Digital-Tapeless Reviews

I got the camera and it does just what I expected.
Great pictures! Very Clear!
Add 512MB of memory and I should be able to video
for a little over an hour.
Very much worth the money!!!!
VC

I don't have to purchase another digital audio recorder in order to compare and find the "better" brand. There is nothing better than this one! If you are in a professional business, needing to store all your data and dictations, this is the one for you! Get rid of wasted space easy with the "divide" method. Don't worry about your voice sounding garbled. This recorder, with all Panasonic digital recorders I'm sure, has such clarity that you will think you are hearing it "live"!
And if you are a ghosthunter, as I am, in search of the perfect device to capture EVP, this is SURELY the recorder for you, as well! The very first time I used this recorder, I captured my very first EVP! It was so crisp and clear, that after I heard it, I knew that I had purchased the BEST recorder for EVP. I had been recommended the use of Panasonic digital recorders before I bought this one, and it's the best advice I've ever accepted from someone. This model, to my knowledge, has been discontinued, but I strongly suggest ANY of the Panasonic digital recorders for ANY type of office voice dictation and for those who are beginning their search for paranormal sounds. Thanks to Panasonic for giving me something unique to discover, and I know their work will get even better!!!! Two thumbs up on this product!!

I've had two of these. Perfect size and layout, work well. thought I lost one when I jumped in a swimming pool with it in my pocket and it filled with water, but after letting it air out for 3 weeks it worked fine.
For a while they were improving them, cutting the price, upping the memory then for some reason Panasonic discontinued them, the new ones are way too big.
After thousands of hours of use, one basically lost most of its memory - it can hold only about 4 minutes of notes now. The other one (the wet one) looks totally beat up and has lost its screen coating-no more display :( But it still works perfectly!
Operational problems: One is that the hold button can be accidently released in your pocket and then you find you have 20 minutes of ambient pocket noise and a full recorder. this happens at least once a week. Also, they can get confused somehow and you'll see the display all wierd with no way to fix it, you need to remove and replace the batteries to recover, but that's no problem really, you don't lose your notes.

First, if you're perusing these reviews because you're switching from a micro cassette recorder, you're in for a treat. While you can't take the tape out and hand it to someone, the advantages of digital are too numerous to mention here. My favorite is the ability to playback or erase individual notes without having to search the tape to find them.

Anyway, as for this unit: I was looking for something easy to use, [price], decent sound quality, small, and good reviews. While it does take awhile to decipher the instructions, the RR-QR80 is relatively easy to use, and I especially like the fact that the two major buttons are Record and Stop. Let's face it, these are the buttons you want to get to fast. You press and hold the Record button for about a second to pause, but I wish you could just click once to pause, then click again to resume. Playback is easy, but all the secondary buttons, including the Erase button, are quite small but have a solid feel. The Hold button feels secure and is easy to use. I've seen some small units where you need to use your fingernail to move the Hold button.

I got my unit refubished from Sunshinelect, so the price was right, and the unit was shipped the following business day. Excellent! However, you have to wonder why there are so many "refurbished" RR-QR80s out there. One can only hope there was some inherent problem with this unit that Panasonic fixed. So far so good.

Sound quality changes with record mode. HQ will only record for 15 minutes, but sound quality is outstanding. Standard mode will record for 30 minutes, and quality is more than adequate. LP mode will record 60 minutes, and is okay but not great. Let's face it, your not going to be recording live concerts with this thing. Also, the mic level is adjustable, and set to High will record voices from a distance accurately.

Size is where this unit really shines. It's the size of a business card/credit card and <.5" thick. It fits easily in a pocket, but if it finds its way to the bottom of your purse you may forget what you wanted to record by the time you find it.

Anyway, I write two newspaper columns and needed something to record fleeting thoughts, and wanted something small enough that I wouldn't hesitate to carry around. So, this unit works perfectly for me. However, if you intend to record lectures or lengthy notations, a unit with more memory and a "real" fast forward and rewind might be a better choice (this one will cue and review, but it's choppy).

