My setup: HD antenna directly into the Panasonic's coax input, then connected via HDMI, coax and component cables to the back of my LCD panel (a Sharp LC37D62U, a 1080P panel with HDMI inputs).

The tuner in the Panasonic unit, while capable of receiving HD signals, cannot output a full HD signal, but only 480P. If you are looking for a unit to act as a full-on HD tuner, this unit is not for you, but if your TV already has an HD tuner, then this unit offers some cool features. Before I start though, I want to point out that the unit does "pass" a full HD signal - that is, when using my TV's own tuner with the Panasonic set to "TV" (on the "TV/VCR" selection), the TV receives a pass-through of the HD signal coming in over the air to the Panasonic. Other descriptions of this unit had me believing that it would pass-through a 480P signal, but this is fortunately not the case.

Cool Feature #1: Recording HD TV shows over the air. This is one of the first of a new... Read more

I bought this model yesterday after a frustrating week: my professional grade (but 4 year old) JVC bit the dust just when I needed to transfer a stack of tapes for a a client. I initially bought a Sony Sony RDR-VX555, which transferred tapes beautifully...but lacked inputs to get any decent quality from a cable box (unless you wanted to have a S-VHS cable sticking out of the front of your device). And even when it was hooked up to the cable box, the picture stuttered when recorded (or wouldn't record at all. Turns out Sony has a chip that 'protects' cable box signals...so it really is false advertising to have "record from cable box" on the item's box)

So I returned it and bought the Panasonic, which was almost $100 more. And I have to say it has been worth it so far. It plays DVDs beautifully and upconverts to my Samsung LCD HDTV like a dream: tested it with "Return of the King" and it looked like the TNT HiDef broadcast. I was able to hook it up to my TV via HDMI with... Read more

If you are thinking of buying this for its "1080P Up-Conversion", look elsewhere! No big improvements here. Get the Oppo DV-980HD 1080p up-conversion DVD player instead if you are sticking with the DVD format. You'll get everything you are looking for. This Panasonic's Up-Converter gives plenty of ghosts, noise, and dragging. It drove me nuts! We had just purchased a Sony 46" 1080P 46XBR2 LCD television and we were expecting to get the promised HD quality out of this new Panasonic since our [...] Panasonic DMR-ES45VS went only to 720P/1080I. We figured perhaps the visual flaws were due to the lower resolutions. The TV works beautifully, however this Panasonic simply couldn't do the job of effectively bringing out that full HDMI-powered picture. We got better viewing out of our old 1997 standard TV and a 2001 RCA DVD player.

However, other than this, it does a fine job of copying non-commercial VHS onto DVD, even cleans up the quality in the process (just make sure... Read more