Matthew Panton

The good: Slim module can be mounted out-of-sight on back of the television; reliable, hiccup-free video streaming; works seamlessly with Sony’s XMB interface; supports Amazon Video On Demand; a lot of free content.

The bad: Only compatible with select Sony televisions; sluggish interface and poorly designed menus; most of the content can be freely accessed from the Internet; free content is mostly lackluster; video quality is poor in many instances; doesn’t stream media from a PC; superior alternatives available.

The bottom line: The Sony Bravia Internet Video Link (DMX-NV1) will stream Web video and Amazon Video On Demand to your Bravia HDTV, but its slow interface and limited content options will have you looking at alternatives.

• Reviewed by: Matthew Panton
• Edited by: Matthew Moskovciak
• Reviewed on: 10/02/2008
• Released on: 03/26/2008

The moment Sony’s Bravia Internet Video Link (also known as the BIVL or DMX-NV1) was announced last year, we knew the product would face an uphill battle. What could Sony’s proprietary video streamer offer that you can’t already get from Apple TV, Xbox 360, Sony PS3, Vudu, or the Netflix Player from Roku? Well, Sony’s main answer is free content. While most network media streamers focus on movie rentals or subscription services, the BIVL’s backbone is bringing content freely available on the Web–from places such as YouTube, Blip.TV, CBS, and Sports illustrated–and putting it on your HDTV. Recently Sony announced the addition of Amazon’s Video On Demand service, giving you the option of renting in addition to the free content.

That might sound good on paper, but using the device is a whole different story. First off, most of the free content is lackluster–the video quality is poor, many of the clips are short, and most of the content just isn’t compelling. Secondly, finding the content is difficult as the interface is sluggish and much of the content is haphazardly categorized and out-of-date. If the BIVL still sounds enticing, you may be disappointed to find that it only works with recent Sony Bravia LCDs–you can’t just add it to any old HDTV. That leaves a pretty small audience of people who would still be interested in BIVL. Granted, the addition of Amazon’s Video On Demand has made the product more compelling, but with superior alternatives such as the Apple TV, Netflix player, TiVo HD, and the SlingCatcher, it’s hard to recommend. If you really want to watch YouTube videos, Web video clips, and rent movies from Amazon on your new Bravia HDTV with minimal effort–and don’t mind a sluggish interface–the Bravia Internet Video Link gets the job done. But regardless of whether you have a compatible Bravia, almost any of those alternatives will be a better choice.

Design
Measuring 6.5 inches long by 1.46 inches wide and 4.13 inches high, the module is about the length and width of paperback book. It weighs less than 4 pounds and can be screwed on the back of Sony’s compliant TVs with the included mounting bracket, allowing the device to be hidden behind the TV set. The BIVL can also be fitted with the included stand if you choose to vertically stand up the device beside your other AV gear. The device is outfitted with curved, slim edges on the top and bottom and coated in Sony’s traditional, neutral color–dark gray. It has a subtle appearance, similar to a cable modem–a good thing if the device is sitting next your black, chunky AV receiver.

The included mounting bracket makes it easy to hide the BIVL out of sight, excluding all the extra cables.

Surprisingly, you need to make two connections from the BIVL to your Bravia TV: USB and HDMI

Sony includes an HDMI cable, a USB cable, AC adaptor, stand, cover, and TV mounting bracket. That’s a solid accessory pack, but curiously, the company did not include an Ethernet cable, even though the BIVL requires one–there’s no built-in Wi-Fi. You’ll need to make two connections from the BIVL to your TV: USB and HDMI. That means the BIVL will use one of the HDMI inputs on your TV, but there’s an additional HDMI input on the BIVL to replace the lost connectivity on your TV. Unfortunately for those who loathe adding more to the spaghetti of wires behind their AV system, the BIVL requires another wall outlet for its external AC adapter. This might be even more problematic for users who go the wall-mounting route.

