Customer Reviews
Best DVD Recorder we've owned! 
2008-05-07
...and we've owned three different brands in the last 5 years.
This machine plays ANYTHING we throw at it (stuff recorded on two other DVD recorders---a year-old Liteon model, and a four-year old phillips dvdr75 which died two years ago!): dvd+r, dvd+rw, dvd-r, dvd-rw). Of course, retail DVDs look great too.
It has an awesome ATSC tuner (auto-set-up worked and found all channels), and receives dozens of HD channels here in the Los Angeles area. Timer function works great---no faiulures.
We've had it for about two months, and made over 65 recordings---not a single "coaster" ever.
We use the HDMI output (this machine comes with its own HDMI cable--a real value).
The XP (1 hour speed) looks very clean, the SP is very good, and the EP (6 hour) is a little pixelated, but not terribly.
We've copied DVDs to VHS, and I've made direct VHS recordings---all look as good as one would expect VHS to look.
I think We'll buy another DMR-EZ48, so that when this one wears out, we'll be assured of complete compatibility and interoperability of all my discs.
Potentially great product next month - took mine back today 
2008-04-24
Luckily I did not buy this from Amazon, because my wife would have no part of it and demanded I take it back to the local store. After using it for a few days I feel like I have been a pre-beta tester of buggy machine firmware. Here are a few of my issues in order of annoyance...
1) Switching channels with the up/down keys ranges from slow to pathetically slow. Switching between analog channels takes about a second. Switching from an analog to HD channel takes of order five seconds. When switching from analog to HD channel, for instance from 15 to 16.1 HD, you will first see the 16.1 HD on the channel number display, then you may see 2.1 HD which is the last HD channel you were looking at. Then it goes back and finally shows you the picture for 16.1 (if you are patient and don't press any buttons while it is doing this).
2) If you are impatient switching from analog 15 to 16.1 HD and happen to press the up channel button while the tuner is displaying the 2.1 HD channel number you may find yourself looking at channel 3. An impatient channel surfer like my wife may never know that there are channels above the second HD channel, and will spend almost the whole night looking at a blank screen.
3) It hung and require a power off restart playing it's first DVD movie.
4) If there is a DVD in the drive on power up it will start playing it, and if the menu's on that DVD do not allow button pressing you are stuck watching the anti-piracy message and the like. Pressing the eject button at this time led to an "internal error" that required the unit to restart with it's lengthy error checking mode (roughly 5 minutes of zero's across the screen).
Going on seems a bit of overkill - and I did not have the chance to try out all the functions... The picture was phenominal though - this was my first try at HD TV, but as CNN recently pointed out the HD broadcast channels tend to broadcast black sidebars when they as usual broadcast 4:3 content over their widescreen HD electronics, and this box does not know that the black should not be displayed, leaving a tiny 4:3 image in a sea of black screen. The zoom is useful, but it is well hidden in a submenu and has only one setting, on or off. The single zoom ratio appears to turn 16:9 into 4:3 with the sides cropped off - the picture quality appears to suffer.
When and if Panasonic provides a firmware upgrade and adds a more useful zoom feature, perhaps one that remembers it's setting for each channel as some of the $49 set-top boxes do this may become a fine product. I am not sure there are any great alternatives out there. My receiver does not have HDMI switching, so I need a box that outputs all the TV signals over the HDMI output, which is not guaranteed in today's offerings from other companies.
One curious fact is that this item is no longer stocked or carried on the website of my favorite electronics chain (I think it was a few weeks back). On the Panasonic website it is listed as being available in June.
Nighrmare, don't do it! 2008-04-09
While the tuner is good, the product utterly defective. I have spent 3 weeks on the phone with tech support, initially being told that they KNOW has issues with scientific america cable box, but that disk will FIX all. No. Locks up, unbelievably slow to respond even when it does. I cannot believe how bad. Went online, found others, same issues. yet they offer to REPAIR my brand new recorder? How can you REPAIR a manufacturing problem? Returning for full refund. Sadly last year's model, highest ratings, not available.
Finally a DVD recorder that actually works 2008-04-07
Finally a DVD recorder that actually works and is pretty easy to operate. Thus far I have tried recording from VHS to DVD several times with out any problems. One just can not beat the two button recording sequence. You press the specified VHS->DVD record button located on the front of the unit then you either press the record button to play until the DVD is maxed out and finalize the recording automatically or the play button that will allow you to stop the recording, finalize at a later time, add VHS content from another VHS tape, etc. My pops that is not tech savvy at all has managed to work the unit. He is smiling that he can now convert his 20 year old VHS tapes to DVD
A must have is DVD-RAM discs. Allows one to tape broadcast content to view at a later time then delete and record again. I am still trying to find a PC program that will allow me to take DVD-RAM content and edit it on a PC. I have tried Adobe Premiere without any results (does not recognize the file format. If anyone knows please advise.
Follow up will come soon after more usage.
AWESOME MACHINE! 2008-03-27
The auto scan flawlessly found all the analog and unscrambled digital channels offered by Comcast in my area. It does not have an HD tuner but does capture the widescreen 16:9 signals. If you record on DVD-RAM (not -R, -RW, +R, or +RW) it will record the widescreen picture. Three added bonuses for using DVD-RAM are "Chasing Playback," which allows you to watch a program from the beginning while the machine continues to record the remainder of it; more editing options; and the ability to selectively erase individual programs from the disc and then record new shows in the deleted space. You can find 10-packs of Panasonic DVD-RAMs online (item #LM-AF120LU10) for about $19; Amazon has a 5-pack (LM-AF120LU5) for about $10. The discs are rated for 100,000 re-recording cycles, versus about 1,000 for R/RW! Don't expect to find them in stores (which baffles me).
