The prior model was far superior. All we’re really getting here is the up-conversion feature for digital broadcasts which are still a scarcity in America. There’s no hard disk drive in this unit which will force you to put everything directly to DVD with no ability to edit/personilize discs. And the lack of TV Guide Onscreen means shows will have to manually programmed on a day-to-day basis.

The HD tuner contained in the recorder picked up the picture that my 40″ Samsung LCD doesn’t. I was surprised and happy. Seems to do what the Panasonic says. A superb picture from he player. I haven’t recorded yet.

I’ve had this DVD Recorder for over 2 years, and I have to say, there’s got to be something better out there somewhere. While it does record DVDs just fine, and works with many different types of disks, including DL disks and DVD-RAM disks, the tuner has always been flaky. In fact, I sent it in to be repaired by Panasonic soon after I got it, because half the time the ATSC tuner just flat wouldn’t work! The NTSC (analog) tuner never seemed to have a problem, but I wasn’t interested in using it. And of course, now that the digital transition has occurred, the NTSC tuner is pretty much useless unless you’re using it to record off of cable TV. But anyway, although things were better with the ATSC tuner after it was repaired, the unit is still flaky with regard to that tuner. It is basically useless if you want to schedule it to record something off the airwaves. Most of the time, those recordings are completely unwatchable and useless, recording perhaps one frame every 3 to 5 seconds or so, and there is no audio at all. Sometimes it will successfully record a program using the scheduler if I first power-cycle it a day or so before the program is scheduled to record. But I shouldn’t have to do that. I’ve basically given up on using it that way. I guess I’m just going to have to get a new one sometime, because this one sucks. If all you want to do is play DVDs on it and occasionally record from some other source (not involving the ATSC tuner), I suppose it would probably work for that.