With DVD recorder prices getting lower and lower, it is difficult not to get
one. I needed to archive some programs off my
DirecTivo, mainly Formula 1 races that I have accumulated last year on
the Tivo's hard drive.
I got my
Panasonic DMR-ES10 for $189, shipping and tax included. This is
less than what I paid for my first Panasonic DVD player several years ago and
much less than what my first VCR cost me!
Currently, Panasonic offers 5 blank
DVD-RAM discs in addition to the one included with this recorder via a
mail-in rebate. Getting a good DVD recorder with 6 DVD-RAM discs for less than
$200 sounds like a good deal to me. But is
ES10 a good DVD recorder and player?
Pictures
You can see photo of the
ES10 that I took upon its arrival below
To see more photos of it that I took, click below:
Photos of Panasonic DMR-ES10 DVD Recorder
/ Player
In the Box
The recorder arrived with its remote control, batteries, AC power cord, one
DVD-RAM disc, RF cable, A/V cable, manuals and the leaflet describing
benefits of DVD-RAM - the standard that Panasonic invented and is trying to
increase the market share of.
Features
The ES10 can record on DVD-RAM,
DVD-R,
DVD+R and DVD-RW. It cannot record to
DVD+RW, but it plays all formats. I have a couple of DVD+RW discs, but
I was not disappointed since I can use DVD-RAM, which work faster and let you
use more of the recorder's features. And since I had a lot of DVD+R discs, I
used them for my archiving of Tivo programming.
The recorder comes in silver color (ES10S) or black color (ES10K). I got the
silver one. In addition to all recordable DVD formats, the recorder can play
store-bought movies on DVD-Video as well as Video CD, DVD-Audio (stereo only),
Audio CD, Audio CD-R, Audio CD-RW, MP3 CD-R and MP3 CD-RW as well as CDs with
JPEG pictures.
The recorder can be used for progressive (if you have and HDTV or EDTV
television) or "standard" interlaced playback. It has a remote control that can
also control different brands of TVs.
Just as VCRs, this recorder has a built-in 181-channel NTSC tuner, VCR Plus+,
timer recording and manual recording. It has more speeds/modes than the VCR
however, and much better picture quality in top quality modes. The available
modes are: XP, SP, LP, EP-6H, EP-8H and flexible mode.
As a DVD/CD player, the ES10 does what other DVD payers do and has things like
parental control, angle select, soundtrack select, subtitle select, still, slow
and fast motion, resume, virtual surround sound, zoom, etc. It also has
dialogue enhancer and dynamic range compression for night viewing, black level
control, slide show for JPEG images, zoom and rotation of images.
Connectivity
The ES10 has one set of A/V outs (optical digital audio out, composite video
out, component video out, S-Video out and an analog stereo out). The component
video out can be switched between interlaced and progressive scan mode.
There is an RF input and an RF out for antenna or analog cable.
There are 3 sets of A/V inputs, one of which is on the front panel (composite
video, analog stereo audio and S-Video). The front inputs are located in the
lower center of the front panel and are covered by a lid that also covers the
channel up/down buttons.
There is no digital audio input or FireWire (i.Link) digital audio/video
connection for direct recording from camcorders.
The lack of digital inputs is not a big problem for me. It would be nice to be
able to record digital sound directly from my DirecTiVo box using an optical
digital connection, but it is not a big issue. And I can (and do) use my
computer for editing my occasional camcorder footage before burning it onto a
DVD.
More on Recording Modes
The XP mode lets you fit about 1 hour on one single-sided disc at standard DVD
resolution of about 540x480. The SP fits 2 hours with very similar image
quality (more on this later). The LP fits 4 hours and, unlike most other DVD
recorders, it preserves the horizontal resolution of over 500 lines (about
540x480). The tradeoff is encoding artifacts.
The EP modes fit 6 and 8 hours respectively and feature reduced resolution of
260x240 (as they do in other DVD recorders). The sound quality is about the
same in all modes. The audio is recorded in 2-channel (stereo) Dolby Digital
AC-3.
The flexible recording more adjusts the recording parameters (bit rate) so that
the program fits on the disc at the best possible quality. Obviously, the
longer the program that fits on the disc, the worse the quality gets.
First Impressions
I was pleasantly surprised by the unit’s size and weight. I expected
something light and compact like my Panasonic S35 DVD player, but the ES10
turned out to be larger and heavier. It looks and feels solid and substantial,
which gave me an impression of good durability.
The recorder has a disc tray in the left part of the front panel, which accepts
caddy-encased or caddy-less (regular) DVDs. It came with a
Panasonic DVD-RAM (marked 2x-3x speed) in a plastic sleeve and with no
caddy. You can use caddy-less discs, but I found it slightly cumbersome to pick
up the disk from the tray as the disc pickup points are not left and right as
in regular DVD players, but rather front and rear.
The remote control looks stylish and nice. Both the remote and the recorder
look well assembled. The rear panel states that my recorder was made in
Singapore.
The remote’s battery compartment door is hinged making it less prone to
being lost or broken and the buttons have excellent tactile feel, much better
than on the remote of my Panasonic
S35 DVD player.
In Operation
The ES10 seems to be very responsive in operation (both recording and playback)
and faster than a VCR in that. Even ignoring the fact that you don’t need
to rewind the tape.
I connected my DirecTivo to the rear input (marked IN 1) using S-Video and
analog stereo connection. Then I connected the ES10 to my TV using S-Video. The
power cord is of the kind that can be disconnected and replaced if necessary,
which I like.
I haven’t read the entire manual, but could operate the recorder almost
instantly. In fact, I started operating the unit without reading the manual at
all. I was prompted what language I wanted to use and then prompted to attach
the antenna or a cable. Then the recorder tried to auto-set the clock and
channels. Since I haven’t connected my antenna to it, it failed repeatedly
until I hit “return” on the remote control, thereby canceling the auto
setup process.