Now here's a product that anyone can use. Smaller than a pack of cigarettes and half an inch thin. It records crystal clear sound using intergrated circuits. It has a voice activated feature so the 66 minutes of HQ sound are not wasted. If you need standard sound quality you get 266 minutes (almost 5 hours) of recording. The unit has an extremely sensitive microphone so you can leave it anywhere and pick up what's being said and you don't even have to be there. Very undercover if you know what I mean. It has a clock and various folders so you can store your recordings by category and priority. One folder might be where you keep something for a long time. Another folder might be where you keep messages that will soon be erased. You can divide messages and store what you want. The machine automatically starts a new message without ever 'writing' over an old one. You can create up to 396 new messages and then scroll thru all of them numerically or simply by listening. Simply amazing. Be careful, it's high-tech enough where you can get into trouble by listening and recording things you shouldn't be. By the way, it's totally quiet.

I bought a Panasonic RR-QR240 over a year ago and I
haven't left home without it. First of all, the microphone
generates a clear and crisp signal, yet is sensitive
enough to be able to record people speaking 6 feet away.

Second, the recording time is one of the best one around even
though this product is no longer the newbie on the market.

Third, and some of you may not believe this (I wouldn't if
I it hadn't happen to me): last night, I was cleaning clothes
and ACCIDENTALLY WASHED my RR-QR240. I didn't realize this
until I heard strange knocks in the dryer...
I took it out of the dryer, threw out the batteries, opened up the case,
and proceded to gently dry the electronic components.
After leaving the unit to dry up overnight, I put in fresh
batteries this morning, and while my previous recordings
were lost, my unit STILL WORKED!

I just wish other products in the high-tech market were
this robust!

I put a lot of value in your reviews so I thought I would share how happy I am with my new digital tape recorder, Panasonic Model QR200. Although mine doesn't have quite the capacity of the QR240, I am very happy with its performance. I can only assume the QR240 is just as nice with more capacity.

First of all, it is very compact and easy to use. Because it is so small, I take it practically everywhere for making quick notes of ideas or information I don't want to forget. The erase feature works very well, so when I have completed my follow up, I erase that item and continue only with the items I still need.

The thumb wheel works very well, allowing you to go forward or backward to review your messages. It truly can be operated with one hand, including the recording process. The hold button on the side is a great feature to prevent the machine from activating while in your pocket. Even if you do accidently activate the machine, it is very simple to erase the unwanted file, restoring your storage space. I especially like being able to go from one message to another without having to spend time rewinding over previous messages. Like a CD, you can jump from one message to another.

The four folders are nice to help you categorize your messages or you can transfer them from one folder to another according to priority. I am extremely satisfied with this product. It does what I want it to, is small, quiet, easy to use and I would highly recommend it to others!

"When your system is more toward the cutting edge TiVo falls a little short."

Note that there is little written about how TiVo works or doesn't work when your AV system is more complex than television-vcr-straight cable. We bought the Series2 140 hour DVR thinking it would be perfect for our new plasma tv supported by it's hd digital cable box and cinema surround sound system. What we've found after approximately five hours of moving wires and cables from here to there with three different TiVo representatives is that TiVo doesn't seem to be compatable with systems like ours. It seems that if TiVo is not hooked up directly through the television (BOTH audio and video), there are profound delays between the picture and the sound - - if you get both the picture and the sound. In other words, you cannot watch live television through TiVo where the picture and sound match each other if your entertainment system is complicated, and, although we could get it to record, we have not been able to get the recording to play back with any sound whatsoever. We've tried every wiring configuration with every type of wires the representatives at TiVo could come up with without a desired result (I'm pretty good with wiring myself, too). I suspect it would work if we were willing to eliminate the AV Cinema sound system, but we've already spent a tidy sum on extra equipment with the intention of using it.

The concept is wonderful! The telephone service center at TiVo did have a rather long waiting time (about 1/2 hour on hold), and the reps were helpful, all things considered. But I believe that when your system is more toward the cutting edge TiVo falls a little short. One of the customer service reps I spoke with confessed, when asked, that most of their customers did not have equipment comparable to ours and therefore did not have difficulties in getting their TiVo into working order.