I found the menus and remote control to be quite intuitive. This is also the quietest DVD recorder I have used. The machine is loaded with features, including upconversion all the way to 1080p if you use the HDMI connection. One of its best capabilities is that Panasonic engineered the 4-hour LP recording speed of the DVD drive to provide the same playback quality as the 2-hour SP speed! No, the VHS recorder does not record digital broadcasts, but who cares with the great playback quality of the DVD drive? I'm using the VHS to dub my old tapes over to DVD.
We interrupt this review for a helpful note...a couple years ago I learned from personal experience (and a Comcast technician) that digital signals are more "fragile" than analog ones. My first lesson occurred when I was connecting my new Sony HDTV. Some of the digital channels were very unstable and would cycle between displaying and going to black, or showed significant digital artifacts. That problem was caused by my brand new high end surge suppressor, which included f-jacks for cable protection. The suppressor's internal cable protection circuitry altered the signal slightly, causing the problem. The tech connected the TV directly to the cable wall outlet, bypassing the suppressor, and the signal was perfect. (Note: always plug your AC power cords into a surge suppressor!) I had to recall my second lesson when hooking up my DMR-EZ48V. At first, a couple of the digital sub-channels in my area (21.1, 33.3) could not be received. I remembered that I had used an existing push-on type coax for my cable connection from the wall outlet to the machine. My bad. I replaced it with one of the cables the Comcast tech had made for me for future use, with screw on f-connectors, and all reception was perfect! We return now to my review of the DMR-EZ48V...
I have not seen any digital artifacts during playback on my Sony HDTV. The instruction manual gives you details for tweaking the machine and fixing many possible problems (I had none) by using the large array of accessible menu options. This machine may not be right for a technophobic individual, but for an enthusiast it is great!
Can't record in VR format on DVD-RW, so what's the point? 2008-06-22
I got this unit as one of the replacement possibilities in the saga that was trying to replace the lemon that was the Samsung DVD-VR357 (see my review for that for the full story), but returned it promptly for one simple reason.
I used to do a lot of recording of TV shows onto DVD-RWs because I could edit the commercials out of the final product easily and permanently.
In order to do that, they must be recorded in DVD-VR format. This unit will only record DVD-RWs in DVD-V format, where this sort of editing is not possible...so what's the point?
Very short life span - better buy the extended warranty 
2008-06-17
I bought the DRM-EZ48V about 14 months ago and the DVD recording bit the dust, 2 months after the manufacturer warranty expired. On the average, I used it everyday for about 1 hr. of recording and 1 hr. of playback. I continued to do the recording using the VHS for about 3 months and the HDMI interface failed yesterday. I am totally disappointed about the reliability of this product. If you are thinking about buying this DVD/VHS recorder, I advise you to seriously consider purchasing the extended warranty, either from Panasonic or from the store, inorder to have a piece of mind.
Be Wary If Transferring VHS 
2008-05-13
I purchased this mainly to transfer home movies. Unfortunately, Panasonic has decided that it knows better than you do. They have programmed the machine to divide recordings whenever a break in the video occurs. This means that your two-hour home video is going to be automatically divided into about 16 parts and there is no option to disable it. Each division causes a loss in the beginning of the next part.
You will have to plug a separate VCR into the unit to be certain of uninterrupted recording. Of course, you might as well buy any DVD recorder if you are going to do that and pay much less. The DVD recording quality is good - as good as just about any other recorder.
Too bad: Panasonic built a good concept, but they forgot to give the consumer the freedom to decide how to record.
Lunchbag letdown - returned it. 2008-05-11
Panasonic DMR-EZ48VK 1080p Upconverting VHS DVD Recorder with Built In Tuner
I was looking for a VHS/DVD combo unit to replace an older Sanyo combo unit.
After searching around, discovered the Panasonic DMR-EZ48VK. It was a toss-up between it and a Sony RDR-VXD655. The Panasonic was a little less
expensive and more readily available in my area - Detroit.
The DMR-EZ48VK seemed to have all the bells & whistles required: VHS & DVD recording, dubbing, USB port, SD card port, NTSC & ATSC tuning.
I recall other reviewers noting the instructions were difficult, but wasn't dissuaded. They were right, however. It was even worse for my wife and two kids who were totally frustrated with the machine.
I managed to work through all the various functionalities, but there were
some annoying issues that came up.
1. The only way to view the current time on the display was when the unit was turned off.
2. During DVD playback, a DVD icon box kept appearing in the upper right area of the TV screen every couple of minutes.
3. Every once in awhile the tuner would go screwy. After entering the desired channel on the remote, more of the same digits entered would appear on the display. In order to get to the actual channel I wanted, I
had to shut the unit down and try again.
4. Forget about channel surfing. There is too much of a lag between pushing the + channel key and the channel actually appearing. If you press the + key three times in a row for example, to go up three channels, the unit seemed to get 'confused' and stop at the 2nd channel up. This seems to me like a software/firmware issue.
5. If a channel was selected by the numeric keys, the channel icon box
would appear showing the channel selected, but then show another channel,
then go back to the original channel selected. Again, seems like a software/firmware issue.
When the unit was working reasonably, the sound was good and picture quality was very good.
After three weeks, I gave up on the unit and returned it to Target.
It seems the combo units with digital tuners are a bit too new to be buying right now. Perhaps in another 6 months, before the Feb 2009 digital station deadline, will be the time to look for other units on the market.
While well intentioned, I think Panasonic jumped the gun in order to put
something in the market, rather than putting through rigid testing and
quality controls.
Great Recorder 2008-05-08
Had this unit for about 4 months, never had a problem with it. Slow on the startup, but records great.
