Panasonic DMR-HS2 Review

Overall Rating

Internal Hard Drive means you can record 'one-off' shows to HD. if you like 'em - put 'em onto a DVD-R. If you don't - SCRUB 'EM.
Great quality recordings
Easy to use
Looks visually stunning
Can record one program onto HD whilst watching another from HD

Connecting a DV camcorder and you don't get all the functions so I have to do that manually.
The titles are inputed very much like XBox & PS2...selecting each letter from an onscreen alphabet...a keyboard would have been nice.
On the quality of recording I couldn't see me ever using EP, it's like a VHS LP (yuck!) and LP left a lot to be desired for the footy, but looks okay on other types of recordings.

Okay, first things first...why did I buy this machine?

In short I wanted a DVD recorder for several reasons, mainly:
Archive of videos (home and VHS only titles)
To get top quality recordings (what's the point of recording Sky digital onto VHS?)
To edit and create my own compilation DVDs (Simpsons, Cold Feet etc)
So does it do all this? YES...and some!!
Brief look at the Features:
DVD-R
DVD-RAM
Timeslip
DV in
RGB in & out
1 hour on 4.7GB at XP
2 hrs at SP
4 hrs at LP
6 hrs at EP
Up to 52 hours on the HDD
FR mode

Initial thoughts:
The box arrives, this sucker is nice and heavy...gives a great feeling of money well spent...always a good start.
Out of the box, hmmm mirrored front (a bad to keep clean, but looks swish IMO) really feel the quality now...this looks like a nice bit of kit.
Plugs in nice and easily, whip the video and DVD from under the TV...put in the new DVD recorder - nice.

Finally getting to use it:
Have looked at the manual briefly, will probably pick it up when I'm stuck...very easy to use, simple menu systems, select what you want to have all the options on (DVD or HDD) and from there you get loads of options, it displays how much space is left at the current recording quality - which is handy!

I bought the cheapest of cheap disks, so was a little worried about if they would work ok, I needn't have worried...so far no problems, I picked up DVD-RAM disks (9.4GB) @ £5 each and 100 DVD-Rs for £60...so far 15 disks and no coasters!

Quality wise I am stunned, this is the best money I have ever spent, the XP mode shows no degredation at all, even in SP mode I was hard pused to notice any quality loss, only after recording onto the HDD at SP, transfering to DVD-R at SP then playing back that DVD did I notice a few artifacts...and those could have been the broadcast!!

Editing is simple, select the program to edit and with the great menu system insert start & stop times, this edit can then be used for either playback (leaving out adverts for example) or transfering to DVD-R. Skipping adverts is so easy it hurts, timpslip is a great feature and will prove to be something I will use to great extent...just press the timeslip button and go forward (or back) to anywhere you want...cut out those ads, timeslip forward 4 mins...want an instant reply of that bad tackle, timeslip back 1 min...another example is I record usually a couple of hours of sky, seen the Simpsons about to start...timeslip 30 mins - takes 5 seconds & the next one is starting!

The other night, a film was starting, but it was too late to watch, so I started recording...whilst recording (onto the HDD) I played the Sopranos from the HDD (recorded the night before), no complications, simple to use & no loss of performance, I'm often looking to see if what I am watching is live or recorded!!

FR is a great feature too, it calculates the best bitrate for the space therefore not wasting disk or compromising on quality, example, film is 90 mins, XP is 1 hr to a disk SP is not as good quality but would leave 30mins waste of space, set FR to 90mins and away you go, let the recorder do all the math!!

I used FR also when transfering some of my VHS videos the DVD, I calculated 3 hours 45 mins onto a DVD and the picture quality looks better than the originals! Don't ask me how, the filters and boosters must do some good work, but when playing back before the videos were really ropey, on the DVD they almost look like brand new tapes (if you know what I mean!!).

The downside:
It's not all rosey though, my DV camcorder will work - but I don't get all the funtions (it's supposed to stop & start the camcorder apparently), so I have to do that manually. The titles are inputed very much like XBox & PS2...selecting each letter from an onscreen alphabet...a keyboard would have been nice. On the quality of recording I couldn't see me ever using EP, it's like a VHS LP (yuck!) and LP left a lot to be desired for the footy, but looks okay on other types of recordings.

Overall:
A great product at a great price, the quality is excellent, the features stunning & I highly recommend it to you all, and at £599.00 you can't go wrong.

Members' Comments onGilbertworld.'s Review

• Gilbertworld. on 29th Jun 2003

  Following on from my review (above) - I have encountered a problem with this machine. I appear to have lip synch problems when watching normal television through my Panasonic. A small problem to some - but HIGHLY annoying to me. After research on various forums across the net, I found it to be a complaint that a number of DMR-HS2 users have found. In defence of Panasonic, after telephoning them to tell them of my problem, they took my details down and are sending a carrier round to collect my unit for return to base repair (or replacement with another unit if you prefer). I went for the repair option as my unit is not that old and I didnt want to be palmed off with a 'year old refurbished' model ! Details of the telephone number are on Panasonics website for users encountering this problem too. I will write again to review the service level I received from Panasonic when my machine comes back. In the meantime - I have reduced my rating to 5 stars - WATCH THIS SPACE !

