Product Description
No longer do you have to choose between going without a remote control or purchasing an expensive original remote. Our direct replacements are electronically identical to the original and provide all the same functionality at a fraction of the price.
Customer Reviews:
best format,best recorder,best buy.NOW!.......2004-08-08
i have owned this superb unit for about 18 months and cant find any realistic critisims worthy of note.i have seen some less than glowing reviews and would like to make a few suggestions to get the best from the recorder.firstly use decent scart leads the shorter the better,secondly set input/output to rgb/s video to suit your equipment.composite video phono is also available but why would you use it? playback of prerecorded discs and home recordings is as good as most £150-£250 players.if you have an av system connect audio using optical output to improve already good quality.disc types use dvd-r for once only recording they play in as many other dvd players/drives as dvd+r.earlier panasonic recorders could be fazed by cheap and cheerful dvd-r but all work fine on this.dvd-ram use for recording/playback reusable a million times at £3 each.dvd-ram are more limited in playback compatibility but then a look at your dvd player/drive will settle that.i have a panasonic 36inch widescreen and sky+ the recorder used to free up space on skys hard drive.it has been used heavily since it was bought and has performed faultlessly.cost £350 when new and was worth every penny.bin your vcr now even 4hour mode is as good as vhs gets and 2hour mode as good as sky.using flexible recording 1-6 hours if set to 3hours still equals s-video quality anyway.buy dmre55 if you need progressive scan pal/ntsc or component video output otherwise dmre50 is all but identical.only other point of note dvd/hard drive recorders are more flexible and with plummeting prices maybe a better option,panasonic and toshiba best at present.finally dvd-ram can record and play at the same time much like a 4.7gb hard disc and you can use as many of these great discs as you like,other formats can do this now but dvd-ram always has.
The Best Of The Rest.......2004-05-18
As with all DVD Recorders and Players, there are good and there are bad, there is never going to be a happy medium.
Panasonic are the leaders as far as quality is concerned, and they deserve the credit. I first tried the Philips 880 recorder, I found it easy to use and it had some nice features, the problem was that my stand alone DVD player didn't play the DVD+ discs recorded on the Philips. So I opted for the more universal DVD-R, which to date I have never had a problem with. The RAM discs are fine for everyday use like a videotape but not for archiving. Features and socketry on the Panasonic DMR-E50 are fantastic. Don't settle for anything less.
DMR-E50 Excellent DVD recorder.......2004-03-25
This is an excellent cheap DVD recorder. It works well with DVD-R disks (I have used maxell, bulk-paq and princo branded disks with very good results.) Plus the almost infinite re-usability of DVD-RAM makes them almost unbeatable for timeshifting.
Yes I know you cant play DVD-RAM back in a normal DVD player - but unlike DVD-RW they don't wear our after only a few hundred uses... and if you want to timeshift (watch and wipe) then you probably don't need to be able to play them back elsewhere anyway. If you need compatability just use a DVD-R instead....
Anyway back to DVD-RAM... the point is that because of the way they work this machine can managed the rather neat trick of playing back and recording at the same time - just like a sky plus box only without the need for an expensive subscription. so you can use it to pause live TV as well !! all for a bargain basement price ! The only thing missing is an integrated Digital (freeview) tuner. How about it for the next model Panasonic?
Industrial equipment........2004-03-15
Somebody spent alot of time advertising the Panasonic Dmre-50. And yes, it's easy to buy all the hype. The Ram works like a dream and you find yourself recutting movies so that the bear starts off at the beginning of the movie (12 Monkeys/50 Cent) or the dancing lady/ladies finish before the end credits in Tomorrow Never Dies (respect to whoever wrote that one.)
Industrial uses? Oh, well that's a trade secret.
Timeslip'd Shanghai Nights -but never caught up- playing back 1.3 times faster, over Christmas; didn't get my calculator out before it all kicked off.
Transferring video to DVD is a chore, especially with certain companies videos- ASK!?- "is it ok to transfer my copy of Pulp Fiction to DVD?" I did buy the original after all.
Like Panasonic's little brother company, you will find that messing around with this gear is as entertaining as a couple of Technics Sl-20's and some, er, ambient music.
There are problems with this recorder.............2004-03-10
There are problems with this recorder which a potential buyer should be aware of.I had mine 12 months ago and experienced the same problems that many have had with this model,my player is now virtually useless at recording as it consistently freezes up or turns itself off(U11 error,this will become a familiar site),finalizing dvd-r's is pot luck sometimes it works most times not and i end up with another silver frisbee....now even the ram recording does not work correctly!All of these errors and problems are well documented on internet help forums(where i've spent many hours trying to find solutions)just search them out on google with the model number.All in all i would not recommend any of these panasonic DMR recorders and have recently shelled out for a new JVC model with the bad taste left by panasonic i'm hoping for better luck with this...
