Panasonic E-30 and other Panasonics?

[SandmaN78]

I have heard alot about the Panasonic E-30 and how good the quality is. My question is, are the other Panasonics as good? At Circuit City's website (www.circuitcity.com) all I see are the following models:

PAN DMRE50S - $449.00

PAN DMRE80HS - $699.99

I am wanting to purchase a Panasonic stand-alone. I just wanted to know if the above models are as good or better than the E-30. Is the only difference features? If so I am going to go for the PAN DMRE50S for $449.00

Thanks,

Dave
SandmaN

[macleod]

IF you want to (possibly) save yourself a few bucks, try to purchase a used one off of ebay. I bought my e30 for $290(after shipping).

The only difference(s) that I am aware of with the E-30 and later models (Aside from the hard drives on the later ones) is that there apparently was a "black level" bug on the older models. Some users reported that they could not set the level of black and it looked a little brighter or something on their outputted video.

Personally, I have not encountered that (my my e30 may have been a later model where it was "fixed"). search for "black level" in the forum or for two posters, donpedro or fucilives(sp?) They have talked quite a bit about the black level bug issue and should be able to provide you additional information.

Other things to look for is the hard drive. Personally, it hasnt been an issue for me at all, but some people swear by having a hard drive on the panny.

One last thing that I remember is that after the E30 all of the additional connections were removed. I recall someone saying the later models are cheap looking as compared to the older models. Could be something to it or the ole' "dont make stuff like they use to".

[handyguy]

CC prices are a joke for these, try buydig.com

bought mine a year ago for $444 but it came with a rebate for a free S35 player.

Search the forum for the model you want there are alot of posts already & left column: dvd writers & recorders.

I doubt you can get a e30 anymore & I wouldn't buy a used one as they have a black level bug & that you can search for too. I do have one yes, but mine was manf after they did something about that bug

[spiderman2k1]

buy your panasonic recorder from www.6ave.com they have the lost price around

[donpedro]

I would say that they are same (other than black level bug which I don't know anything about). Only higher models have more functions and different inputs/outputs.

[ejai]

Unless the black level bug was fixed in the later models of the E30 stay away. I own both units the E30 and E50, the black level bug does exists and that is why I purchased the E50. I gave the E30 to my son who doesn't care about the problem.

The quality of the E30 is great, it's only the brightness problem that makes some of us uncomfortable. I sometimes wish I had known about this bug before I started backing up my video tapes to dvdr. Most of them are brighter than the original, I was able to make another copy of some videos that I still had tapes of using the E50 and they came out darker (true to the original brightness level) and the color wasn't washed out.

The strange thing about the E30 is that if you view the recorded video from the E30 you may not see a difference but if you use another dvd player is when you will notice a slight lighter contrast and loss of vibrant color.

If you can afford a E50 or higher then do so, if not just adjust your tv screen brightness to darker and you won't see a difference. 8)

[lordsmurf]

The Panasonic machines tend to suffer from harsh macroblocks at anything more than 2 hours. That's the reason I went with my APEX DRX-9000 ... the 4-hour mode was identical to the satellite source quality, no visible flaws. The Panasonics tend to get real "crunchy" looking, or like there has been an invasion of amoeba.

[ejai]

The Panasonic machines tend to suffer from harsh macroblocks at anything more than 2 hours.

I haven't used any dvd recorder but the Panasonics so I cannot agree or disagree with Lordsmurf's findings. I will admit I would like to look into other recorders to compare the quality especially recording movies longer than 2 hours.

I do admit that pixelization is a problem after 2 hours of recording on the Panasonics, this might be due to the condition of the source material. I have recorded video 3 hours long and used a dvd as the source and have very little to no boxes in the capture. I do notice if I use vhs tapes as the source the boxes are more pronounce than the dvd or satellite captures.

[FulciLives]

The PANASONIC DMR-E30 has the "black level" bug but the newer models ... starting with the DMR-E50 ... do not have this problem.

So the cheapest priced PANASONIC stand alone DVD recorder you should consider is the DMR-E50 which is basically the newer current replacement model of the E30 model.

I would be surprised that ANY model/make of stand alone DVD recorder produced acceptable quality after the 2 hour mode unless you only go a wee bit over and use the FR setting.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[xcopy]

I’ve owned the E80H for a few weeks and have been very happy so far. This is my first stand-alone recorder so I can’t compare to other manufacturers, but the Panasonic price/performance/quality were unbeatable in my research. Others may feel differently, but depending on how you want to use the machine, I think the Panasonics are the best available (and so does everyone I asked before purchasing). I think how you want to use the machine is the most important factor.

I'm using it to convert all my VHS tapes to DVD-R and I’m absolutely convinced that converting the tapes any other way would be a major pain. I don’t want to do any editing so to me the process of capturing the video, authoring, burning, and testing would be time prohibitive. Having the recorder with a hard disk makes converting video ridiculously easy. Hook up the VCR to one of the inputs, start the tape and hit “record” on the Panasonic. Yes, there are a few more things to do, but after you set the thing up it’s like a factory.

I've tried the resulting DVD-R disks on my Pioneer DV-C603, a Mintek 2580 (or something like that), my Pioneer 106D (PC burner), and my PC's DVD Rom (I actually don't know the mfg) and everything works perfectly. I know there’s a huge difference between VHS and DVD recording quality and you get what you start with, so my expectations are realistic. Again, as I said, I’m very satisfied.

The other thing is that while someone mentioned 6th Avenue as the cheapest place to purchase a Panasonic, I paid $449 for mine from Dell (Small Business) a few weeks ago during one of their frequent sales. I had to pay tax (you may not have to) so it came out to a little under $475 delivered or $20 less than the 6th Ave price.

I’m sure that by April the models will have changed and everything available today will be outdated, but you really can’t go wrong by buying now.

Good luck.

[lordsmurf]

@ejai

The 4-hour quality was the only reason I went with the APEX DRX-9000 unit. Most recorders suffer past 2 hour mode. Some do okay at 3 hour mode, but even those die. Apex was the only one that looked good.

It's a lot like early VCRs, where the SP was great and EP/SLP was horrible. It took years to get decent EP/SLP tape abilities. LP tapes have always been spotty quality, if the VCR even had it available.

All recorders suck at 6-hour mode. The Apex is actually the worst 6-hour I've ever seen. But again, I was going for the best 4-hour recorder I could find.

All of them look fine at 2-hour and 1-hour.

[ejai]

I might be a bit bias towards Panasonic only because it's the only standalone I've ever used. After spending years trying to make a decent digital video from vcd, svcd and dvd the standalone was a blessing. I've purchased many products that sold you on the idea that the PC was the way to go had turned out to be deceptive and dissapointments. I will only use PC captures for raw DV footage that needs editing.

Panasonic has worked great and I love the FR feature, and Timeslip. I can't see myself using a dvd recorder without those 2 features. The qualtiy speaks for itself, it's the best I've seen so far. 8)

[mike1061]

There is lots of talk about these recorders in the "forum" under "dvd recorders". Check out this thread https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=192261
Thanks Mike.