I have these recorder 3 years by now (buyed in Baja, M xico, 2005, made in Malasya in 2004), and recorded many DVDs (may be a hundred or more) and recorded on DVD-RAM almost daily TV programs and never experienced any trouble. I think there are some (or many?) products sold with low control quality, maybe we have to check the date of manufacture, country of origin and look for a pattern. Mine was an old product on store and a little bit expensive ($4600 pesos, $450 dollars), and was modified to be multiregion (although the box said it was region 4 only). The picture quality is excellent, and in some cases improves the source (if the source is a VCR and the connection to the recorder is by s-video cable). I allways use the recorder with a little fan on it to lowering the heat produced, and every two months I remove the case and blow up with an air can. never have a problem.

If your machine has failed, repeatedly going through self check - please do a search for "dvd recorder repairs" on ebay I will fix your recorder for you - Cheaply!!! - Revieski...

I have taken the cover off and blow out all the dust and left the cover off and now works fine. Not sure why this is but it just has.

I bought a Panasonic DMR-E95HEB and after about 2 years of moderate use guess what. Self check problems like so many other people seem to have. I contacted Panasonic who gave me details of local repairer. Because out of warranty they want £55 just to look at it. When I realised that this is a common problem and hence, I believe, a manufacturing fault, I contacted Panasonic again. I got the brush off and just got told to take it in for repair. If I knew it would cost £55, or even up to £100 I would probably get it repaired, buy I don't want to hand over £55 to be told it's beyond repair or would cost £200. I am now looking at a new DVD recorder, AND DEFINITELY NOT PANASONIC.

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!

The Panasonic DMR-E55 is a piece of rubbish that I couldn't recommend. Did research on the web before buying and Panasonic appears to have a reasonable reputation. This machine is painfully slow to power-up (going through all sorts of checks), slightly (not much) faster to switch off and has now (just after 15 months) given up the ghost. Unless I want to spend £99-£160 to get it repaired apparently.

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

Good unit as a DVD player, a decent VCR replacement, but not so great in the fact that it only will record to DVD-R or DVD-ram. (and with DVD-R once you record something you don't get the room back on the DVD if you erase it.)

Really disappointing

This was a relatively expensive machine and should have been much more user friendly I will never buy anything from panasonic again.

I bought this just over three years ago after researching various models. It was one of the most expensive at the time and the solid reputation of previous Panasonic models persuaded me to part with my money.

I haven't used it heavily since (once a month at most) yet only a month after the warranty expired it started to power on then after a few seconds switch itself off.

I've since researched this on the net and found many others with the same fault. Apparently it's due to a faulty resistor on the circuit board that overheats.

I wouldn't have minded so much if it was a cheap model as I'd not have expected much more but it is billed as a top-of-the-range brand.

Won't be buying Panasonic again.

Bought machine August 2004 but did not use machine often.
Few months ago it starts being unable to read discs it can now not be used because it goes into a cycle - self check - read - switch off - self- and so on. Fault has been diagnosed as needing new RAM drive{repair cost £230). Panasonic think that it should be accepted that components should fail within a 3 year time scale. I disagree and wonder how Panasonic can have a reputation for reliability if they accept this.

Use my Panasonic DMR-E55 daily and like it.

If you get a good Panasonic DMR-E55 then fine you can unsympathetically wonder what all the fuss is about, but if you are one of the many people who seem to have bought a dud then unless you have paid for an extended warranty (mine worked OK for a year although I did lose a couple of discs which I foolishly put down to the discs having a glitch) then you might as well just use it as a player or a door stop. That's if you can get the recordable disc out of it without smashing it (even pulling the plug out the back doesn't stop it going into endless switch on mode when you reconnect). It's been the poorest piece of AV kit I have ever bought.