After reading the negative reviews, I was somewhat cautious about buying this machine. However, I recently acquired a DVR and wanted to save my recordings, and I was hoping for an inexpensive, but quality product.

The Panasonic DMR-ES15S filled my bill. It installed easily and works smoothly. The instructions were easy to understand, and within 5 minutes I was storing my shows. I felt like the on-screen prompts were somewhat simplified... I thought pretty much idiot proof, and it alerts you when you are about to delete or permanently store a DVD. I feel like an added bonus is that it will also format your DVD's to the desired format (you don't have to pick and choose, it will just do it upon waiting for your prompt), and finalizing the disk will let your DVD play on most machines. That saves you the problems about worrying if this machine only works with DVD-R, or DVD+R formats.

I've found little difference in video quality between the recording modes: 1, 2, 4, and 8 hours. I personally record most everything on 4 hour, and the playback quality is exceptional. I've recorded over 200 hours of programming now and have had no problems, and I learn a few more "bells and whistles" about this machine as I go. Simple things like: Changing the thumbnail on your presentation menu. Don't worry, this is an extra, and you don't need to do anything about it for this machine to perform for you.

The ONLY problem I had with this machine was within the first 5-6 recordings. Every 5-6 minutes or so, I would see a quick blue flash on the playback. If I had saved my recordings, I probably would have re-recorded them. However, after the first few times, this annoyance quit, and I've had no problems since.

I've also found out that this machine will serve as I slide projector for JPEGs and play internet movies, too, but the drives runs continuously (it howls!), so I don't do this very often.