With the remote, the newer equipment (HD cable boxes, HD televisions) come with a 24-pin, not 9-pin port, so the remote control system leaves a lot to be desired. We found that it began to change our channels in a seemingly random fashion and at its own will so it needed to be disabled.

Overall, the experience has not been favorable in this household and the equipment will have to be returned. We're very sorry it won't work out for us.

TiVO has totally enhanced our watching experience. From features like being able to start to watch a show 10 minutes into it's beinr recorded (try that with a VCR), to fast skipping the ads (watch a 1 hour show in only 40 mins) its great. I now have two. You should also get one.

I purchased my first TiVo about five years ago but was so impressed that, when I outgrew it, I didn't think twice about buying a larger size. I gave my old TiVo to a friend who has nothing but rave reviews about it. I have purchased TiVo's as gifts for friends who give it nothing but rave reviews and talk about how easy it is to set up and how it has changed the way they view television.

I enjoy this device because I can set up Wishlists, pre-select shows and just forget the machine. When I finish things I need to get done (working, shopping, cleaning, etc.), I can sit down at the television and watch things that I've selected. If I'm interrupted, I can stop the TiVo and go back later to pick up where I left off. I also enjoy this device because I no longer have to decide whether to watch the educational channels or an entertaining movie. I watch the one I'm in the mood for right now and record the one that I know I'll want to see later. What a wonderful feeling of freedom to know that I can watch something I want to watch when I want to watch it!

Overall I was dissapointed in this camera. The description is not thorough enough. 1.3 Megapixels is for STILL images, and the images are decent but there is no flash so limited when lighting is bad. Video modes are 640x480, 320x240, and 160x120. Probably my biggest dissapointment was that the best video mode, 640x480, only shoots at 8 frames per second, which is very choppy and fuzzy. The other two modes shoot at 15 frames per second, which is a little better but they are small screen sizes. Audio is pretty good. If this was my first digital camera ever I would probably think its ok, but I was looking for an upgrade to the video capabilities of my current digital still camera, and this was not it. I will probably give it to some 10 year old as a gift or to a friend who has never had a digital camera.

I wanted an entirely digital (i.e. no tape) camcorder in order to try out the technology. We're not "camcorder people," so the idea of dropping several hundred dollars on a video camera (Mini-DV, Hi-8, Digital-8, or what have you) wasn't attractive. Surprisingly, there are not a lot of straight-to-memory-card camcorders out there! I thought the Sipix DV100 was exactly what we were looking for.

The other reviews are right. It's sturdy, very small, and it does just what it advertises. It's true that the shutter button is a bit awkwardly located, but a) you only hit it once to start recording, and b) you can brace your thumb against the left side of the camera to make reaching the button easier. The lack of any type of flash makes recording a challenge. The AUTO white balance feature, while a plus, doesn't always compensate, particularly indoors. Outdoors, though, I have no complaints. Resolution is exactly what I expected: 15fps (with a 256Mb SanDisk SD card) at 320x240, and 8fps at 640x480. The microphone does a decent job of picking up sound, most especially for the camera operator (not so much for the subjects). The ability to connect to a TV is great for immediately sharing the results of your recordings, and the USB connection is as fast as I expected. Finally, battery life is tremendous! Whereas my Sony Cybershot still camera drains batteries like there's no tomorrow, this little camcorder is still running on its original batteries after at least 20 minutes of recording, several downloads, and several TV "productions." I realize that this is due in large part to the lack of a flash, but it's still a nice bonus.

The only reason I'd give it 4 rather than 5 stars is the lack of an AC power source. Battery life is great, but it'd be nice to not have to run on batteries every single time you use the camera.

Oh, yeah...you get about 35 minutes of recording at 320x240 on a 256Mb SanDisk SD card.

