Panasonic DMRHS2

...DVD player. But it's a Panasonic so picture quality is assured. The DVD Player plays DVD-R disks and also plays a Panasonic proprietary format called DVD-RAM.

DVD Ram is simply a Panasonic alternative to -RW format. It only plays in other Panasonic equipment so it's not worth talking too much about it. Suffice to say that the RAM discs allow you to repeatedly record/erase recordings. (Don't forget the -R disks can only be recorded ...
...disks allow the following recording lengths
1 hr - XP
2 hrs - SP
4 hrs - LP
6 hrs - EP

There's also a Flexible Recording mode that calculates a recording quality that is based on the amount of available disk space.

At the back of the machine is an optical output socket which allows you to connect to a Home Theatre system to give you True 5.1 Surround Sound. (Scart sockets aren't enough ... more

This is a pretty old DVD player now and since I bought this about 3 years ago it's been superseded by newer models.

However it's still worth reading this review because the only real difference between this and the newer models is that the size of the hard drive has increased and perhaps the odd memory card reader has been added.

From my other reviews people have probably guessed that I'm into gadgets, and that I am what's called an 'early adopter' and that I only buy the best that is available at the time.

Well 3 years ago there were video recorders, DVD players and one or two DVD recorders. When I bought this beast it cost me nearly £700 and the reason it cost so much was that it was the FIRST DVD Recorder that recorded both onto DVD's and an internal Hard Drive.

Recording onto a hard drive had unique advantages over video recorders. The main advantage is that you can set the machine recording and when you feel like it you can rewind the recording to any point you wish and start watching it again whilst the machine CONTINUES to record. Sounds complicated but let me give you an example of the usefulness of this.

Imagine you're watching EastEnders and the phone rings just at the point when Den's head is about to be smashed open by his nasty wife. Now before this machine came along there was only one option. Obviously you simply wouldn't answer the phone.

However with the time-slip functionality you can start recording EastEnders, answer the phone and when you finish the call, you can use the remote to go back to the beginning to the point where you started recording and start watching the program again. AT THE SAME TIME, the machine continues to record what's happening right now. So in effect, you've simply slipped time 10 minutes backwards. You're watching a recording of EastEnders but EasterEnders is still being recorded whilst you watch it!!.

With this functionality you can rewind and fast forward willy-nilly whilst recording continues and not miss a thing.

Now Sky+ allows you to do this so what's the big deal. Well the big deal is that Sky+ costs an initial amount of money to purchase in the first place and then there's a £10 subscription per month for the privilege of using it. Doesn't seem fair does it?. £120 per year just to be able to use their hard drive. Complete rip off.

Well with these Hard Disk recorders you get the Sky+ functionality but with a built in DVD Player/Recorder.

The DVD Player has two modes of operations; DVD or HD.
The first plays DVD's and the second plays whatever happens to be on the Hard Drive.

When playing back from the hard drive you press the menu button on the remote and this gives you a scrolling list of all the contents arranged in chronological order. You can enter names for each recording if you wish. If you record using the Timer option (just like a video recorder) then the name of the program being recorded is entered automatically by the DVD Player. So one more advantage of this over video is that you can go straight to a recording intead of having to fast forward or rewind.

You can if you wish record directly onto a recordable DVD. The source can either be the TV signal or you can initially record stuff onto the Hard Drive and then record onto the DVD. This is handy because when you record to the hard drive, the DVD player has a basic editing facility where you can cut bits of a program out (e.g. adverts). Another example of the usefulness of this is the editing of camcorder footage. I can transfer all my camcorder footage onto the hard drive, cut out the boring bits and put it all back together again. When you are finally ready to burn your recording from the hard drive onto the DVD you can if you wish set up a basic menu on the DVD (a bit like the DVD movies you buy). You can if you wish divide the recording up into 'chapters' and name each chapter.

The menu system lets you know how much recording time is available on the hard drive.
Because there are different recording options you can get varying lengths of recordings on to the hard drive. At the lowest quality you can get 52 hours. I keep mine set at standard which gives you about 17 hours

Okay so that's time-slip and hard drives covered. So what else does it do?

Well it's a DVD player. But it's a Panasonic so picture quality is assured. The DVD Player plays DVD-R disks and also plays a Panasonic proprietary format called DVD-RAM.

DVD Ram is simply a Panasonic alternative to -RW format. It only plays in other Panasonic equipment so it's not worth talking too much about it. Suffice to say that the RAM discs allow you to repeatedly record/erase recordings. (Don't forget the -R disks can only be recorded to once).

The single sided -R disks allow the following recording lengths
1 hr - XP
2 hrs - SP
4 hrs - LP
6 hrs - EP

There's also a Flexible Recording mode that calculates a recording quality that is based on the amount of available disk space.

At the back of the machine is an optical output socket which allows you to connect to a Home Theatre system to give you True 5.1 Surround Sound. (Scart sockets aren't enough to ensure quality). Because I don't like extra wires/cables etc at the back of my TV, when I bought my TV I choose one with built in 5.1 Surround Sound and I insured myself against future developments by making sure the TV had an Optical Input.

So my DVD player has an Optical output and my TV has an input. Connect the two together and hey presto I have 5.1 Surround Sound at home without the need for a separate Home Theatre system. This means that the optical output on my DVD player has saved me a considerable amount of money because I don't need a separate home cinema system and its also saved me from have yet more additional ugly wires all over the place. I'm not trying to be smug about this stuff but trying to show how simple things like a little socket at the back of a DVD player and TV are important in the long term when choosing products like TVs, DVD Players, Computers etc. These days only the cheapest DVD Players come without an Optical Audio output socket.

There are two scart sockets at the back and also Video In/Out sockets.
Theres also RGB In/Out sockets and it also supports S-Video In/Out.

The DVD Player also allows you to store photographs on it. These can be input using the PC Card slot at the front of the machine. I purchased a couple of converters that convert my Smart Media and Compact Flash memory cards into a PC Card and I just stick that in the slot and can then use the menu system to copy the pictures onto the hard drive.
Once on the hard drive you can set up a series of directories and organise your photos for later viewing on the TV. You can even set up a slide show which loops continuously through your photo collection.

As I said earlier this is a pretty old model now and only second hand ones are available. But the next models up are essentially the same but have large hard drives.

So I'd recommend this model to anyone without hesitation and also the current models on the assumption that they can only improve on this machine.

Sorry Elffriend. This is yet another gadget review. Next one will be a book. Promise. :) 

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