Panasonic DMR-ES15 - I think I found a keeper...

"i was also puzzled by this. my vhs recorder doesn't behave this way. here's the deal: you had the unit turned off. (a scheduled recording will start regardless of whether the unit is on or off.) to check it while recording, turn the unit "on". (i know, it seems a little contradictory.) you can then turn it "off" again and it will continue recording."

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Thank you for the confirmation. I was recording a program for a friend on Monday night, which I do for her on a weekly basis...and it, unfortunately, was the first time I had attempted timer recording with the deck, which had only been purchased a day before.

I went into a bit of a panic, since the audio/video outs were totally dead...I had no idea if something was being recorded, and only found out later through experimentation that the power switch has to be depressed during timer record before audio/video outs will become active.

I could find no mention of this in the Panasonic manual when browsing it afterwards...perhaps I'm simply not looking carefully enough.

Outside of that, I love the unit...and don't worry about the horrible quality in the extended play mode. That's fairly typical for DVD recorders, as it involves so much compression.

Panasonic DMR-ES15S at Amazon.com for $124.98 U.S. free supersaver shipping.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000F4C2AM/...m&linkCode=as1

Rusty

A separate On/Standby indicator would be nice on the ES15, but ...

It seems to me ... if the display on the machine is showing the clock, it's off; if it's showing anything else, it's on.

One solution is to select Setup / Display / FL Display / Automatic. Then, when it's off there is nothing displayed at all, it looks like it's unplugged.

Whether you've selected Automatic or not, I don't think there's a way, just by looking at it, to tell if the machine if "off" or "on" when it's doing a scheduled recording. With my setup, if it's recording and "off" it gives no output to the TV, if it's "on" it does.

A separate indicator would be nice.

Panasonic DMR-ES15S on clearance at Walmart for $112.00.

Rusty

Great price but not from Walmart.com. Do you have a link or is this a local store sale only?

It was at my local store, they still had 3 left. They had been red tagged clearanced for $149.00 for about 3 months. I guessed they finaly figured they needed to lower the price more. Sorry, I should have mentioned local store only.

Rusty

I sure hope you got at least one!

No. I had just bought the Polaroid one the month before. The Polaroid has a user changable harddrive. It comes with an 80 gig, but people are dropping 250, 400, and 500 gig drives in them. It also has both component output and INPUT!

I have Sima GoDVD CT-200. I am thinking about buying the DiMax Grex can you tell me a little about yours. It handles component video doesn't it?

Rusty

The Grex should work with component connections but I have not tested this.

Keep in mind that this line of DVD recorders is going the way of the dodo by now. You see, they all have analog tuners but no digital (DTV) tuner - and the FCC now mandates that no video device with an analog TV tuner may be manufactured for sale in the U.S. after March 1, 2007 (over a month ago). However, a DTV tuner is still expensive at this point; thus, expect the new versions of these lower-end DVD recorders to have no TV tuner at all (and therefore, allow recording only through their RCA A/V inputs). This means that you'll have to subscribe to a cable or satellite service which provides a tuner/converter box (or buy a separate DTV tuner box) in order to use the replacements for these DVD recorders. (And cable is getting more and more expensive in recent years; in fact, the amount that bought you an expanded basic package plus a couple of premium channels seven years ago can now barely pay for even stripped-down basic service which provides little else but the over-the-air local broadcast channels.)

Supposedly these are turning up at Big Lots for $99.xx

Grab one a great recorder. Many people have Digital Cable Boxes so the tuner is no problem. I paid about $110 and love it.

Confirmed in this weeks ad (99.99)...I'd definitely buy one if I had an extra $100 lying around (to replace my occasionally flaky ES10)

I purchased ad DMR ES15 about three months ago.

The Panasonic website shows a firmware update dated 5/2 2006.

Is my unit likely to have this latest firmware>

Golf Bum

Yes; install the update only if you have a problem with the remote.

Yes; install the update only if you have a problem with the remote.

CC Romeo wrote....

Yes; install the update only if you have a problem with the remote

Thanks, so far everything works well. Just learning all the bells and whistles.

Had a couple of U99 warnings, but figured out it was a bad disc.

Golf Bum