When I started my family, I bought an 8mm camera. I can probably count the number of times I used it on one hand in the five years I've owned it. It was bulky, needed frequent recharging, and frankly, after a while, I would forget to bring it out. I was looking for something small, digital, and of course inexepensive. I gave the SiPix a shot. I love this little camera. I can take it everywhere and it's very simple to use. The software is also simple, but it doesn't have alot of features. If buying this camera, it is a MUST to purchase a memory stick, at LEAST 256 MB or you can't record video for more than a couple of minutes. Also, there is no flash, so only outside or in lit areas. I was dissapointed that there was no flash or lighting options, and battery life (2 AAs) doesn't last as long as I like (but longer than the 8mm NiMH, how sad). Overall, this camera had performed how I expected it to for the cost. The quality is not the best, but decent, and it works great to record little moments on family trips and the kid's activities. If you are looking for portable, digital, and an inexpensive camera to start with; and can live with "ok" quality, this is the camera to buy. Especially since it's a great starter camera if you're not sure you want to upgrade to digital camcorders because of price. The money you spend on this camera is worth "experimenting" in the digital world, before you upgrade to the "big dogs"

Seriously folks, who wants to spend this much money on a device that turns you into a couch potato, doesn't work right, has a horrible guarantee and reduces your income and mental stability by watching crap like soap operas and other junk

Tivo should rename this product and call it The Automatic Income Reducer.

WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY.

When I first got my TiVo I didn't know what to expect from it, I've read many review stating that it has changed that persons life. I though that those people were just TiVo sales people hyping up what looked to be just a VCR on steroids. But when I started up my TiVo and got the 299.99 service lifetime fee I notice right away that TiVo would make a major difference in my life. Instead of rushing home to watch a show I could take my time knowing that TiVo had everything covered. Plus the feature that allows you to pause rewind and fast forward is worth the fee itself, imagine skipping through any irritating TV commercials or the boring parts of baseball and basketball games, or how about rewinding and using slow motion to watch that NASCAR crash again and again, or that dunk over and over. Imagine never missing your favorite shows and having quality entertainment in your TiVo 24 hours a day. All you have to do is watch it before it gets deleted for space. (Space is the one drawback, if I knew how many shows I would want to record I would have gotten the 80 hour TiVo)It is the greatest thing out there and is so simplistic anyone could use it.

The thing that separates this DVR from all the others are the Season Pass Manager(It records an entire season of episodes such as all of Friends, Survivor, or The Daily Show), The constant service updates that makes sure the show gets recorded even if the TV schedule changes, The View by Actor/ or Actress Feature, and once again the simplicity of the TiVo separates all the poorly made dvr's out there. If you are thinking of buying a dvr don't make a mistake and buy something other than TiVo.

The only bad thing about the box is that there is a small delay when you change channels, and the 299.99 lifetime service fee or 12.95 monthly service fee may seem way too much but after you start using it you'll see that it is worth it.

PS. The remote control in my opinion is like the frosting on the cake. It is very easy to use after the small learning curve.

It has changed my leisure time. The only "live" TV I watch anymore is Fox & Friends and the Weather Channel. The way it fast-forwards through the commercials then knows where to start again when I hit the play button is fantastic. I save several segments of favorite programs then watch them in succession during one evening like a couple of movies. I think that a better set up than this, however, would be to get it integrated with your satellite box so that you could watch one program while recording another. (You can do it with cable and non-premium channels but not with satellite.) Set it up to find your favorite actors or actresses and you'll see them in lots of stuff "before they were famous." Jack Nicholson on Andy Griffith? (Played the role of a 19 year old on trial, Aunt Bea was on the jury.) Wow, what a hoot. I find the quality to be more than adequate but I might not feel that way when the plasma screen gets installed. On my current old 23" I can't tell the difference between recorded and live - picture or sound.

Seriously folks, who wants to spend this much money on a device that turns you into a couch potato, doesn't work right, has a horrible guarantee and reduces your income and mental stability by watching crap like soap operas and other junk

Tivo should rename this product and call it The Automatic Income Reducer.

WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY.

