My Panasonic DMR-E55 had a problem reading disks, power-off, self-check problems due to defective internal power-supply board. I ordered the board from partstore.com, replaced it myself and it works GREAT!!! No problem reading/recording!

Great player/recoder. I bought a second Panasonic player so I could play the RAM disk on another TV

I love mine. Have had it 2 years and made well in excess of 400 discs with it and only one failure. At the time it was rated one of the most reliable DVD recorders around and mine certainly proved reliable. Comments from other users just do not make sense to me.

The Panasonic DMR-E55 very good quality unit, easy to use menus. Excellent editing functions. Good picture quality even on 8 hour record, let down by limited disc playback, no svcd, divx etc

The DVD Ram function of the Panasonic DMR-E55 DVD Recorder is fantastic. I work shifts and the wife can record a program and I can watch it when I get in without having to wait for it to finish (as with a VHS). Menus are simple. Being able to edit out adverts etc.
My problem is after 18 mnths it has died completely, Panasonic are considereing reparing it out of warranty. As the estimate is £175 (you can by them for less now) I am not too hopeful, but i'll let you know. Buy a warranty.

This unit will stop recording on almost ALL dvd-r discs from all manufacturers EXCEPT for Verbatim discs. Verbatim works first time every time, as opposed to having to restart all other brands repeatedly before the unit finally accepts it. If you use Verbatim dvd-r discs, this is a great machine.......if not, this machine sucks!

Problems I have experienced with the Panasonic DMR-E55:
Unit stops recording for no apparrent reason.
Slightly jittery video even from good quality VHS source tapes.
I guess I am frustrated because this is a "Home Use" recorder. Fine adjustments for video tracking in and out would be nice for example.
I guess the sound delay problem is the most annoying; compare the sound comming out of the TV and the sound comming out of the DVD recorder while recording and you will see what I mean.

Taking the machine out of the box and installing is very simple with it's auto install simple plug it in and let it do the rest, if you have a modern TV it will copy the stations from the TV if your TV is not so new the 55E will install the stations and you can review manually swapping positions as you please.
The recording quality is very good given a strong signal source returning a picture undetectable from source on XP and SP with a slightly less than source on LP and a better than VHS on EP.
Picture editing is simple to do being able to divide, add a chapter and erase sections so for your favourite film with adverts can become a break-free screening.
Lastly the time-slip I cannot praise this feature enough at any time within the recording you can start watching, pause or go back to the beginning, the recording is completely separate from the play back giving absolute flexibility it's better than sky+ because you control when it switches on or off.

Hi there. I was very nervous when I decided to buy my DVD recorder.
I looked at the Pioneer 3100, also Philips 75, Hyundai, LG, and Sanyo (This one is the most complete of them)

The price of Philips 75- Pioneer 3100 and Panasonic 55 are quite the same.
Why I decided for Panasonic...well First it says 'Made in Germany'. Second the quality of their products seems to be ok, and DVD Ram looks to be working very well.

It is very easy to use, friendly, the Manual is not so good, is confused and not so well organized.

I am very satisfied with this Product.
My Friends have other brands, such as Philips 70 or 75 or Hyundai, also a Pioneer.

What Philips is better at (very good indeed) than other brands is that you record there a dvd+r, and you can read in ALL DVD players, even the first models in market that appeared some years ago.
This does not happen with Pioneer, Sharp, Panasonic, Toshiba.

Another brand that has a model +r that is recording very good is the GRUNDIG model.
In The same day that I bought my DVD recorder, a friend of mine bought a SAMSUNG DVD Recorder. I saw the manual, it's great, very easy to work it, and it has one of the best quality sounds that I hear.

About compatibility dvd+r is better
And Philips do it better.
All the best for you all.

Panasonic DMR-E55 EBS DVD Recorder.
I looked through the reviews here when I decided which DVD recorder to buy and I must say the choice at the time seemed to be between the DVD+ machines and the DVD RAM. What was it that made me choose the DVD RAM? - Well I guess it was the time slip recording. The fact that the DVD RAM machines seemed to offer more features like being able to watch a program and record at the same time and I wanted SKY+ but without the subscription and thats exactly what I got!

Once I had decided to go for DVD RAM, it was then, should I get a machine with a hard disk or not. In the end I decided against it because I know from the many computers i have had over the years that Hard Disks only last a couple of years and then they need replacing. I was hoping that a machine without one would be more reliable in the longer term. Only time will tell I guess. The hard drive also didnt seem to offer many more useful functions.

When I first saw the E55, I was surprised at how basic it looked.But I relied on the reviews I had read and was not disappointed.

The build quality is good. Even better than my Sony DVD player and SONY VCR I have had about a year. The lack of buttons on the machine is no problem, theres a very comprehensive remote control which comes with the machine and does everything you could imagine.

Getting disks was a little harder than I expected. DVD +RW were everywhere, but DVD RAM disks were few and far between which made me a little worried that maybe its a technology which is not going to be supported very well. But then again it might be that its very popular and all the disks have been snapped up... who knows.

I bought a pack of DVD -r 's which is write once technology. These I have used for my home movies to give away to friends as they work fine on other DVD players (once finalised - which is easy to do). I also got some 9.4Gbyte DVD ram disks which also work great.

DVD ram is what you use for everyday use. As soon as the disk is loaded the machine tells you that you have 4:00 hours of recording time left. Swich from SP to LP you have 8:00, switch to EP and you have 12:00. (this is on double sided / density disks - its half of this on normal 4.7 Gbytes disks)

You also have XP quality which is half the length of SP. I would suggest that LP was the same quality as my old VHS video recorder, SP is better and XP was even better - but not noticeably, SP was as good as my equipment could distinguish.

This player will play my mp3 cdrw which I wrote on my computer with over 160 songs on! - you can also select which one you want on the on-screen display.

You can store up to 99 titles (programmes) on a DVD and divide each title into up to 1000 chapters. You can name each title and chapter and choose a thumbnail for each too, so you know exactly whats on each disk as soon as its inserted.

The machine has terrestial tv receiver (i.e. you plug a coax aerial into it). You can set up the channels on it just like a VCR and you also have 4 Aux inputs. (A/V) - with 2 scart channels and 2 channels with phonos / S-video). Output is via scart, s-video or rgb phonos.

There are confusing reports about progressive scan of this machine on the internet, but I can tell you the manual says it DOES do progressive scan, and theres an option on the menu to switch it on if you have an LCD type tv

Sound quality is pretty good, although I have not fully tested it. For the money its a great value machine, it does so much more than your old VCR and costs about the same as it did 2 or 3 years ago.

This machine is the business. No errors, just perfect, I have only had it a few days, but I have given it a thorough bashing!

WOW! I love my Panasonic DMR E55! It has so many features that can keep you amused for ages, picture quality is excellent, sound quality is superb (optical 5.1) and well worth the money. I especially like the component video output, 10 times better than Scart(RGB) but you must have a TV with component video (plasma) The progessive scan feature is a plus as it picks up any faults a few seconds before viewing (like 2 lasers, 1 checks the disc, the other views the better picture)
To record programs is easy, you have 4 recording speeds AND you can watch the program you are currently recording at anytime, So to record and play the same program at the same time is a great feature, abit like sky+.
BUY this machine, you won't be dissapointed!!!

Adieboy