Interface
Sony seamlessly integrates the BIVL’s content into the PS3-style XMB (Xross Media Bar) interface that is already used on Sony HDTVs. Navigating to the Web video content is logical compared with other devices we used; for example, Samsung’s interface divided its content between two menus (and two remote buttons) and had a noticeable amount of latency when browsing through the built-in Shockwave videos. Connecting the BIVL to your Sony HDTV adds two new features to the default interface: My Page by Yahoo and a list of channels under the Videos tab.

We liked how Sony integrated the BIVL into the TV’s existing XMB interface.

Browsing for videos also follows the familiar XMB layout; content is set up by channel, followed by a gridlike interface, with (but not always) categories on the left side of the screen to further distinguish videos. There is no search function, which we immediately desired after scrolling through thousands of CBS episodes. The playback interface bar for videos is also laid out logically. The up-and-down directional pad buttons zoom in and out on the picture, while right and left fast-forward and rewind the video, and holding down right enables a “super” fast-forward.

While it’s nice to be able to quickly check the weather, we would have liked more functionality from Yahoo’s My Page.

For Yahoo’s My Page, the idea is that users can sync up their Yahoo account with the device, offering customized news bulletins, weather, and traffic. While the panel does look slick and is very usable, the simple fact is not everybody is going to convert to Yahoo’s services if they are already well established with AOL, Google, or Microsoft. And as of now, you cannot access your Yahoo e-mail account or use other popular Yahoo services, such Messenger, Flickr, Answers, or Buzz. It’s possible that these might be added in the future, but as of now the service is pretty underwhelming.

You can also add your own content via a downloadable utility from Sony’s Internet-based synchronization Web site. We tried downloading the software–Sony clearly states that it’s in beta form and an unofficial feature–but we were unable to get it to work with either Internet Explorer or the outdated Firefox 2 (it currently does not support Firefox 3).

Content
As for content, Sony has assembled a list of channels that seem to mostly be targeted at the 18- to 30-year-old demographic. It’s worth noting that most of the content, excluding Amazon Video On Demand, can be accessed freely on the Web, but Sony does provide the content advertisement-free, even with the full CBS episodes. Here’s a brief overview of some of the channels Sony includes:

• YouTube: Sony provides nearly complete YouTube functionality, including the capability to log in to your account, search for videos, add tags, select the most viewed, popular, and newest playlists. The one catch–you can’t add your own comments.
• Amazon Video On Demand: Amazon’s streaming video service offers TV shows and movies to rent, and unlike the other channels, there’s plenty of good content. Most movies cost about $3 or $4 to rent and TV shows go for about $2.

• CBS: A selection of videos from CBS, presented without commercials. It’s a great idea, but the execution is off the mark. While you can watch the latest Survivor episode or the premiere of Worst Week, we couldn’t find any CSI, The Mentalist, or the latest full episode of the Late Show with David Letterman. (Editors’ note: CNET is a subsidiary of CBS.)

• Yahoo Video: a competitor to YouTube that tends to show editorially featured videos rather than user-voted submissions.
• Blip.tv: Known for its video blogging services, the company mainly focuses on episodic content instead of viral video.
• The Minisode Network: Owned by Sony Pictures Television, the channel shows condensed–sometimes down to as little as seven minutes–episodes of popular television shows, such as NewsRadio, The Facts of Life, and more.
• Sports Illustrated on Demand: The title explains it all–short episodes of your favorite sports moments.
• FEARnet: a multiplatform horror network created by Lionsgate, Comcast, and Sony, where horror fans can watch free, full-length films as well as red carpet and convention coverage, trailers, and shorts.
• Wired: Based on the geek-tastic monthly magazine, the channel has a variety of videos covering how technology affects culture, the economy, and politics.
• Style.com: Coverage of the runway for those infatuated with fashion and glamour.
• Video Detective: The most popular movie trailers are categorized as HD but do not even close to hi-def video quality.
• CBS College Sports: a hastily assemblage of CBS sports videos that are neither up-to-date nor listed chronologically.

