Panasonic DMR-EH50S DVD Recorder with 100 GB Hard Drive Recording

Submitted by Reviewer (not verified) on 3 October, 2005 - 05:22.
Panasonic DMR-EH50S DVD Recorder with 100 GB Hard Drive Recording
ModelDMR-EH50S
MadePanasonic
MediaElectronics
CatalogCE
Sales Rank20008
List PriceUS$399.99

Goto Amazon.com

Reviews:

Rating 4.0/5 from 84 reviews
5 stars aren't enough
Rating: 5/5 2008-01-20
Bought mine 0ver two years ago, never any problems, no regrets. Question; Why was it taken off the markets? 2 years ago all electronic stores sold them, now none do. Why| Is it because of TVO? these machines are much better then DVRs, no subscriptions needed.
I think it's great!!!
Rating: 5/5 2007-10-21
I purchased this DVD recorder almost 2 years ago after receiving a different brand as a gift. The one given to me had a problem and had to be returned and was out of stock. I did some research and decided to buy this one.

I have been extremely happy with my purchase. I love the large hard drive where I can save all of my shows. I only wish it was bigger so that I could save more :)

Taking out commercials is easy and I believe there is more than one way to do it. I take them out by marking the start point and end point of the set of commercials with the create chapter button and then removing them in the "view chapters" menu which I feel is the easiest way.

I love how easy it is to set a program to record. The guide has all the listings for about a week. I just go to the place on the guide where the show is that I want to record, press the little green button and I'm set.

Dubbing from the hdd to dvd is so easy (as long as I have the programs I record on the dvd set to record for high speed dubbing). It takes just a few minutes to transfer programs to a dvd.

I also love that you can create a chapter anywhere in a program to mark a spot you want to be able to get back to. It's great that if you create a chapter and don't want it that you can combine the chapters back together. I wish you could combine titles too - although it's nice that you can separate them.

The manual is a bit complicated and sometimes it takes a while to figure out how to do something but overall, I think this is a great dvd hdd recorder and it has served me well. I only hope I can find another dvd recorder as good as this one when this one goes.
DVR
Rating: 4/5 2007-05-19
Iam cheap - so I bought the only DVR I could find that required no subscription or payments after the initial purchase. And may I say it work just fine - a little difficult at times to program, but no extra costs!
Good Buy
Rating: 5/5 2007-03-20
This is a superb product. I have used it consistently since I have received it. It is very user friendly and excellent quality
Buy a Tivo Instead
Rating: 2/5 2007-02-10
I bought one of these things and it's difficult to operate, the video editing is counter-intuitive and it refuses to read the TV guide from my digital cable despite it's advertized ability to do so. I have to manually program everything. I had direct TV with a TV prior to moving here (DirecTV not available) and it was fantastic. This thing is a $500 piece of junk.

Editorials:

Product Description
The DMR-EH50 series DIGA DVD Recorder with 100GB Hard Disk Drive offers users up to 177 hours of recording time. TV Guide On Screen Program Guide. Lightning-fast response in start-up, recording and Electronic Program Guide display- as quick as 1 second. Records DVD-RAM, DVD-R, +R and DVD-RW discs; and can play back DVD-RAM, DVD-R, +R, DVD-RW, +RW, DVD-Audio, DVD-video, video CD, audio CD (CD-DA), and CD-R/RW MP3/JPEG formatted discs..
From the Manufacturer
Find and Record Your Favorite Programs Easily with TV Guide On Screen
Your hectic schedule isn't always compatible with TV program schedules, so being able to quickly locate your favorite shows and record them for later viewing is important. The TV Guide On Screen™ Electronic Program Guide lets you easily find your favorite programs and set up your DVD recorder to record them unattended. Explore program listings up to 8 days in advance, searching by genre or keyword to help narrow down your choices. Once you've found what you want in the listings, simply select the program and your DVD recorder will automatically begin recording at the preset time.

Watch and Record At the Same Time
You sit down to watch this week's episode of your favorite show and realize that you never got around to watching your recording of last week's episode. Not a problem with Time Slip™, featuring simultaneous record and play. Select this week's episode in the program guide, start recording, and as it records you can watch your recording of last week's episode.

What if you set up your DVD recorder to record a movie from 8:00 to 10:00 while you're out, but dinner was faster than you expected and you get home early? With our Chasing Playback feature, you don't have to wait for the program to finish recording in order to watch it. You can begin watching the portion of the program that has already been saved while the DVD recorder continues recording the remainder of the program.

