I own DMR-E80H, love it... should I recommend new DMR-E80HS?

[dvd-dude]

I have the DMR-E80H Panasonic DVD recorder with hard drive. I love it... wish the discs burned a little faster sometimes but it has served me very very well.

I have a friend that asked me what I recommend. I suggested what I had. His question is should he buy the exact model I have (the DMR-E80H with the 80GB hard drive) or should he buy the one that is about $80 more and has 120GB hard drive (the DMR-E80HS)?

Can anyone offer up sound advice? I like my model, but I know sometimes new models that share the same name aren't necessarily put together as well. Is the DMR-E80HS a true improvement over the DMR-E80H? Thanks!

-DVD-Dude

[handyguy]

No, but the e95 is.

[bnbhoha]

The "s" means silver color. If it was black in color it would read E80HK.
The one that came after the E80 was the E85, now they have E95 and next month they will have the latest one (forgot model noumber) which will do most formats (-r, -rw, +r, and ram).

You E80 does not do picture thumbnail menus whereas all the models listed above do + E95 has a firewie input for your camcorder and this mode can be purchased at buy.com for around $350 on clearance because of anticipation of the new model coming out which won't have firewire but supposidly a 2nd generation encode which I've heard is about the same as anything out there righ now in quality. Good luck.

I would personally wait a month and get the new panny w/ hard drive coming out.

[dvd-dude]

Is there anywhere he can read more about the new models coming out?

If the new models aren't really a step up but will cost $500+ he would rather just get a E95 for $350. It sounds like the quality is the same as the existing models.

Thanks for your help!

-Dvd-Dude

[handyguy]

New models $389 at newegg.com.....
Where you get $500?

Only thing is the old ones come with a full one year guarantee.

[bnbhoha]

The new mode is EH50s some places advertize it w/o the s. Ecost.com is taking pre-orders for $383

http://www.ecost.com/ecost/ecsplash/shop/detail.asp?dpno=537524

[tke918]

DMR-E95HS has 160GB but EH50S has 100GB. The price of E95HS is only $339 at buy.com. I would choose E95HS for the HDD capacity!

http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=90145984&loc=111&sp=1

[handyguy]

e95hs doesn't have very high ratings tho. Seemed people liked the e80 better.

Price varies alot:Panasonic DMR-E95HS Progressive-Scan DVD Recorder with 160 GB Hard ...
$899.99 - Amazon.com: 3.9 / 5 Add to list

[dvd-dude]

Based on what I've read and investigated so far this is what seems to be the situation:

The only true advantages to buying the EH50:
-LP speed is supposed to offer double the horizontal resolution as the older models.
-It will record onto all DVD formats (+/-/Ram/RW/R)
-There is only a 1 second wait from power-on to recording.

The only true disadvantages to the EH50:
-Only a 100GB hard drive versus a 120GB (E85H) or 160GB (E95)
-My personal opinion - it looks uglier - I like the old design better
-No firewire input

The prices for these online seem to range from $330-$400 (best deals) regardless of which model you get. I remember reading that firewire wasn't a big deal since the A/D conversion and color separation on these units was so effective that you couldn't tell the difference.

So it looks like the only reason to stay with the existing models is a larger HD size and the design. The new models offer faster startup time, more media support (+/-/R/W/Ram), & improved LP quality. Too bad the new ones don't look as nice as the old ones... and too bad the hard drive is smaller. 100GB seems like an odd number to have chosen since most hard drives are 80GB, 120, 160, etc. - you don't see many 100GB).

I will probably advise him to wait and read reviews for the new model. That's the one thing that is a little uncertain... will it perform well or will it be a step down? To be honest the big thing that would drive my decision is the improved LP mode... but if it really doesn't look much better and I could buy a E85 or E95 for $70 less I would probably get one of those instead.

Any comments?

-DVD-Dude

[donpedro]

You missed one thing.... "A new 12bit Analog-to-Digital converter provides high bit, high rate sampling to convey even subtle nuances and produce smooth, beautiful recordings with astounding depth."