There are certainly a lot of content partners here, but without the recent addition of Amazon’s streaming service, we’d almost completely write off the device. Many of these videos are either listed in the wrong category or are out of date. It takes enough patience just to browse through all of CBS’s content to find a particular show (more on the sluggishness in the performance section), but it’s only made worse to find it listed in the wrong category or missing altogether. In addition, no standardized resolution or aspect ratio is used for the content; some videos appear with blacks bars on all sides. Perhaps this isn’t Sony’s fault, but it doesn’t make for a consistent user experience.


The BIVL’s interface certainly doesn’t make it easy to find what you’re looking for.

It’s also important to note that, unlike the Apple TV, the BIVL isn’t capable of streaming movies and music from networked PCs. That’s a pretty big downside, especially since we found the content to be lackluster–you’re stuck with what Sony provides.

Performance

Content aside, the BIVL was a very reliable video streamer in our experience. Sure, videos took a few seconds to buffer, but once they started playing we didn’t experience any dropouts or stuttering. Of course, this all depends on your Internet connection, but it’s good to know that if your connection is solid, the BIVL will serve your content glitch-free. That being said, we did have the device hang on us a couple times, which required us to unplug the unit and restart it.

While we were impressed by the buffer-free playback of the videos themselves, it was hard to look past the sluggishness of the actual menus. Compared with services such as Apple TV, Xbox Live, and PS3 store, browsing the BIVL is slow, which is only made more frustrating when there’s so much mediocre content to scroll past. When you first select a channel, it’s not unusual for it to take more than 10 seconds to load the initial screen of choices, and then you’ll hit another delay when you want to go to the next page. It’s not pleasant.

Image quality on the videos is a mixed bag, but we found ourselves disappointed more often than not. Obviously, YouTube clips blown up on a 46-inch HDTV are going to look a little rough, but we were surprised that a lot of the other Web video was of similar quality. For example, we loaded some clips from Sports Illustrated and were shocked that the quality was YouTube like, or perhaps even worse. Of course, Sony’s job is just putting Web video on the big screen, but we can’t imagine too many people will be happy with the experience. To be fair, some of the videos actually looked pretty good. A trailer for Hancock was sharp and relatively artifact-free and Michael Moore’s Slacker Uprising (hey, it was the only free movie) via Amazon Video On Demand service was probably the best-looking video we saw, hitting at least DVD quality. But even content from CBS, such as Worst Week, was worse than standard-definition cable. If Slacker Uprising can look good, why can’t the other programs?

Originally published for CNET Reviews.

The good: Solid DVD playback performance with extended definition (XDE) disabled; can play DivX, MP3, and WMA files burned on CDs and DVDs; can output DVD in 24 frames per second.

The bad: Expensive for a DVD player; XDE picture controls are best left off for the most-accurate picture; lacks features such as SACD playback and a USB port found on competing Oppo models; poor aspect ratio control on nonanamorphic DVDs.

The bottom line: The Toshiba XD-E500’s XDE picture enhancements don’t live up to the hype. While it’s a solid upscaling DVD player, its high price makes it a hard sell.

• Reviewed by: Matthew Moskovciak
• Edited by: David Katzmaier
• Reviewed on: 09/02/2008
• Released on: 08/18/2008

When Toshiba finally pulled the plug on HD DVD, nobody was quite sure what the next step for the company was going to be. Would it go back to making DVD players, or would it forget the tensions of the format war and release a Blu-ray player? Well, instead of “if you can’t beat’em, join’em,” Toshiba has decided to go a third way, offering up a new technology called XDE–short for “extended definition”–which, according to Toshiba, “works with existing DVDs to deliver a near HD experience.”

At least that’s how the news release puts it. In our tests, XDE didn’t offer much in the way of new technology, as its “Sharp” mode looked like traditional edge enhancement, “Color” mode artificially exaggerated green and blues, and “Contrast” mode made dark shadows appear a little brighter. And it almost goes without saying that the images we saw from the Toshiba DVD player did not look nearly as good as the high-definition images available on any Blu-ray player.