When I first got my TiVo I didn't know what to expect from it, I've read many review stating that it has changed that persons life. I though that those people were just TiVo sales people hyping up what looked to be just a VCR on steroids. But when I started up my TiVo and got the 299.99 service lifetime fee I notice right away that TiVo would make a major difference in my life. Instead of rushing home to watch a show I could take my time knowing that TiVo had everything covered. Plus the feature that allows you to pause rewind and fast forward is worth the fee itself, imagine skipping through any irritating TV commercials or the boring parts of baseball and basketball games, or how about rewinding and using slow motion to watch that NASCAR crash again and again, or that dunk over and over. Imagine never missing your favorite shows and having quality entertainment in your TiVo 24 hours a day. All you have to do is watch it before it gets deleted for space. (Space is the one drawback, if I knew how many shows I would want to record I would have gotten the 80 hour TiVo)It is the greatest thing out there and is so simplistic anyone could use it.

The thing that separates this DVR from all the others are the Season Pass Manager(It records an entire season of episodes such as all of Friends, Survivor, or The Daily Show), The constant service updates that makes sure the show gets recorded even if the TV schedule changes, The View by Actor/ or Actress Feature, and once again the simplicity of the TiVo separates all the poorly made dvr's out there. If you are thinking of buying a dvr don't make a mistake and buy something other than TiVo.

The only bad thing about the box is that there is a small delay when you change channels, and the 299.99 lifetime service fee or 12.95 monthly service fee may seem way too much but after you start using it you'll see that it is worth it.

PS. The remote control in my opinion is like the frosting on the cake. It is very easy to use after the small learning curve.

It has changed my leisure time. The only "live" TV I watch anymore is Fox & Friends and the Weather Channel. The way it fast-forwards through the commercials then knows where to start again when I hit the play button is fantastic. I save several segments of favorite programs then watch them in succession during one evening like a couple of movies. I think that a better set up than this, however, would be to get it integrated with your satellite box so that you could watch one program while recording another. (You can do it with cable and non-premium channels but not with satellite.) Set it up to find your favorite actors or actresses and you'll see them in lots of stuff "before they were famous." Jack Nicholson on Andy Griffith? (Played the role of a 19 year old on trial, Aunt Bea was on the jury.) Wow, what a hoot. I find the quality to be more than adequate but I might not feel that way when the plasma screen gets installed. On my current old 23" I can't tell the difference between recorded and live - picture or sound.

Seriously folks, who wants to spend this much money on a device that turns you into a couch potato, doesn't work right, has a horrible guarantee and reduces your income and mental stability by watching crap like soap operas and other junk

Tivo should rename this product and call it The Automatic Income Reducer.

WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY.

When I first got my TiVo I didn't know what to expect from it, I've read many review stating that it has changed that persons life. I though that those people were just TiVo sales people hyping up what looked to be just a VCR on steroids. But when I started up my TiVo and got the 299.99 service lifetime fee I notice right away that TiVo would make a major difference in my life. Instead of rushing home to watch a show I could take my time knowing that TiVo had everything covered. Plus the feature that allows you to pause rewind and fast forward is worth the fee itself, imagine skipping through any irritating TV commercials or the boring parts of baseball and basketball games, or how about rewinding and using slow motion to watch that NASCAR crash again and again, or that dunk over and over. Imagine never missing your favorite shows and having quality entertainment in your TiVo 24 hours a day. All you have to do is watch it before it gets deleted for space. (Space is the one drawback, if I knew how many shows I would want to record I would have gotten the 80 hour TiVo)It is the greatest thing out there and is so simplistic anyone could use it.

The thing that separates this DVR from all the others are the Season Pass Manager(It records an entire season of episodes such as all of Friends, Survivor, or The Daily Show), The constant service updates that makes sure the show gets recorded even if the TV schedule changes, The View by Actor/ or Actress Feature, and once again the simplicity of the TiVo separates all the poorly made dvr's out there. If you are thinking of buying a dvr don't make a mistake and buy something other than TiVo.

The only bad thing about the box is that there is a small delay when you change channels, and the 299.99 lifetime service fee or 12.95 monthly service fee may seem way too much but after you start using it you'll see that it is worth it.

PS. The remote control in my opinion is like the frosting on the cake. It is very easy to use after the small learning curve.

