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Panasonic DMR-BW780
by rocky_jay
I bought this DVD recorder a few weeks ago because I love my electronics and my DVDs, so decided to upgrade to a better DVD recorder. I was undecisive at the time as to which one to buy and was looking around my local Currys store and came across this Panasonic Recorder. I have always loved Panasonic makes and thought I couldn't go wrong ... with this one so when I got home, I managed to order one online from Amazon for just under £300 and it was over £100 cheaper than Currys.
Now, I am not the brightest tool in the box when it comes to electronics and I am still finding new things out with this to use all the features that it has. Despite me trying to understand the user instruction booklet, I have still managed to find a lot of things out for myself.
I have watched quite a few blu-rays on this and the picture quality is excellent and looks and sounds good on my 32" television and so I am very pleased with it, but it does have a few little problems, like the electronic programme guide is not too bad although the channel I am watching, vanishes when I am viewing the guide which is a bit of a dissapointment as well as the adverts that appear on the screen. It also doesnt have a disc tray open/close button on the remote. But these are things that don't really bother me; I have just got used to that.
When I first recorded onto the hard disk drive, I thought the broadcast quality was not going to be excellent but I was surprised because it came out perfect and you are also able to easily compress it if you want to record it onto a DVD/blue-ray. I also thought this was going to be slow but it transferred all what I wanted really quickly, in fact, I had a film which lasted nearly 2 hours and it took just less than 10 minutes! I was very impressed! Ive also noticed that if you watch TV through the box, the picture quality is splendid and even better when I watch the HD channels.
I have also just found out how to copy my HD films from my old Sony camcorder onto the hard drive and then copy them to DVD.
It can record in HD and SD but so far, I have only recorded in HD. It has twin tuners so it can record two programmes at the same time which I have done a few times and also when I use the internet functions, the screen goes blank for a few seconds until the icons appear on the screen with the links to the webpages.
In my opinion, it is hard to understand at first, but once you get the hang of it, its quite simple and I have no regrets buying it.
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Samsung DVD SH895M
by malishka13
I brought this DVD player from Amazon a while ago to sit in the front room. I brought mine for about £175 but it can probably be found cheaper now.
It comes packaged in a typical cardboard box with plug, remote controls and instructions but no scart lead. The DVD player is plain black and looks quite nice. The size is not ... small but not very large either and weighs 3.6kg according to the box. It has the on/off button on the far left next to the part the disc goes in. It takes a few seconds to switch on and is fairly fast at loading the DVD. On the other side is a digital screen which tells you whether it is on or off and how far into the movie you are etc. The writing on the screen is rather small and you may have to be quite close to actually see it, particularly during the day. It can be a bit noisy when its first getting started but is very quiet once the DVD is actually running.
To set up the DVD player is quite straightforward. There are good instructions provided in the manual which even I managed to follow. You simply plug it in and then, if using the freeview feature, tune it in as well.
It has a range of features and as well as recording and playing DVD's and CD's the box also has freeview built in to save money and room on an extra freeview box. You are also able to add MP3 files to play music and rip music from CD's onto MP3's or iPods. If you are someone who likes to download movies online these can also be played on the DVD player.
One of the best things about this player though is the fantastic picture quality. The image on screen is brilliant as you can see it very clearly and it gives you quite a detailed picture. It is a HD ready player which accounts for the picture and, even though it obviously works best combined with a HD TV and HD DVD's, it would probably still give you a great picture on a normal TV (I have a HD TV myself so can't really know for sure). I do know that it works well with DVD's which aren't HD and definitely enhances the picture over a normal DVD player. The sound quality is not quite as amazing as the picture but still very good.
I have had mine for quite a while now and have never had any problems with it. It is expensive but for me I thought it was worth the price due to the great features and overall quality. Samsung have done a great job and I would recommend this DVD player.
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