While we didn’t like what XDE did to our DVDs, the XD-E500 did a pretty good job of upscaling once we disabled the XDE modes. Of course, comparably priced upscaling DVD players, such as the Oppo DV-980H, offer a lot more functionality at this price range, including 7.1 analog outputs, SACD/DVD-Audio playback and a USB thumbdrive support for watching DivX movies or viewing JPEGs. So while the XD-E500 can make your DVDs look pretty good with XDE off, overall we just didn’t see enough value to justify its $150 price tag.

Design
From the outside the XD-E500 looks like a standard DVD player. On the far left of its front is the disc tray, and above that is a slim button that when pressed, ejects the drive. There’s a bright XDE logo right in the center of the unit, which luckily can be turned off in the setup menu. Further to the right is the LCD screen, which is on the small side and cannot be dimmed. The glossy black finish on the XD-E500 fades from a lighter gray color on the bottom to completely black on top. Overall, it’s a good-looking disc player that should blend nicely into your home entertainment rack.

The included remote is decent, albeit a little cluttered. While playback buttons are nicely positioned and the directional pad is right where it should be, we definitely felt the need for more button differentiation; navigating in a dark home theater was very difficult. We also would have liked a more prominent position for the “pic mode” button, as we imagine viewers will want to toggle between the different XDE modes frequently to see which one they prefer.

Features
The Toshiba XD-E500 works with your existing DVD collection–in other words, there are no special XDE DVD discs to buy. In addition to DVDs, the XD-E500 can play standard audio CDs, as well as DivX, MP3, and WMA files copied onto CDs and DVDs.

We were disappointed that the XD-E500 doesn’t have aspect ratio control, which is needed for some older DVDs that are nonanamorphic. For example, we put in a copy of Carlito’s Way in the XD-E500 connected to the Panasonic TH-50PZ800U, and there was no way to make the movie appear in the correct proportions–everything looked stretched horizontally. Sure, it’s not a problem with the vast majority of anamorphic DVDs, but we expect more flexibility from a premium-priced DVD player.

Connectivity is sufficient for the average home theater. The main connector is the HDMI output, which can upscale DVDs to 1080p, and can even output at 24 frames per second. The HDMI output is also capable of handling the multichannel audio of both Dolby Digital and DTS soundtracks. A component video output is also available, although like all DVD players it’s limited to 480p resolution. Both optical and coaxial digital audio outputs are provided, along with a pair of RCA outputs for stereo analog output.

While the XD-E500 certainly has enough features for the average buyer, home theater enthusiasts will notice that it lacks some extras available on the slightly more expensive Oppo DV-980H. The DV-980H has the capability to play both SACD and DVD-Audio discs–and output the audio over HDMI–which is certainly a niche feature, but many home theater fans still have collections of these near-dead formats. The XD-E500 also lacks multichannel analog outputs completely, while the Oppo offers complete 7.1 analog outs for those few discs that support it. The DV-980H also includes a USB port on the front panel, which is convenient for looking at JPEG files or watching DivX movies. These features may be small on their own, but taken together enthusiasts will probably feel like they’re getting more for their money from the DV-980H.

XDE performance
The main focus of the XD-E500 is its three XDE modes: Sharp, Color, and Contrast. We’ll handle these separately from standard DVD performance, which is covered in the next section.

First up is “Sharp” mode, which can be considered the foundation of the XDE’s picture adjustments. While Sharp mode can be used on its own, the other two modes–Color and Contrast–always have Sharp mode enabled, in addition to other picture adjustments. Color and Contrast also cannot be used at the same time.