Avoid Accidentally Recording Over A Program
If you own a VCR, it's almost certain that at some point someone has accidentally recorded over a movie or show that you wanted to keep. One-Touch Record will save your favorite programs from the same fate by automatically scanning the disc for blank space before starting the recording process. No more worries that your favorite sitcom's season finale will be overwritten by a family member's Sunday fishing show.

Browse Through Your Recordings Using Thumbnails
You and your family are sure to enjoy the convenience of your DVD recorder so much that you'll have a large library of recordings in no time. Keeping track of all those programs would be difficult if it weren't for our enhanced Direct Navigator, which displays thumbnails of every program on the disc as you browse, making it easy to identify the contents of each recording.

Built-In 100GB2 Hard Disk Recorder
The massive capacity of the built-in hard disk means you'll have plenty of space to record shows for everyone in the house. Record lots of programming, figure out what you want to keep, then move it to DVD in minutes for long-term storage.

Film-Like Image Quality
The goal of any playback device should be accurate reproduction of the original content. In the case of DVDs, most of that content is film-based. Utilizing advanced progressive scan3 playback techniques and very accurate MPEG video decoders, this DVD recorder provides an image that faithfully represents the image you see at your favorite movie theater.

About Progressive Scanning
Progressive scanning, otherwise known as 480P (p=progressive), creates a picture signal with double the scan lines of a conventional interlaced picture, 480I (I=interlaced), to create a noticeably sharper image. The 480P image offers higher picture resolution and eliminates virtually all motion artifacts. Even on large screens, the progressive scan lines are barely noticeable and picture flickering is greatly reduced, so you can enjoy extended viewing without eye fatigue. Our progressive scan DVD players can handle both progressive and conventional interlaced video. In order to take advantage of a progressive scan DVD player, your TV must be capable of accepting and displaying a progressive scan signal (480p).

The Benefits of Progressive Vs. Interlaced Scanning
Standard DVD-Video players use interlaced scanning to produce a picture. Interlaced scanning combines two fields to generate a picture of 525 scan lines (480 of which are displayed). Your television projects an interlaced image by first scanning the 240 odd-numbered lines of one field (in 1/60th of a second), followed by the 240 even-numbered lines of the other field (in 1/60th of a second). So, it takes two fields to build one frame of video.


Our progressive scan DVD players have a progressive video processor, which enables all 525 lines (480 of which are displayed) to be scanned at the exact same time; two interlaced fields are combined into one progressive frame. A television with 480P component inputs can completely scan the entire image in 1/60th of a second. The result is a smoother and sharper picture with high resolution and minimal motion artifacts.

Advantages of Progressive Conversion
Line doublers are used in other high-end home entertainment systems to provide progressive scanning. These may be stand-alone devices or incorporated into a digital TV. Impressive as they may be, our progressive scan DVD players' in-player progressive conversion has three big advantages over line doublers:

  • 1) High precision and stability
    A DVD-Video disc mastered from a film holds all the data necessary to produce an accurate progressive image, whereas an external line doubler must take hints from the video source to determine the source material and frame allocation.
  • 2) All-digital conversion minimizes signal degradation
    Since the signal from the DVD-Video disc is digital, progressive conversion can be performed digitally inside the player. Signal quality is protected until it leaves the player's analog output. In contrast, a stand-alone or in-TV doubler first receives information from the analog output of the source device then converts this analog signal back to digital for processing. Finally, it must translate the signal back to analog before outputting it. All this back-and-forth translation is much more likely to degrade the signal.
  • 3) Processing is optimized to DVD-Video's high image quality
    Line doublers built into digital TV sets are designed to work with a variety of video sources, so their settings are not necessarily ideal for DVD-Video. The progressive conversion of our progressive scan DVD players is optimized for the high resolution and low noise of the DVD-Video format. This enables the unit to preserve DVD-Video picture quality for display on all screen sizes, from direct-view CRT to projectors.

Features:

  • Dual recording - View a DVD while recording on hard drive
  • Sized for home-theater connectivity
  • Progressive-scan play compatible
  • Linear PCM audio and Dolby Digital audio record and play
  • Can record DVD-RAM, DVD-R, +R and DVD-RW discs; and can play back DVD-RAM, DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD-Audio, DVD-video, Video CD, Audio CD (CD-DA) and CD-R/RW MP3 or JPEG formatted discs