dkozin's Full Review: Panasonic DMR-ES10 DVD Recorder
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 photos of the ES10 that I took upon its arrival at
You can copy and paste the above address into your browser's address area. The photos show the front of the recorder with all accessories it came with as well as the rear panel with connectors.
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.
Single-disc DVD player/recorder with DVD-RAM, DVD-R/RW, and DVD+R recording capabilities Plays DVD-Video, DVD-Audio (2-channel only), DVD+RW, video CD...More at Amazon Marketplace
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