Sharp mode, from what we observed and what Toshiba has said, is essentially edge enhancement, which is a generic term for artificial edges created around onscreen objects. The problem with edge enhancement is that although it can appear to make an image look sharper at first, in reality it obscures real detail with the artificial edges. (Check out this excellent guide to edge enhancement if you’d like to see some examples.) However, according to Toshiba, the Sharp Mode uses selective edge enhancement–only adding it in certain places–but we still prefer to leave this mode off, as it tended to make movies look more artificial and less filmlike. On the other hand, we could see less some viewers enjoying this mode, although many viewers can get a similar effect by increasing the sharpness control on their HDTVs.

Toshiba describes Color Mode as delivering richer blues and greens, which is pretty misleading in our book. We looked at a test pattern that displayed the gradations from different shades of blue on Digital Video Essentials, and activating color mode had the effect of “clipping” blue. In other words, when Color Mode was off, we could see several different shades of blue, but with it on, several of the brighter shades of blue just blended together into the same shade. While that effect may make the picture jump out on the showroom floor, it makes images look unnatural and loses the more subtle elements of good picture quality. While the effect on green was more difficult to see in test patterns, it was readily apparent in program material.

For example, Chapter 15 of House of the Flying Daggers starts off with a foggy landscape scene that’s far from vibrant, but looks natural. Engaging Color Mode completely changes the look of the image, washing the entire scene in blue, making the trees look completely artificial. Similarly, at 36 minutes 49 seconds on the same disc, there’s a lot of greenery in the image and activating color mode makes the leaves turn neon green, as if they were made of Astroturf. Perhaps some viewers will enjoy the effect, but it’s certainly not what the director intended and doesn’t have anything to do with getting closer to high-definition. And again, viewers can get a similar effect by merely turning up the color control on their HDTVs.

Contrast mode, as Toshiba explains it, enhances the details in darker scenes. That’s a decent explanation, although it’s more accurate to say that it increases the brightness in certain portions of shadow detail. The effect was readily apparent in Sin City, as we flipped between Off and Contrast on a scene with Bruce Willis driving. It’s worth noting, again, that we were mostly able to recreate the effect of contrast mode by jumping into our HDTV’s picture settings and increasing the brightness a few points.

While we recognize that it’s possible for some viewers to subjectively prefer these images-altering modes compared to “the way it should look,” we still have a hard time finding the value of the XDE modes, especially since viewers can come close to recreating the effects simply by changing the settings on their TVs.

Standard DVD performance
While we’re not fans of the various XDE modes on the XD-E500, you can disable them, which lets us compare the XD-E500’s performance with that of other upscaling players. We set up the XD-E500 in 1080p mode at 60 frames per second, connected to a full suite of flat-panel HDTVs, including the Panasonic TH-50PZ800U, Pioneer PDP-5020FD, LG 50PG20, Samsung PN50A650, and LN52A650.

We started off with Silicon Optix’s HQV test suite on DVD, and the XD-E500 got off to a good start, displaying the full detail of DVD and without any of the instability we sometimes see on this pattern. The next jaggies test with a rotating white line looked good too, as did a test with three pivoting lines. The Toshiba also did well with the difficult 2:3 pull-down test, kicking into film mode in less than a second, and keeping the grandstands in the background moire-free. It finished up with excellent results on a pair of tests with scrolling titles, as they looked smooth and legible.

We switched over to program material and took at look at the beginning of Star Trek: Insurrection. The XD-E500 deftly handled the material, with its 2:3 pull-down processing smoothly rendering the curved lines of the bridge railing and the hulls of the boats. We switched over to the opening sequence of Seabiscuit, and again we were impressed by that the XD-E500 handled the black-and-white photos without nearly any jaggies. Finally, we took a look at Serenity and the XD-E500 did a good job with the action-packed sci-fi flick. We compared it directly with the Oppo DV-983H, and while the DV-983H definitely did a better job, but the difference was minor, as it often is when comparing upscaling DVD players.

