So, by this time next year pretty much the whole country will have switched over to digital TV, a small town in N.Ireland to see the end of analogue on October 24th, 2012. Whether everyone will have a digital signal by that day is another story. We know from the amount of older people who haven't yet switched their gas and electricity bills to get cheaper deals it's unlikely. New technology and modern ways to pay bills are intimidating and worrisome for some. But if they don't have the digital box or dish by then there will be no Strictly Come Dancing next year.

As we all know we constantly have to retune digital TVs as new transmitters are turned off and others turned up. If you have satellite TV then you also suffer if your dish is knocked a cm or two out of line although the benefit of the dish over Freeview is that you can tune in a lot more stations and so get stuff like Greek channels that play Premier League football at a third of the subscription, fully legally. But Freeview is just that and more than enough channels to keep me entertained, especially now that there is anew series of Curb Your Enthusiasm on More4!

So once you have your box up and running you must decide what sort of DV recorder you need. A single tuner one means you can only record the channel you are watching and so restrictive whereas the more expensive models have two tuners so to be able to record stuff on the side your not watching and at any time, the selling point for this type of kit. The option today tends to be if you have a ton to spend then should you go for the double tuner box or upgrade to BlueRay, but the latter only as good as your TV. I chose to go for this format. To me BlueRay is an extravagant buy as you can't record telly on those machines in BlueRay, strictly for rental users only.

The Panasonic DMR-ES20D is not new tech by any means and a rather chunky beast. It is indeed big, a composite plastic shell that has that metal feel, look and weight (6kg). But at the time of its release (2006) it was top end kit and the complicated remote-control evidence of, more knobs than a Tory Conference ball! Half of those knobs you never use and most of the remote is for show. The most useful options on it are the TV listings display, which make it much simpler and easier to record programs and set timer's with this type of model. You press the Display button and up cometh the listings on your TV screen and you just scroll down to the program and maneuver the cursor over the show you want to record and press Enter! Then press timer record and off out you go!

As I say it's a big beast and sits well on top or under your TV. Disc insert is remote and plenty of cable and SCART slots on the back to set up your variations for home cinema. You will need to research how to use a TV without a tuner to run with your DVD, video recorder and set top box and it is complicated. How you get a handheld to play your old home movies on here is beyond me though.

Normal size discs will just about record two movies and the more advance user can record direct from this player on to their lap top and trim the adverts that way to size the disc better if you are cataloguing stuff. One thing you have to be carful of is when you are asked to format discs when you put them in the machine that they are blank. VHS was so much simple and why I love the old ways best. I can't tell the difference between the quality of a new VHS movie and that of a DVD.

Features wise this is five years old and so no chance of HDTV or Internet connections. No Blue Ray either or flash card memory slots. But it has all the things you need to play most multimedia, including MP4 stuff, and you can play your music in the DVD player. Some people forget that. It has only the one disc player and so you can't pirate anything easily. One irritant is that if you are a save the planet type and turn off everything at night you have to reset the players clock in the morning so to be able to set the timer. You can reset the clock just be pressing the EPG (Electronic Program guide) menu.

On the whole I have had no real issues with the old lady although you have to pay attention if you are using the timer to record. In my TV area we are losing and gaining channels all the time (ITV3 has gone this morning) and so make sure you record the right channel on the menu display. You also need to press timer record once you leave the DVD tuner channel. I quite like the in vision fast -forward, something new to me, and the super slow motion options.

Price wise it's around £90 on Amazon and the like and still value. Most duel tuner kit is still more than that although you don't get the new options on this, of course. If you want a stoic classic that is still being produced because its reliable then why not the old girl?

--Product Features--

Blu Ray: No
Built-In Modem: No
Built-in Sat-Tuner: No
Compact Flash Card: No
DTS Decoder: No

DVD Audio Playback: Yes
DVD Combination: No

DVD+R Playback: Yes
DVD+R Recording: Yes
DVD+RW Playback: Yes
DVD-R Playback: Yes
DVD-R Recording: Yes
DVD-RAM Playback: Yes
DVD-RAM Recording: Yes
DVD-RW Playback: Yes
DVD-RW Recording: Yes

Electronic Program Guide yes
Ethernet: No
HDTV ready: No
HDMI Interface: No
IPTV (Internet Protocol Television): No
Integrated VCR: No

MP3 Playback: Yes
MP3 Recording: No
MPEG4 Recording: No
Memory Stick: No
Multimedia Card: No
Number of Discs: 1

PCMCIA Interface: No
Photo CD Playback: Yes
Progressive Scan: Yes
Real Dolby: AC3
Secure Digital Card: No
Show View: Yes
Smart Media Card: No
Super Audio CD: No
Super Audio CD Playback: No
Super Video CD / Video CD Playback: Yes
Table / Portable: Table
USB Interface: No
W-LAN Connection: No
xD-Picture Card: No