( 81 reviews )
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Posted: Aug 17 2009
I do like this DVD player/recorder, except that I've never been able to get the usb port to work. I always get an error message of some sort and I know it's not the usb or the files set to be read from it. Anyone else had problems with the usb port on this deck (the SD card slot seems to work just fine for reading jpegs)?
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( 1 of 1 found this review helpful ) Posted: Aug 4 2009
I bought this unit because I frequently view both VHS tapes and rental DVDs. I do not use many of the other available features such as SD card or USB. The unit works reasonably well, but there are several design features that I find annoying, and I would have paid more (or less) to avoid them, had I known about them in advance: 1. The unit takes about 37 seconds to turn on, and about 15 seconds to turn off. Since I'm hooked up by satellite box to the TV via the unit, this means it takes the better part of a minute for me to get a picture when I "turn on" the TV. I don't like to leave the unit on all the time to avoid this problem, because it also produces a soft audible humming I find annoying when I do so. 2. The unit turns itself off at unpredictable intervals of several hours, which must be some kind of bug. It happens perhaps once every other day. It's annoying in the middle of a show, especially because it takes more than a minute to cycle all the way back on. 3. There is no dedicated button to switch from DVD to VCR. Instead, the remote controller has a "drive select" button, and to switch between modes, you must cycle slowly through all 4 options, waiting a couple of seconds for each switch - it doesn't remember how many pushes you've made, either, so you must actually watch the screen and wait for each mode change in sequence. I never use USB or SD modes, and switch frequently between VHS and DVD, so this is quite annoying. 4. The unit's default is DVD mode, so if you are watching a VHS after a break, you have to wait not only the 37 seconds for the unit to start, but then also slowly press the mode 3 times to return to VHS. I'd much prefer the unit remembered the last mode used, or came with dedicated mode buttons. 5. There is only 2x zoom available, and no ability to move about on the zoomed screen, quite inferior to the options I had with my prior Toshiba unit. Plus, the Toshiba unit had a simple button to toggle between standard view, 2x and 4x modes, and you could then also scroll around the magnified screen using the arrows. Using the inferior 2x-only zoom without scroll option on the Panasonic unit is paradoxically cumbersome and inconvenient: Press the "sub-menu" button; press the "down" arrow twice to select "zoom in"; and press the "OK" button. You have to go through all 3 steps to "un-zoom", again. In summary, while the performance of the unit is adequate, the controls are rather poorly and clumsily designed, for the the way I use it, and I would not recommend it to a friend.
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( 2 of 2 found this review helpful ) Posted: Aug 4 2009
I purchased this Panasonic DVD player/recorder (DMR-EZ48V) in August of 2008 and have just sent it back to Panasonic to have a second problem fixed. The first problem occurred in April 2009 - it would not turn on completely - got stuck at "HELLO" and then froze. I sent it back to Panasonic which took forever to repair it - I made multiple calls to find out status. The unit was out about 6 weeks. The second problem has just occurred (August), and was just about at the end of the warranty period: for a DVD with multiple episodes (a television series), it would play one episode OK, but then when I selected any episode thereafter, it would stop. I would need to OPEN the DVD drive and then CLOSE it again in order to get it to play again. Crazy! The recording and other functions worked OK for me - although it was a challenge get some features to work - but no sense in explaining this experience since the basic reliability is so poor. It has now cost me $52 to send this unit back to Panasonic twice. Hopefully I will receive a NEW unit without problems - but I am not holding my breath. In any case I would NOT recommend buying this product based on my own experience.