We also took a look at the XD-E500’s 1080p output at 24 frames per second, also commonly referred to as 1080p/24. The idea behind 1080p/24 is that by outputting at film’s native rate of 24 frames, you can avoid some of the judder that occurs from 2:3 pull-down processing–although the idea makes more sense with Blu-ray Discs which are natively encoded at 24 frames per second, than with DVDs, which are encoded at 30 frames per second. In our tests, we didn’t see any benefit from enabling 1080p/24 mode, and we looked closely at panning sequences on both Star Trek: Insurrection and Serenity.

We enabled the appropriate modes on the TVs we used for the test–48Hz and 72Hz modes for the Panasonic and Pioneer plasmas, dejudder off for the 120Hz Samsung LCD–but couldn’t detect any difference between those and the standard 60Hz TVs. It’s worth nothing that a display needs to refresh at a multiple of 24 frames to take advantage of 24p output, and the majority of HDTVs can only refresh at 60Hz, so this feature won’t even be applicable for most viewers.

The irony is the XD-E500 actually performs pretty well with all its bells and whistles disabled, but its price is still hard to swallow given its feature set and the fact that upscaling players sell for less than $100 these days.

Originally published for CNET Reviews.

The good: Outstanding recording quality, with a best-in-class LP mode; flexible recording speed; chasing playback with DVD-RAM discs; USB port and SDHC card slot; upscales DVD to 1080p; included IR blaster can control a cable or satellite box.

The bad: No built-in tuner to receive analog or digital television broadcasts; cannot play back DivX files.

The bottom line: Outstanding recording quality and tons of features, like flexible recording speed and chasing playback, make the Panasonic DMR-EA18K an excellent all-purpose DVD recorder.

• Reviewed by: Matthew Panton
• Edited by: Matthew Moskovciak
• Reviewed on: 07/16/2008
• Released on: 04/15/2008

In preparation from the upcoming analog-to-digital DTV transition, any device manufactured since 2007 and equipped with a standard analog NTSC tuner has been federally mandated to also include a digital ATSC tuner. For manufacturers of DVD recorders, that leaves two options: include a digital tuner, which increases the price a bit, or opt to exclude tuners completely. Cheaper, tunerless models are perfectly sufficient for most buyers, since an over-the-air ATSC tuner is largely unnecessary for cable and satellite subscribers.

The Panasonic DMR-EA18K may not include an ATSC tuner, but it does outdo your basic DVD recorder with some step-up features, such as a USB port and SDHC card slot for playing MP3s and viewing JPEG picture files. More important is the DMR-EA18K’s top-notch performance, which gives crisp recordings even in 4-hour LP mode. The unit also includes our favorite feature, flexible recording, which automatically optimizes the video quality of the content to fill a DVD. Panasonic has delivered a sleek-looking unit that’s an excellent DVD recording solution for the majority of us that don’t need a digital tuner.

Design
Unlike chunkier DVD recorder/VCR combo players, the DMR-EA18K has a slick, slim profile. Sporting an all-black design, the unit has a minimalist touch, with a bright LCD screen that can be dimmed and a silver horizontal crescent accenting the Panasonic logo. Two buttons exist on the top–Power and Eject–while the bottom has a fold-down door that reveals an S-Video, component, SDHC card slot, a FireWire port, and a USB flash input. Keys for Stop, Play, Record, and Fast-forward come in handy when the remote goes missing. The only problem we found–and this is nitpicking–was with the placement of the Eject button, which we often confused with the Power key.

The well-designed remote is identical to that of previous models. Most of the buttons are large enough to differentiate, including the most important: Direct Navigator, Schedule, and Functions. There’s a prominent directional pad in the center, and above that are large, blue playback buttons such as Play and Pause. We’re still baffled by the fact that the remote lacks an Open/Close button, which we like to use to open the tray before walking up to switch a disc.

User interface
The simplest way to make a recording on the DMR-EA18K is to pop in a disc, select an input, press Record, and hit Stop when you’re done. To schedule a recording or edit it, you’ll need to plunge more deeply into the interface, which requires a bit of a learning curve, but offers more functionality. Scheduling works easily enough, but you’ll need to remember to turn off the DVD recorder before your scheduled program comes on–a minor annoyance if you want to use your recorder in the meantime.

