Panasonic Announces Stand-Alone DVD-R and DVD-RAM Recorder

by Robin Liss
Published on May 17, 2004 12:00 AM



Panasonic has announced DMR-E20 a stand alone DVD-R and DVD-RAM recorder for an MSRP of $1499. The stand alone box can record on conventional DVD-R discs which can then be played back on any conventional DVD player. The box also can record on the DVD-RAM format. DVD-RAM discs only play on DVD-RAM compatible players and computers. The Discs allow for two sided recording, giving the consumer more than 9.4 GB of space.

The recorded includes the new Time Slip function. Acting similar to a personal video recorder, the time slip function allows the consumer to view a program from the begining while it is still recording. For example you could watch a program that you started taping a half hour ago from the beginning. Panasonic reports that up to 12 hours of video can be recorded on the 9.4 GB disc, however the quality of such video is unknown.

Panasonic also announced that the player supports normal DVD playback, Audio CD playback and VCD playback. The discs will be cost a lot. One of the problems with a stand alone recorder is that your ability to create menu systems for your DVDs is very limited. By having a standalone recorder you also can not record data from your computer - non video data - to DVD for backup.