Panasonic DMR EH69 - Page 3

I think we may both be wrong. A quick Google search found several references to the eh-49, mostly in German or German speaking countries. I believe this link is from the Netherlands(Holland to us N. Americans )
http://www.besteproduct.nl/Panasonic_DMR_EH49/test_deskundigen.html#!k=ajax

Intersting. I have to wonder though, why was the EH49 not more universally marketed like the 59 and 69 were? It isn't a big deal at all, just a curiosity.

I guess every family has it's black sheep........
But seriously my guess is the way it was marketed, the EH-59 with it's larger HDD might have been only a little bit more money so most people stepped up to the EH-59, the EH-69 is a fair amount more than the EH-59 so all but the person that wants the best decide on the EH-59 and call it good. It's also possible Panasonic knew how limited the DVDR market was and decided to only the sell the EH-49 in markets that sold a lot of DVDRs. Lastly I'm not sure the EH-49 was ever made into a international machine(PAL/NTSC compatible and 220-120v 50/60hz) so that might also explain why we never see one in N. America. Just guesses but unless the EH-49 had been quite a bit cheaper than the EH-59 I would have still probably stuck with EH-59s.

Well, don't forget that the first iteration of our beloved Magnavox had an 80 gig HDD at a time when 120 and 160 gigs were pretty much the standard. And maybe the EH-49 was some sort of captive economy model for a German equivalent of Wal-Mart or Costco like the Pioneer DVR-450/460.

Always interesting to learn about the regional variations in how these machines are deployed by their users.

The theory that doswonk1 has come up with sounds very plausable to me. I ran across the EH49 when I was attempting to get a manual download. It is the 49/59/69 manual, and the only thing that is flagged as different between the 49 and 59 is the HDD size, and something about the USB speed. The HDD sizes for the 49/59/69 are listed as 160/250/320Gb. My eh75 has an 80Gb HDD! Apparently, so did the original Magnavox.

Even now, I can still live a fairly full, rich, rewarding life with DVDRs that have 160 gig drives.... Despite its late appearance in analog-era U.S. DVDRs, the small drive on the EH75 makes sense, since it was clearly meant to be a VHS-to-DVD dubbing machine, not a "poor man's DVR". You don't need a huge drive to park some VHS material just long enough to edit and chapter-ize it before running it to disc. The curious part is why Panasonic chose to double down on a very, VERY niche machine in what had already become a niche market too small to sustain more than, um....one player (Maganavox, as it turns out). Whatever, it was certainly a boon to folks like us!

The need for region-specific DVDRs, rather than one machine basically for the whole world, certainly didn't help the format. DVD *players* might have had the Region Code issue, but that was fairly easy to handle in a standardized way versus having to interface with every country's unique broadcast system.

 

Since buying it new, I have always, and still do use my EH75 chiefly as a DVR, to record Dish SD. The only time I've ever recorded or played anything on the VCR was after I first bought it, just to make sure everything worked.

 

In fact, when it was out and people here were buying it, I don't really recall anybody ever saying they used the VCR. They mainly seemed interested in other features, like TVGOS, and the HDD for recording to and editing. For VHS to DVD projects, they used separate VCR's, and they usually recommended the same to anybody coming here for advice.

 

Like with all or most combo units, the EH75's VCR isn't all that great, anyway.

Edited by Rammitinski - 1/19/13 at 1:59am

I have to disagree with you on this Rammitinski. In my experience, the VCR part of the EH75 was quite good. I deliberately bought mine to do tape transfers. It really sucks at that though, because once you press the VHS to HDD dubbing button, autotracking becomes disabled. Many of my tapes had parts recorded on them by different machines This made auto tracking a necessity, and the machine next to useless for my purposes.

Back to the EH69, I recently did a bit of a survey, and it is listed in at least eight different vendor web pages, including Amazon. I guess the panic I was feeling a while back about them disappearing was premature. The prices vary by quite a bit too.

 

My mistake then. I never really used it, so I just assumed. I thought there were a couple that were OK - I just wasn't sure which ones.

 

The lack of control with "all-in-one" transferring was actually part of what I was including in there. Should've detailed a little more, but I was lazy.

Edited by Rammitinski - 1/19/13 at 3:49pm

Well, I have to agree with your assessment: "The lak of control with the all-in-one design is a real weakness!" It LOOKS like a winner on paper, but in practice, it was a disaster--for everyone. There were a couple of machines that were better than a doorstop, but even those were poor comapred with the control you get with separate units. Incidentally, that's how I did almost all of my 1500 or so tapes, using separate VCR and DVD recorder. The combos just never worked for me.