The scheduling interface may not look great, but it’s relatively easy to use.

The Direct Navigator is the main interface that you’ll use to access your recordings. The main screen displays six recordings at a time, represented by thumbnail images that start to play back when you hover the cursor over them. You can enter title information through this interface and, if you’re using DVD-RAM discs, erase and rerecord titles and perform simple editing to remove commercials, for example. The Direct Navigator also acts as a media browser for your MP3 music and JPEG images. You can also begin a slide show through this menu with your images–off a thumb drive, an SDHC card, or a CD–and play your MP3 music to accompany it. We found the overall experience to be intuitive enough if you’re familiar with using the interface of a satellite receiver or cable set-top box.

Features
As we mentioned before, the DMR-EA18K’s does not have a built-in tuner, so any recordings will need to be made from an external video source, and connected to the unit’s S-Video or composite video inputs. Like nearly every DVD recorder, the Panasonic cannot record via component-video or HDMI and can’t record high-def.

The DMR-EA18K can record to essentially every kind of recordable DVD format, including DVD-RAM.

This unit includes the standard four recording modes: highest-quality XP fits 1 hour of video on a DVD; SP fits 2 hours; LP fits 4 hours; and EP, the worst video quality, fits about 8 hours of video. The trade-offs in video quality vs. capacity can be drastic–XP is nearly indistinguishable from the source, while EP is barely watchable. As we’ll explain below, however, 4-hour LP mode looks very good. The DMR-EA18K also supports dual-layer DVD-R and DVD+R discs, doubling the video capacity to 2 hours for XP mode and 16 hours for EP.

Sometimes what you want to record doesn’t fit well with the available recording modes. For instance, say you want to record a movie that’s 2 hours and 5 minutes long, but don’t want to drop down to LP mode. Panasonic has a solution for this, and it’s one of our favorite features: flexible recording, which allows you to completely fill a DVD with content and optimize the video quality. Unfortunately you’ll need to schedule a recording at a specific start and end time, which may not be a doable option, for example if you’re recording a Yankees game that slips into extra innings.

We liked that Panasonic included chasing playback again on DVD-RAM discs, which means you can watch a program from the beginning, even while it’s in the process of recording. Additionally, you can watch a different program recorded on the disc, while it’s in the process of recording. Think of chasing playback as a limited, DVD-RAM based DVR, which may be adequate if you don’t plan on recording much. On the other hand, it’s not as DVR-like as you might expect; you can’t pause or rewind live TV, and the capacity of a single disc is pretty limited. We did appreciate the inclusion of the “CM Skip” button, which allows you to blast by commercials a minute at a time.

The DMR-EA18K includes an IR blaster, which allows you to control a cable/satellite box to make scheduled recordings. Plug in the blaster, peel off the adhesive, and place it close to the IR input of your satellite receiver or cable box. While we expected to thumb through page after page of remote IR codes, the initial setup was a more manual ordeal. We had to activate the IR blaster in the setup menu, choose our device, and then select among 36 possible codes for one that works–if you have the patience. We were able to get our DirecTV HR20 to recognize the signal on the second try, but we imagine this system might be annoying for users who have to try a dozen or so codes. So while we definitely appreciate the inclusion of an IR blaster, we wish it was a little easier to use.

As for connectivity, the DMR-EA18K comes with an HDMI output, which is capable of upconverting DVDs and incoming signals to 720p, 1080i, and 1080p. There’s also a component video output, which is capable of upscaling coming signals and homemade DVDs to 1080i, but is limited to 480p for commercial DVDs. For older TVs, there is also a standard AV output with S-Video. For inputs, there are two A/V inputs with S-Video and composite video (one front and one back) used to connect to standard home theater components, as well as a FireWire input for connecting a camcorder. Rounding out the connectivity is an optical digital-audio output, which can be used to playback surround sound on commercial DVDs.

Originally published for CNET Reviews