Yes, I already knew about the DVD-RAM that came with the machine. I'd asked about it before buying it. I tried it out last night and it works wonderfully. I also tried the DVD-RAM in my RP-91 and, although it took a little more time than usual to load up, it had no problems playing the disc.

I'm looking forward to recording to DVD-R and seeing how they turn out.

I have burned more than 15 DVD-Rs without problems so far. They include Maxell, Verbatim and a no-name brand. The no-name brand cost $4.45 apiece and I have some more on order for $4.25 apiece.

No erasing, editing, time-slip or chasing play with DVD-Rs but they work well for I what I want to do.

Here's a review (http://www.hometheatermag.com/shownews.cgi?218)

That's more of a rehash of the press release. Are there any real hands-on reviews available on the web?

I couldn't find a review on the web but purchased the DMR-E30 anyway. It does exactly what it advertises. In comparison the a Bell PVR5100:

PRO's
-works reliably and consistantly like a VCR (5100 has lots of quirks and bugs)
-Picture quality at 4hour speed same as Bell 5100 overall (I have very good cable & an antennae)
-picture quality at 2hour speed is excellent, as good as really good Bell channels
-picture quality at 1 hour speed, better than live-stabilizes and cleans up the picture, introduces a few digital artifacts(very picky)
-Timeslip works great, view beginning while recording the end
-16 timers, quick to find programs due to program navigator

CON's
-must program like VCR
-no interactive program guide like Bell
-4hours of decent quality on one disk, have to manage disks
-program navigator should list what is on all disks

SUMMARY
-DMR-HS2, has 40gig hard drive, best solution when and if available in Canada
-Satellite, with it's problems is probably a better solution when you consider the price of the DMR-HS2 (probably $1600 street?)

Hope this helps

Is there anything that prevents me from recording something onto a DVD and then importing it to my PC for cleanup/editing?

Q: what was your video source?

Would a satellite receiver (non-pvr) have a problem communicating with this device or would you have to set a timer on both machines?

Also, the Toshiba RD-X2 is coming out next month with a 80GB HDD (double the size of the Panny)

Earlier in this thread, we talked about the possibility of the SA3100 STB's VCR commander possibly being able to interface with this machine, like it does for a VCR. I don't think it was ever confirmed if this was possible given the newness of the recorder.

I have also read that some of these recorders come with an (optional?) IR blaster which would work the other way (Recorder controlling the STB)

Either way would be nice to be able to eliminate "Dual Programming"

Would a satellite receiver (non-pvr) have a problem communicating with this device or would you have to set a timer on both machines?

As it does not appear to come with a remote "eye", I presume you would have to program two timers (blech!).

-Picture quality at 4hour speed same as Bell 5100 overall (I have very good cable & an antennae)
-picture quality at 2hour speed is excellent, as good as really good Bell channels
-picture quality at 1 hour speed, better than live-stabilizes and cleans up the picture, introduces a few digital
Interesting feedback. The review in Sound and Vision (earlier in this thread), indicated that the 3rd and 4th speeds gave quite poor picture quality - similar to a VCR at 230 lines, while the first two speeds were very good at 525 lines.

-Picture quality at 4hour speed same as Bell 5100 overall (I have very good cable & an antennae)
-picture quality at 2hour speed is excellent, as good as really good Bell channels
-picture quality at 1 hour speed, better than live-stabilizes and cleans up the picture, introduces a few digital
Interesting feedback. The review in Sound and Vision (earlier in this thread), indicated that the 3rd and 4th speeds gave quite poor picture quality - similar to a VCR at 230 lines, while the first two speeds were very good at 525 lines.

I concur with test1test that the picture quality on the 4 hour recording speed isn't noticeably degraded when recording from cable digital channels with good clean signals. I am surprised at the Sound & Vision review that said the onscreen horizontal resolution dropped to 230 lines with the LP (4 hours) and EP (6 hours) recording modes. Maybe in EP mode because I haven't tried that mode yet. However, my experience is just by eye on movie content and not a critical look with test signals.