• The Beacon on 16th Dec 2003

  Hi I have just rear your review and found it VERY helpful as I am planing to buy a DVD recorder in the next few days
  
  Thanks
  Michael

• Toreador on 18th Feb 2004

  Great review, many thanks. One question: is there much to be gained from watching TV through the DVD recorder? I'm thinking of buying a multiregion-ised unit, so probably wouldn't be able to return it to Panasonic if the lip sync problem flared up...

• Gilbertworld on 23rd Feb 2004

  HI,
  
  As a follow-up to my last review, Panasonic were very efficient at picking up my unit A courier was sent within a couple of days.
  
  The problem I had getting the unit back was another story though. It was probably out of my hands for nearly three weeks if memory serves me right. Each time I called, I was met by the same response... "Oh the engineer is looking at it now for you...."
  
  When I was told the same thing three days later, they admitted that the engineer hadnt even looked at it yet - and the person who said otherwise shouldnt have said that etc...etc...
  
  My advice ? As always - Get a name so you can kick their ass later if needs be!!!!!
  
  Anyways, the unit has shown some slight improvement with the lip synch thing, but is not perfect, although I am a bit of a perfectionist to be honest. If you're not as fussy as me - then by all means get one of these machines :)
  
  Oh, in answer to the query above, my machine was made multi-region by the web-retailer and Panasonic have no problem with that - providing you have no problems associated with the region coding part of the machine, then they might snivvel and say its not within warranty - but as I say, I had no problems tbh :)

• Gilbertworld on 23rd Feb 2004

  For Toreador,
  
  There is no benefit from watching tv through the DVD recorder, but (and I dont know about your setup obviously) when I switch your machine on, the tv automatically switches to the DVD input scart and thus if you dont want to watch tv through your DVD machine, then you have to keep changing back to normal tv again ! You may also find (like I did) that programs you have recorded might be affected by the lip synch problem.
  
  Hope this makes sense :)

• pauljenn on 23rd Feb 2004

  Hi.
  
  Found your review very useful as am thinking of buying this model from dabs.co.uk.
  
  can you hook this machine up to the pc through firewire?

• Gilbertworld on 25th Feb 2004

  For PaulJenn,
  
  No mate, the machine has no firewire connection, only s-video, phono or scart. :(
  
  Also, its worth mentioning that I also have Panasonics D521 DVD drive for my PC. Being the same brand, I thought I could record on one, watch on another etc...
  
  WRONG ! It is possible to record on the DMR-HS2EBS and play on the pc (with a bit of fiddling and re-labelling of file extensions etc., but to date I have found no way to record on PC and play on the DMR-HS2EBS.
  
  Perhaps someone out there would be kind enough to give some pointers to people who have bought both machines as to how to do this. :) Please !?!
  
  Oh, and one more thing I have tried since my original review. I have composed a DVD slideshow with music and everything and burned this to a DVD-R with my Panasonic DVD burner on PC. All is well when I come to play back on my DMR-HS2EBS. However, the machine won't even recognise the disk when this slideshow is recorded onto a DVD-RAM. :(
  
  This is a pain, cause I don't wanna keep these slideshows forever, I'm just showing friends/family and then want to record over them. DVD-R's ain't cheap you know Panasonic !

• Gilbertworld on 25th Feb 2004

  Dabs ? Shop around ! The current price is around £499.00 or maybe less.

• paulsjenn on 2nd Mar 2004

  hi.
  
  been shopping around and found a place online
  
  http://www.soundandvisiononline.com/snv/retailoutlet.asp
  
  check out the prices. Upto £250 off top of the range models.
  
  They don\'t do online finance but you can buy direct online. Can\'t find anywhere cheaper. Even compared their prices against empire direct.co.uk and ep can\'t compete. Funnily enough, phoned ep up and they offered to price match but wouldn\'t give interest free credit.
  
  at those prices, thinking of getting the e100. 200 more but at that sales price, worth it.
  
  Thanks for your reply mate.

• paulsjenn on 2nd Mar 2004

  Just visited sound and vision shop and it seems that, the prices instore are the same as the web price however, the only problem is availabilty. They didn\'t have the panasonic e-100 in stock or toshiba rdxs30.
  
  Am considering the Pioneer DVR5100HS as this has timeslip as well but supports -rw not -ram.
  
  empiredirect is owned by the same group who own empire stores, although both are seperate companies, so if you buy from http://www.empiredirect.co.uk you have to deal with them directly. you cannot take your product back to an empire stores near to where you live.
  
  both Empire stores and empire direct were willing to price match sound and vision on both the panasionic e100 and the pioneer 5100.