I then tried to switch inputs to get to the IN 1. When I tried to hit the
[channel down] button, the recorder would try to rescan the channels and fail
since no antenna was attached. Opening the manual helped me understand that you
have to use the [Input Select] button located just below the power button. This
was I got to the IN 1.
The DVD recorder is a little more difficult to use that a VCR, mostly because
of its added functionality, but I find it not excessively difficult to use. For
example, you can start recording a program onto a DVD-RAM disc by pressing
“Rec” button and then later start watching the same program from the
beginning while still recording the rest of it by pressing “Play”. In
order to stop the playback of the program you press “Stop” and if you
want to stop recording this program, you can press “Stop” again, 2 or
more seconds after you pressed the “Stop” button the first time to stop
the playback.
The DVD-R/RW/+R discs have to be finalized before you can play them in
other/standard DVD players. DVD-RAM discs do not have to be finalized but can
only be played in DVD players that support them – mostly relatively recent
Panasonic DVD players. But the power DVD-RAM format is its flexibility when
used for re-recording. They work faster and Panasonic claims high durability in
re-recording. This is a claim I have no time or desire to evaluate as I am not
going to try to re-record the same disc a thousand times, but DVD-RAM discs
seem to work well and provide features that other formats cannot provide (e.g.
chasing playback).
I have tried both the Panasonic DVD-RAM and (to test the recorder’s ability
to work with less than ideal media) 2.4x Philips DVD+R made by CMC Magnetics -
a company not known for making the best DVD media. Even the CMC disc worked
well.
I mostly tried the manual recording. You basically select the recording mode
(XP, SP, LP or EP) and hit [Rec]. You can pause and restart recording at any
time by hitting [Pause]. You stop the recording by hitting [Stop]. With
DVD-RAM, there is no waiting after the recording is stopped. With other discs,
you might have to wait while the recorder finishes the recording of the current
segment – just several seconds.
The recorder was very responsive reacting to commands (record, pause, stop,
etc.). When you record several programs on one disc, it creates titles for each
one (T1, T2, etc.) automatically, so there is no need to look for empty space.
You can specify different recording modes/speeds for different titles by
pressing the [rec mode] button. If you change the recording mode while in rec
pause state, a new title will be created.
At any time you can see the remaining free space in hours and minutes for the
currently selected recording mode by pressing the [Status] button twice. I
combined several programs recorded in LP and SP mode on once disc with no
problems.
The [rec mode] button cycles through XP, SP, LP and EP mode. EP mode can be
selected between 6-hour and 8-hour mode in the setup menu ([Function] button).
At any time (while not recording) you can hit [Direct Navigator] button to get
to the screen which lists thumbnails (video) and descriptions of the titles
recorded. From there, you can select a title and play it or select it and edit
title or other information by hitting the [Submenu] button.
The title editing is slightly cumbersome as you have to select letters, digits
and numbers from the onscreen selection.
Non-erasable formats can have commercials removed if you watch the program
while recording and use the [Pause] button to stop and restart the recording.
The re-recordable formats let you erase commercials after the recording.
I discovered that the titles have chapters at intervals of about 3.5-4 minutes.
Non-DVD-RAM discs have to be finalized before you can play them in a standard
DVD player. The process is accessed through the [Function] button -> Disc
Management menu. You can specify if playback will start from the first title or
from the menu/list of titles.
The finalization of my disc took less than 3 minutes and I could play it in my
Panasonic S35 DVD player. The menu with thumbnails and descriptions of
the programs appeared and I could select the program I wanted to see.
Picture Quality
The picture quality in the XP mode is outstanding and is virtually
indistinguishable from the original. The edges of objects are sharp, there is
no video noise and there are no problems with fast moving objects. Since only 1
hour fits on the disc in the XP mode, I mostly use SP mode for high-quality
recordings. In the SP mode, the picture quality is almost as good as in the XP
mode.
I have used more economical LP and EP modes and found them decent. The EP modes
are mostly suitable for either video programs with mostly static content or
programs where sound matters more than the video.
The LP mode has the same resolution as the SP/XP, but its lower bit rate makes
for encoding artifacts, especially in scenes with a lot of motion. The ES10 and
DVD players that have MPEG noise reduction fight artifacts pretty well, but the
details get lost and the softness appears.
The EP modes have lower resolution and artifacts. If you look closely, the LP
mode adds some artifacts/digital noise at the edges of objects whereas the EP
makes the picture less detailed, softer overall and features some artifacts
even in solid surfaces (I tested the recording modes with a scene in K-19 where
the camera moves above the ocean towards the submarine and then pans around the
submarine itself).
In the end, I settled on the LP mode for archiving my Formula 1 races and find
the result acceptable.
Bottom Line
I am very impressed with this Panasonic DMR ES10 DVD recorder. I like its low
price, excellent performance, features, format versatility and connectivity.
Aside from the fact that it has no digital audio (but other recorders don’t
have it either) or A/V inputs.
If you have to have an i.Link (FireWire) input and/or a hard drive, look
elsewhere. I am usually using my computer for video editing and to burn
archival Video DVDs and as such have no pressing need in FireWire input. And
with DirecTiVo, combined with DVD-RAM flexibility, I need no hard drive either.
If you don't plan to copy your footage from a digital camcorder frequently or
are OK with having to use its S-Video and analog stereo audio connection for
archiving digital camcorder footage, this model is a great choice. And I highly
recommend it as such.
Recommended
Yes
Product Rating
This review is also available at Epinions.com: Panasonic DMR-ES10 DVD Recorder Review on Epinions.com