Here's their text ..."material will look noticably less sharp recorded in LP mode than in SP and XP... Our lab measurements show that LP & EP have less than half the horizontal resolution of SP and XP - roughly equivalent to standard VHS.

With LP, the visibility of encoding artifacts substantially increases, showing up most noticably in fringing effects around moderately fast-moving sharp-edged objects. EP seems to record only alternate video fields - you get more visible moire effects... I'd use EP mode only if a long recording time is absolutely necessary."

The specs were 525/525/230/230, although the narrative indicates LP as better than EP.

Greetings

While I cannot speak for the E30, the two E10's that I have record 480 lines at 1 hour mode, 470 at 2 hour mode, 320 at 4 hour mode. No 6 hour mode. I found the XP and SP modes to be virtually indistinguishable, while the LP mode was a step up from VHS into the Super Beta type realm. Good for dubbing VHS with little quality loss.

Regards

Greetings

While I cannot speak for the E30, the two E10's that I have record 480 lines at 1 hour mode, 470 at 2 hour mode, 320 at 4 hour mode. No 6 hour mode. I found the XP and SP modes to be virtually indistinguishable, while the LP mode was a step up from VHS into the Super Beta type realm. Good for dubbing VHS with little quality loss.

Regards

I can't speak to the lines of resolution you quote but I agree with your subjective assessment. I am not that interested in recording movie content because I much prefer getting DVD with anamorphic widescreen and 5.1 sound tracks and find the LP okay for most of my recording accept for a few laserdiscs I wanted to save and those I recorded in SP.

In my view, for most material, the 1 hour mode is excellent, and the 2 hour mode is pretty good, but the 1 hr mode is noticeably better. Flexible recording mode at about 90 minutes is also noticeably better than the 2 hour mode. This is especially true for sources with a lot of noise or pixelation (analogue cable or rabbit ears for the former, digital cable for the latter). Indeed, it seems the better the source the better SP mode performs. Recordings from a DVD source via S-video gives very good SP mode results, whereas with noisy sources, SP mode doesn't do very well. OTOH, XP mode gives video very similar to the original, regardless if the source was clean or not.

The supposed resolution of XP and SP are 704x480, and the supposed resolutions of LP and EP are 352x480. Furthermore, I have been told that flexible recording mode drops into 352x480 once you go past the 2 hour and 15 minute mark for recording time settings. I haven't verified the numbers, but I will when I get the chance, since I can play both the DVD-RAM and DVD-R discs on my computer. (I have a Toshiba M1612 DVD-ROM drive that reads DVD-RAM, and I have a Panasonic DVD-RAM/-R burner.) (These numbers do not equate to real-life analogue lines of output resolution, but would be the resolutions as stored digitally on disc. Obviously there would be a direct correlation to reallife output resolution however, as is evidenced by the Sound & Vision review.)

IMO, the 6 hour mode is next to useless. The 4 hour mode is pretty poor as well, and only useful for recording stuff for one-time playback (ie. not to keep) while you're on vacation or something. Even for VHS sources, the 1 hour recording mode is an improvement over the 4 hour mode, not surprisingly (although the improvement is not huge).

For archival purposes, I'd probably stick to the 1 hour mode whenever possible.

By the way, my test TV is a 34" widescreen HDTV calibrated by Michael. Hi there Michael! :)

P.S. I did a mini-review here (http://www.dv-info.net/cgi-bin/ib/ikonboard.cgi?;act=ST;f=101;t=25) and there is a thread about that mini-review here (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=167173).

Here's their text ..."material will look noticably less sharp recorded in LP mode than in SP and XP... Our lab measurements show that LP & XP have less than half the horizontal resolution of LP and XP - roughly equivalent to standard VHS.
Typo?

Sorry, my eyes must not have been working properly that day and skipped around while copying from the magazine. Let me go back and correct it.

Here again is the corrected paragraph.
Here's their text ..."material will look noticably less sharp recorded in LP mode than in SP and XP... Our lab measurements show that LP & EP have less than half the horizontal resolution of SP and XP - (LP being) roughly equivalent to standard VHS.