each chapter as well as the disk itself. Naming chapters is tedious, but about as good as can be expected with a remote.
The Panasonic DMR-E50 should easily replace your VCR since DVD-RAMS can be rerecorded thousands of times and because it includes VCR+ software that allows you to set the recorder to burn a certain channel at a certain time (of broadcast television).
Now to my only real complaint. As I mentioned earlier, we have a DVD+R drive in our PC. Since our burned DVD+Rs worked fine in our old 1st generation DVD player, I assumed they'd play in a new one. The DMR-E50 can play VCDs, CD-Rs, etc. so I assumed it could easily play DVD+Rs. I was wrong. I tried several (all on Verbatim media) and none of them worked. Since DVD recorders for PCs are cheap enough now ($100), we bought a DVD-R/DVD+R combo burner for the PC to replace the old DVD+R burner. The DVD-Rs I burn with the PC work fine. DVD-Rs are more compatible anyway, so it was probably worth doing regardless. Still, it's an unfortunate weakness. If you have a large library of DVD+R media, you may want to look elsewhere. Otherwise, I highly recommend this DVD recorder for those not interested in spending more than $400.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 330
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Epinions.com ID:
gamercubed
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Location: Frisco, TX
Reviews written: 21
Trusted by: 2 members
About Me:
I love movies, music and technology, so that's what I usually review!
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