It has changed my leisure time. The only "live" TV I watch anymore is Fox & Friends and the Weather Channel. The way it fast-forwards through the commercials then knows where to start again when I hit the play button is fantastic. I save several segments of favorite programs then watch them in succession during one evening like a couple of movies. I think that a better set up than this, however, would be to get it integrated with your satellite box so that you could watch one program while recording another. (You can do it with cable and non-premium channels but not with satellite.) Set it up to find your favorite actors or actresses and you'll see them in lots of stuff "before they were famous." Jack Nicholson on Andy Griffith? (Played the role of a 19 year old on trial, Aunt Bea was on the jury.) Wow, what a hoot. I find the quality to be more than adequate but I might not feel that way when the plasma screen gets installed. On my current old 23" I can't tell the difference between recorded and live - picture or sound.

I wanted something for my wife and me to better manage our TV viewing, yet I'm completely against paying a monthly-fee for recording TV programs. The Toshiba SD-H400 with TiVo Basic turned out to be a perfect product for us, until Media Center PCs go mainstream.

I didn't really need another DVD player at home (we already have 5 other stand-alone DVD players), but if that's the only way to get TiVo Basic service, so be it. Plus, the price I paid for this Toshiba (no rebate) is only (a bit) more than a stand-alone Series 2 TiVo (after rebate). For (the money), I got a progressive-scan DVD player, progressive output for TiVo, AND free life-time subscription to TiVo Basic service. What a bargain.

TiVo Basic Service:
Okay, so I don't get the Season Pass feature. However, once you're set to record a show (say, Friends at 8PM this Thursday), you can navigate to the To-Do list and select that program, and change the recording option to "Repeat this recording". Change it to weekly, then you're all set. The only risk if that if NBC changes the time of Friends to 9 due to say the State of the Union Address, then you'll record 30 minutes worth of a bunch of people clapping at nothing. But that's a risk I'm willing to take.

One feature I don't get with the Basic service is the show search feature. However, we got the TiVo to help with managing the shows that we KNOW we want to watch. With young children, we really don't have time to watch the programs that we didn't want to watch in the first place but are suggested to us. So I won't miss that feature. For new movies we have had Netflix 4-disc service since 2000. You can always navigate using the program guide to set up recording if you want to watch something.

If you visit TiVo forums such as tivocommunity.com, you'll see that other TiVo owners complaining about the fact that you can no longer use TiVo Series 2 for anything, including manual recording, without paying the (monthly) fee. With the Toshiba SD-H400, not only you can use it for manual recording, you have a 3-day program guide available to you over the phone or wireless network.

If the Plus features are important to you, then you can always upgrade to the full TiVo feature for the same fee as a stand-alone Series 2. It goes without saying that we have no intention of upgrading.

To get program guide via wireless network:
My Toshiba came with version 5.1.1 of the TiVo software, but version 5.1.1b is required for the newer version of the Linksys USB Wireless Adapter (v 2.8). It took a few tries to download the new version of the TiVo software. It would have done it over night, but I was impatient and wanted to pull the sw manually. Note that landline is required to get the software upgrade.

To record one channel while watching another:
I can watch a different channel than the one I'm recording because I split my cable signal so that one cable goes to the Toshiba and one goes to the TV. While recording on the Toshiba, I can use the regular TV remote to switch to other channels.

Any cons?
Remote: The Toshiba remote is not as nicely designed as that of the TiVo, which had just been recognized by the NY Times as one piece of industrial design mastery. The Toshiba remote is long and hard to use if you change channel via numeral buttons often.

Wireless adapter: Since the TiVo software it comes with is version 5.1.1, it does not support the newer versions of the Linksys USB wireless adapter (I got a v. 2.8). You will need a landline to download a new TiVo software to upgrade to version 5.1.1b for the Toshiba to recognize your network adapter.

Video extraction or copying: Like the stand-alone TiVo Series 2, there is no easy way of extracting the recorded video from the Toshiba device without opening it up (voiding the warranty) and load some files onto the base Linux operating system. The only other way is to video capture (analog cable to digital to analog to digital again) it back into a PC. Not the most elegant solution.

Upgrade: according to TiVo specialists at Weaknees, it's not simple to upgrade the HD on the Toshiba. You can replace the 80G HD with a larger one, but it will not see beyond the first 80G. Weaknees is working on a solution.

