Panasonic DMR-EZ48VP-K 1080p Upconverting VHS DVD Recorder with Built In Tuner (Discontinued in 2012)

Simplify ClutterMy first goal was to get a machine that would eliminate all the clutter. I had 4 boxes on the TV. A VHS Recorder/player, a DVD player, a Digital Tuner for over the air digital TV signal and an RF converter box. All of these had plugs and cables. This machine met that need perfectly.Built In TV TunerThe TV Tuner found my over the air channels just fine. However, channel surfing is quite slow as the unit has a deley betweens stations.PhotosIt accepted the SD HC cards from my camera. I am able to scroll through the pictures on my card but it is painfully slow and some of the pictures are upside down or sideways.Copy VHS to DVDI have spent the last few weeks copying VHS to DVD. I have recorded 16 hours of DVD from VHS. There was a bit of a learning curve before I could do the copies just the way I wanted to. I had to call Panasonic a couple of times but they helped me figure it out. Now I am very pleased. I wanted to record in SP mode because each of my tapes hold about 2 hours of family videos. Well, at first it was tricky to get it into SP mode. It wanted to default to EP mode which is much lower quality. I discovered, with the help of Panasonic Tech Support, that you must load the DVD first and let the recorder read the format of the disk, change the mode to SP, then load the VHS tape. I discovered this after burning through several DVDs at EP low quality mode. I thought I had figured it all out when, after recording 6 VHS tapes to a standard DVDs, I discovered that in SP mode the recording stops and the DVD is full right at 2 hours. The recordings failed to copy the last 15 to 20 minutes from the end of each tape. Aparantly, many of my VHS tapes had 15 or 20 minutes more that 2 hours. I had to swithch to DVD +R dual layer. They are more money than regular DVD media but at least now I can get up to 3 hrs 40 minutes before the copying stops. I have chosen to waste the extra 1:20 minutes so that I have an even 1:1 copy from VHS to DVD. The DVDs play fine on my coputers and on the DVD player.Many FeaturesThe unit is loaded with features and connections on front and back. It came with a remote, an HDMI cable and audio RCA cords.PriceI bought the unit refurbished through Amazon for $166 including shipping. After all my research and experience, I have decided this is a good price for this unit.October 2010 Update...I used some advanced features today and recorded some over-the-air programs onto DVD. It worked like a champ. I had the option of erasing the programs after I watched them on DVD or finalizing them to be saved and watched on other devices. I was especially impressed that when I watched the recorded programs and fast forwarded the picture quality continued to be very high. Even at 200X fast forward I could see the recording very clearly with no distortion of picture quality loss. Not that this is a big deal. Usually you fast forward because you don't want to watch that specific part of the recording. Over-all, I must say that I am very happy and will give this product 5 stars.

I'd read many reviews on the DMR-EZ48VK before getting my unit about a week ago and was a little skeptical. Some people said the manual is terrible. Others complained about how long it takes to switch input modes. In my opinion the manual is as good as one would expect. Granted, there is a ton of information in it and it takes a little bit of time to digest.The unit's functionality has been flawless. I've use the DVD-RAM to record programs with chasing playback - very handy. I've copied home movies to DVD-R using the one touch VHS-DVD copy button - worked perfect. The scheduling menu is intuitive and easy to use. I can't imagine anyone buying a DVD recorder that doesn't record in RAM. It's the closest thing to recording on tape I can imagine. When I was searching for a VHS-DVD combo unit I was surprised at how few of the brands offered DVD-RAM recording.The digital tuner does a good job even though it's not high def. It picks up all the digital music channels just like my HD TV does.One thing I haven't figured out is how to determine what my firmware version is and if I should download an update. But as long as it is working this well, I'm in no hurry to find out.

This is the 3rd one of this make and model that I have purchased, the first two having been returned (to Costco) due to the same failure trait. It will function perfectly for some time, then exhibit a flaw as follows: Regardless what TV channel is selected and displayed in its display, the tuner will be stuck on one channel and always output that signal to both of the recording media and to the TV. As this fault was exhibited on my first two units, I returned them to Costco where I had purchased them. On the second unit, I found that rerunning setup would restore normal operation, but after the second occurrence, simply initiating that procedure didn't cure the problem. In reading the comments of other purchasers, I found that if power to the unit is entirely removed, and the unit restarted as if for the first time, the setup procedure would restore normal operation.The only other make of VCR/DVD player I could find locally was Magnavox, sold by both Walmart and Radio Shack. I had prior experience with the Magnavox, very unsatisfactory. Much less user-friendly than the Panasonic, and the VCR failed completely just after the 90 day warranty period from Walmart. One key functional disadvantage was that there was no convenient way to completely delete all items that had been recorded on a DVD; it would allow the deletion of only one item at a time, then move directly into the programming sequence for a new recording.Currently, neither Costco, Walmart or Radio Shack carry the Panasonic, so I checked out Amazon.com. The only other available brand I had not yet tried was Toshiba, which all reviewers rated as very user-unfriendly, accompanied by very difficult-to-understand instructions. Soooo, I purchased my 3rd Panasonic VCR/DVD recorder via Amazon. I've been using it now for some time, and it hasn't yet malfunctioned, but I fully expect to encounter the same failure mode.A significant difficulty is that repeating the setup procedure takes between 20 and 30 minutes, driven by a long interval attempting automatic clock setting, and there seems to be no way to go through the channel setup and not have the clock setting feature also exercised. Automatic clock setting has never succeeded in our case. If the malfunction is first discovered when one is attempting to program a recording session, a significant portion of what you wanted to record will have gone by before you can successfully begin recording again.On the plus side, picture quality and user-friendliness are great.