Panasonic DMR-E60 DVD Recorder

Pros: Excellent recording and playback quality, features, inputs, fast scene access
Cons: No analog 5.1 or digital audio input

The Panasonic DMR-E60 is not only a DVD-Recorder, but also has a PC Card slot, an SD Card slot and an i.Link (a.k.a. FireWire, DV) input. The recorder lets you record DVD discs in two formats – write-once DVD-R and rewriteable DVD-RAM. The ...

Pros: Good features such as flexible recordings
Cons: Unit hangs up requiring power down/up. The operation is unreliable.

Unit will hang up during operation requiring power down/up to reset. After power down the unit is t ...

Pros: Accepts cheap media
Cons: Keeps breaking, and Panasonic don't care

I already had a Panasonic DM-E30 (see my opinion of that turkey here), but I wanted the ability to burn MiniDV tapes via Firewire, so I foolishly purchased the DMR-E60 in 9/03. It is in the Panasonic Authorized Repair Facility for the third time since ...

Pros: Nothing good about the unit.
Cons: Never buy Panasonic. Their engineers are not considering the market only their ideas.

This is not a good DVD burner.

The unit does not finalize when two recordings are on the disk. With one recording, the unit finalizes. If the unit does not finalize, the disk cannot be viewed with other DVD players.

The problem is recorder but Panasonic customer service tries to bypass the problem by saying the user has to buy one high quality disk and cannot use disks from a stack.

I own this unit DMR-E60. It was a mistake to buy it. I relied on the Panasonic reputation. Not good!

Pros: Great quality DVD-Rs.
Cons: Poor Tech Support. Needs compatibility with DVD-RW or DVD+RW. DVD-RAM not widely supported and $$Expensive.

I've owned the Panasonic DMR-E60S for about a month. Even at SP (2-hour mode), the results are indistinguishable from the source material (recorded from DirecTV SAT receiver). I have already created about 15 DVD-R's to archive TV shows that I'm interested in saving. I have also created 3 DVD-Rs from my Sony TRV-315 digital camcorder. Two of these were made with the S-Video port. One was made last night with the DV-IN (1394/Firewire) port. Using DV is great since it does not have to go D/A from camcorder to A/D in the DVD recorder preserving the original source material completely.

I did have a problem with a bad 1394 cable such that Panasonic Tech Support really had no clue. I had to experiment with 2 digital camcorders and the DMR-E60 plus a new 1394 cable to determine the problem. Panasonic gave me erronious information. Fortunately, my persistence paid off in discovering the problem.

Overall, I would give Panasonic an A for the device. Results are of very good quality. I give them a D for Tech Support.