The Toshiba SD-H400 has changed the way I watch TV, as I look back, I can't imagine watching broadcast TV with out it. As I evaluated my purchase, I read all of the review here, and found some to be very helpful, and others to be way off, here are my experiences;

1) Wireless / Wired Network support: It works, just not right out of the box. You have to connect via a phone line twice, once to subscribe to TIVO, the next to download the "b" version of the software with allows for connection via network. Once that's done, it's as simple as plugging in the adapter into the USB port and pressing a few buttons on the remote. Worked the first time.

2) Noise from fan: Yes, there is a fan, and it makes a slight noise, I have a Sony digital cable box that is alot louder so the low hum from the Toshiba is hardly a concern for me, if it was, I'd put all the components in a rack behind glass as others suggest.

3) Lack of tuner or cable box: This is a little kludgey, as the H400 expects you to set up IR connectors in front of your cable or satellite box. The other problem is the H400 only addesses two and three channel cable tuners, my Sony happens to use four digits for the channel number and the result is a delay in channel changing as the cable box waits for the timeout for the 4th digit before switching channels, minor annoyance when surfing.

4) Inability to record and watch different shows. I overcame this by splitting my cable signal and running one line into the H400 and the other into my TV. But it would have been nice if there way some way within the box to handle this.

5) TIVO: This is awesome, the ability to set up recordings and not worry about tapes, rewinding, and such is a dream come true. Just press a few buttons on the remote, and TIVO does the rest, can't ask for more. I may even upgrade to the plus service for the Season pass and other benefits.

6) No more commercials: Like to watch alot of shows but don't have the time, this device will cut your tv viewing in half, or allow you to watch twice as many shows. My wife and I start watching TV between 8:30 - 9:00, which is just enough time to get you to 11:00 and fast forward through all the commercials. That 2 hour American Idol really only lasts 55 minutes when you get rid of the intro's and commercials, its great.

7) Remote: Ergonomically, it's not perfect. The zero (0) is to the right of the numbers as opposed to the bottom, and the numbers are in two rows as opposed to the normal 3 or 4 on most remotes which can be annoying. The buttons are almost all the same size and feel except for the TIVO button, so until you get used to the button placement, keep a light on. This is probably my biggest gripe with the unit.

8) Progressive Scan DVD Player: Nice add-in would have been ok if it didn't have one or would have preferred a recordable DVD, but given the price, it's a nice freebie. Works great, though others have said they had problems with certain media.

Overall, I highly recommend the product, if they improved the remote, or added a recordable dvd or extra tuner, I would have given it 5 stars.

I've had it for about a week and did not have any problems setting the system up. I was able to sign into the Tivo service quickly and am in the processing of connecting it into the wireless network and removing the phone lines.

For those who would like to simplfy their electronic gadgets for their TV, this is an excellent product. I was able to free up a DVD player for another TV in the house.

This Panasonic DVD/digital video recorder is great! I haven't had the problem described (concerning the TV guide feature)--but note that this feature only works with the cable directly attached to the unit (cannot be hooked up to a digital cable box). The TV guide feature does not work with satellite either. TV guide feature is awesome...and you don't need a phone line (like TIVO). See epinions.com for my expanded review http://www.epinions.com/content_143539670660

Best thing since sliced bread. No idea why other reviewers whinge and whine. Granted the TV guide feature does not include ALL channels, but that is not the fault of the hardware; more likely a channel or cable supplier specific shortcoming. Of course, then you have to spend 5 seconds more on the recorder set up!
Although I am not an avid TV viewer (life is too bloody short) this device has ensured recording of sporting events and quality movies/dramas (etc. - add as appropriate) a breeze.

After our 8 year old DVD player finally began to have problems, I decided to get this DVD recorder despite my fears of quirky behavior in fairly new technology. All my fears were unfounded, and I love this new piece of electronics. For us cheap guys with just basic cable, the TV Guide feature worked immediately to provide us with both great show info and great ease of recording shows. It's just as easy to watch the recordings, and the DVD player quality is wonderful with our home theater setup. I highly recommend this Panasonic to anyone who can afford the price (nicely improved upon by Amazon, of course).