Audio Video News

Panasonic's new DMR-E95H is the company's most feature-rich DVD recorder yet. The latest addition to the 2004 "DIGA" line, the DMR-E95H features a 160GB hard drive capable of up to 284 hours of recording time. It can record onto both DVD-RAM and DVD-R discs.

Unlike with digital video recorders from TiVo or ReplayTV, users of the DMR-E95H can choose programs to be recorded up to eight days in advance without a telephone line connection or subscription fee, simply by using the machine's "TV Guide On Screen Electronic Program Guide," a new addition this year to Panasonic's line of DIGA DVD Recorders, also found on the DMR-E85H and the DMR-E65S.

The DMR-E95H also features a new "Direct Navigator," an on-screen guide that presents content stored on a disc in easy-to-review thumbnails. Pressing the Direct Navigator button brings up the thumbnails of all the programs on a disc for easy play selection. Carryover features from earlier DIGA models include "time slip, chasing playback and simultaneous record & play." All these features are available when using either the DMR-E95H's 160GB hard disk drive or a DVD-RAM disc. For versatility, the DMR-E95H has SD and PCMCIA memory slots and a DVI connector. The SD card slot allows direct display of JPEG "slide shows."

The 160GB hard drive is the largest yet in a Panasonic DVD recorder, providing up to 36 hours of recording time in "XP," the highest-quality recording mode. It's also capable of up to 284 hours in "EP," or extra-long recording mode. A 4.7GB DVD-RAM or DVD-R disc can hold up to 1 hour of video recording in XP mode or 8 hours in EP, and a 9.4GB double-sided DVD-RAM disc can hold up to 2 hours in XP and up to 16 hours in EP mode. DIGA DVD recorders support recordable DVD-RAM and DVD-R, and can play back DVD-Video, music CDs, video CDs and CD-R/CD-RW, and MP3 formatted discs. The DMR-E95H also plays back DVD-Audio discs in stereo (two channels).

Dubbing recordings from hard drive to DVD is a one-touch operation - at high speed if preferred, 12x real time to a DVD-RAM disc or 24x real time to a DVD-R. Panasonic claims that the DMR-E95H can copy a one-hour program to DVD-RAM in just 5 minutes or to DVD-R in just 2.5 minutes. Copying functions are dependent of the copy-control code embedded in the program.

Simultaneously with the announcement of the DMR-E95H, Panasonic released news of its new 5x DVD-RAM discs for the next generation of faster DVD drives and recorders, including DVD Multi drives. The new discs are said to "offer a significant leap in data transfer speed over current rewritable DVD-RAM discs." The new discs will be available in 4.7GB and 9.4GB capacities, in either cartridge or non-cartridge configuration. Rewrite capability is up to 100,000 uses.