Customer Reviews:
Won't switch on!!.......2007-09-03
Bought this machine after reading the hype and some good customer reviews. It worked well for a couple of months and then started playing up. Developed tendency to not switch on at times, rarely at first, then more frequently and finally would not come on at all (even though the LED on the power button lights up). Under warranty, local panasonic authorised repair centre could find no trouble (I guess the problem did not occur with them when they tested). By the time it was permanent, it had run out of warranty.
Bottom line, after reading all the other problems reviewers on this site have had with their machines, I would sincerely not advise anybody to buy this model ever. I've owned many Panasonic electronic goods over the years and respect the company. I think it's time Panasonic recalled these machines and replaced them with something comparable.
Unreliable.......2007-07-21
I have had this machine for almost three years now. It was one of the first affordable DVD recorders on the market back in 2004 and I have always hated VHS so I found a good deal and snapped this one up.
The quality, when the unit is behaving itself, is superb as long as you are using it in SP or XP mode. There is also a Flexible Record mode to give you the optimum bitrate if you are recording something of a specific duration. The long play modes range from acceptable VHS quality right down to blocky internet streaming quality. There are a range of different inputs and outputs so I have no gripes there either. I also like the way it automatically tunes in to the available analogue channels and sets the time.
The 3 problems I have with this machine are:
1) It takes a long time to fire up when you switch it on. When I first got the machine the "self-check" process would take a few minutes and I couldn't get the machine to switch off, except by unplugging. It was very frustrating. It is rather quicker now for some reason, but it still still feels like logging onto a on old computer with all the pointless clunking, grinding and mechanical prevarication.
2) The second problem is the machine's occasional tendancy to pause recording several seconds into the show and resume recording a minute later. You don't find out that the machine has missed a chunk of your show until you come to watch it back at the end. This is obviously a major problem and drags the rating down from 4 stars to 2 stars. You cannot entirely trust this machine. The only reason I never took it back to the shop for a refund is that all the other models were much more expensive at the time so I have stuck it out.
3) The third problem is that there is no "resume play" facility which is baffling considering it was available in some of Panasonic's earlier DVD players. Not really a fault, just a baffling and disappointing omission.
Next time I am in the market for a recorder, I will probably bag one of those hard disc recorders. They are now as cheap as DVD recorders used to be three years ago. I still like Panasonic as a brand, their stuff is usually very good quality but I would steer clear of their DVD recorders until these issues have been resolved.
Performance of a budget recorder at premium prive.......2007-07-15
There are a number of problems with this recorder. Firstly it takes an age to switch on which is particularly irritating considering its worst problem which is: it has a habit of switching off and resetting in the middle of recording. Even when it has recorded properly it sometimes won't finalise. You can't just let it run to the end of the disc because it won't then finalise. It really is a horrible piece of kit.
don't buy it.......2006-11-19
I have had one for just over 2 years and not really used it that much, recntly it wouldn't format my dvd ram disks and then it wouldn't record onto normal dvd's, I went to shop where I bought it and they said it was a very common problem. They said it is repairable but would cost £100, you can get something new for around that now so it's not worth repairing. I have VCR's years old that still record perfectly, this is very disappointing and I will never buy panasonic again.
DVDisappointment.......2006-08-01
After only 18 months this DVD is going in a skip! Throughout its short and troubled life it has manifestly failed to live up to its marketing hype and has been a regular source of hair-pulling frustration. Here are a few of the highlights.
1. It's most common quirk has been its tendency to crash during the disc finalisation process and ruin the disc.
2. If it has a read glitch with a damaged disc there is no way to override this and eject the disc. Getting the disc out can take quite a while and requires turning the unit on and off a few times until you manage to hit the 'open' button at exactly the right time.
3. It has a preferred diet and though it will record onto most compatible media, it will not read a lot of its own discs once finalised. Many is the evening that we have gathered around the laptop, this being the only way to view the programme we just recorded on the DMR-E55.
4. Its startup procedure is one of the slowest I have seen so you had better plan ahead or you will miss the first few seconds of a programme if the DVD is not already on.
5. When recording on the timer the DVD will sometimes glitch as it starts to record and then simply terminate recording altogether.
The final insult is that to replace the laser unit, the entire laser, disc drive and transport assembly has to be replaced, which is the cost of a new DVD.
Having said all that, when it worked, which was most of the time then it did work well. However the worst technology is unreliable technology. I would rather have a device that worked perfectly and then died at 12 months than something that might or might not work depending on how it was feeling.
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