Panasonic: DMRES20D

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Comments (11)

What are your views on this product? Tell other Digital Spy users what the strengths and weaknesses are, and don't forget to include your rating out of five!

Fed up, Carlisle Cumbria on December 29th, 2007
I've had mine for about 18 months and it's about to go back into the repair shop for the 3 time. The RAM drive failed, it kept turning itself off or into a self test mode for no apparent reason and now the freeview turner has packed up. Totally useless and a waste of money. It's also really fussy over which discs it uses. Some days it will work OK and the next it will not recognise exactly the same make model of disc. DON'T buy this model it's rubbish!

Ed, Winchester on September 27th, 2007
Some new channels on freeview are listed in the channel list, and display OK, but give no EPG information. ITV2 is a good example. Other set top boxes display the programme guide fine from the smae signal. Can't see any firmware upgrades on Panasonic's web site :-(

Martin Bilston on April 22nd, 2007
Further to my original report on this machine, several months down the line I've had enough it's become erratic in operation frequently refuses to recognize discs. Refuses to accept RAM discs at all and only TDK -RW are reasonably reliable. It is being replaced with a more versatile EZ-25 model which accepts +R/RW -R/RW and RAM discs as well.

Barry, Weston s Mare on February 28th, 2007
I purchased my Panasonic DMRES20D in November 05 to start with the machine behaved perfectly but by March 06 the RAM drive started to fail, I was told by the retailer that this was a common fault and that they had several of the same models waiting for the part, after 4 weeks the part arrived and was replaced by the retailer at the end of April 06. March 07 (ten months down the line)and it's failing again, I should state that the machine has only light use 10 to 12 hours per week on an average, therefore I feel that the ram drive is unsuitable for the purpose it was designed for, I have spoken to Panasonic and they have stated that although it's just out of warrantee they would look at the case if I supply them with an engineer’s report, the retailer will charge me £20 pounds for this and tells me that Panasonic are unlikely in their experience to cover the whole cost of replacement, £149 for parts and £38 for labour. I feel in a catch 22 situation do I have it repaired or Use the money to purchase another machine, and if so which one, in the past I have found Panasonic to be very reliable and have a number of their products around my home, however I am so peeved by these events that I am seriously considering switching my allegiance to Sony, I welcome any suggestions and hope you find these comments useful.

Mitchell, Bedford on January 26th, 2007
My Phillips DVD recorder has just packed in after 18 months and I've replaced it with Panasonic DMR-EZ25EB. What a difference! 5stars without doubt. One of several advantages is that using it with a Sony Bravia TV (with integral Freeview tuner) means that I can record a programme while watching another. Pre recorded DVDs are upgraded to HD quality via the HDMI connection. I've yet to use DVD Ram but the facility to playback whilst recording is supurb! Digital Audio output means I can connect to a surround sound very easily. The Phillips machine and after sales service was useless so the Panasonic was certainly value for money!

steve manchester on December 28th, 2006
just got one , spot on ,ram disks just put it on another level,i also have a thomson 4000 dvr never any problems with it,so happy!

ACE,Wales on December 2nd, 2006
Got this nearly a year ago, very impressed. Nice picture through the component out into an LCD, recording is quick and easy and sound is good. Only bad thing about it is the unresponsive remote that isn’t too well laid out. Overall a great product, would definitely recommend.

Duncan, Manchester on July 16th, 2006
I've just bought one of these recorders after reading the reviews here, and I must say they are 100% spot on. It's a brilliant machine - worth every penny!

Phil, Wakefield on July 2nd, 2006
I chose this model after having real problems with a brand new sony machine and can only say it has been a godsend. The new Sony rdr-gx210 would record the audio out of synch with the picture after 15-20 mins, a 2nd model did the same and despite the retailer blaming my recording source (Sky) they did offer to swap for another model I did, however, get the chance to see 2 different models from new and compare them. The Panasonic does its job superbly and is far more user friendly than the Sony. The Sony recorded in + and - r and rw. The three that the Pansonic records in is sufficient - although my main question with this was would the recorded discs play on my existing dvd player (to take advantage of the inclusive surround sound). The finalised -r and rw discs didn't play on it, but the finalised - discs on the Panasonic do. You don't get this type of info when you buy and it can be important. The big plus on the panasonic is the flexible record option. This utilises all the available disc space for a recording time you give it. This means higher quality recordings - rather than record a 90 min film in standard mode and have 30 mins record time left - the machine simply uses the time left on a disc and gives you one 90 min recording in higher quality. The Sony machine gave you editing options on all discs which was really useful - editing is only possible on Pansonic with the more expensive and less frequently avaialble dvd-ram dics. The comparison between recording quality shows that the Panasonic is far better. The 3rd speed recording mode (4 hrs per disc) is of an excellent quality - slightly more fuzzy than standard (2hr) recordings. The Sony at 3rd speed gave almost unwatchable with heavy pixelation and ghosting, whilst the 4th speed recordings were terrible. The Panasonic at 4th speed (you can choose 6 or 8 hrs recrding time)is acceptable - though the quality is noticeably reduced. The freeview is an added extra which gives you more recording options . Overall, an excellent machine. The remote could be slightly better but in no way detracts from the whole.

Martin, Bilston, West Midlands on June 25th, 2006
Overall I agree with Attilla I previously had a cheap and nasty Alba DVD Recorder which at less than 12 months old was showing signs of critical failure. It became very fussy about recording and playing some disacs became so corrupted not even a PC could read them. The Picture quality of the Panasonic is excellent, I haven't yet tried any DVD RAM discs so I can't yet comment on the timeslip functions. The lack of a second tuner is not really an issue as far as I am concerned since it is connected to a Freeview TV anyway (albeit not a particularly good one!) I also have Telewest Basic TV package which includes most Freeview channels anyway. For Timer Recording settings it has to get 10/10 so simple and easy select the onscreen guide select your programme press enter and it's done all other programming methods seem complicated by comparison it's even better than Videoplus which is also built in for further convenience! Regarding an "Ugly Remote" it works well and reliably allowing easy access to all essential functions so who cares how pretty it is?

Attila, Southampton on March 30th, 2006
Not bad at all. It almost has all the features of a Freeview PVR but with the added advantage that you can record to DVD. Using DVD-RAM, you can use it like a hard-disc (HD) recorder and do timeslip, including chase-playing. And with dual layer DVD-RAM (9.4Gb), that's upto 16hours on 1 disc at low quality or 4 hours at standard quality - denough for mpst people's time-shifting needs. It's not quite as flexible as a HD recorder - for example you can't erase one thing while recording another - but it's very close! Just to clarify, although I've mentioned DVD-RAM, it can play most other common DVD types and play MP3's, CD's, Video CD's, Super VCD's and JPEG's (see specification for details). And it can record onto DVD-R/RW and DVR+R, as well as DVD-RAM. Only slight letdowns are the ugly remote and the sometimes-awkward menu system. But it's not too bad - for example, it's very easy to select what you want to record using the Electronic Programme Guide (just like on PVR's). Two tuners would've been nice (it only has one) but you can get around this with a second tuner and a smart scart selector. The other good thing is the "ext link" function which allows you to automatically record from one of the scart ports when the attached device becomes active - so, for example, if want to record off satellite, you just have to tell the sat receiver what time to come on (most sat receivers have programmable timers to do this). Overall this is a very solid bit of kit (it has never crashed or rebooted on me), it's excellent value and the picture quality is super. If you can't afford a HD recorder with freeview, this is the next best thing. Recommended.