Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #396 in Consumer Electronics
• Brand: Panasonic
• Model: DMR-EX79EB-K
• Released on: 2009-03-13

Manufacturer's Description
What is DIGA?
Panasonic’s award-winning and industry-leading range of DIGA DVD Recorders have set the benchmark for DVD Recorders ever since they were release several years ago. In testament to their popularity, in Europe alone we have sold over 3 million DIGAs! And it doesn’t end there, our DIGAs do a lot more than just record and play DVDs....

In the HDTV age, you’ll have a variety of AV components in your Living Room - and that means a lot of remote control units. VIERA Link takes all the confusion out of the operation. With VIERA Link function you can control all your components using only your VIERA’s remote control. Operation is easy, and there’s no more hunting around for separate remote controls.

Also in the HDTV age, different kinds of a AV media come together. For example, you can view pictures taken with your digital camera or video camera on a large-screen TV. DIGA has the kind of network connectivity you need to enjoy it all. You can load a large amount of AV data from cameras and other components into a DIGA recorder, and enjoy easy playback, editing or storage. You don’t even need to use your PC.

The Panasonic range of DIGA DVD recorders enables you to watch your favourite films, making it an essential part of your entertainment hub. With the simple sophistication that is the hallmark of Panasonic products, DIGA offers you the platform to store and playback all of your films, photos and music.

Camcorder and Digital Still Camera Linking
To store movie data from your digital video camera (HDD model or SD Memory Card model), simply connect it to the USB terminal of your compatible DIGA recorder and movie data can be transferred and stored directly on to the hard disc drive.

Besides the USB Terminal connection DIGA models equipped with an SD Card slot let you copy and view movies (MPEG2 data) recorded on an SD Memory Card of your SD Card Camcorder.

You do not own an HDD or SD Memory Card Camcorder? No problem, just use a DV cable and simply connect your digital video camera to the DV input terminal of your DIGA. There is no easier way to store and enjoy your home movies on a big screen! Similarly, as almost all DIGA models are now equipped with an SD Memory Card or USB terminal, any digital camera that uses an SD Memory Card or comes with a USB cable can be easily connected to your recorder to store or play a dazzling display of photos through a personalised, big screen-slide show from the comfort of your home.

Jukebox with gracenote®* (CD Database)
As a jukebox, your DIGA DVD recorder can store all your CDs and MP3s onto its hard drive and through the pre-installed ‘Gracenote’ database with 350,000 albums, will automatically store the track information as well.

DIGA also supports the ID3Tag information that is embedded in MP3 music data, so whether your music collection is physical or digital, you can enjoy browsing through or quickly finding the right song for the moment.

As DIGA can handle a wide number of different formats, such as JPEG, MP3 and DivX - all through the built-in USB terminal - you or friends can playback images or music straight from USB memory onto the big screen and speakers of your home entertainment system.

Integrated Digital Tuner
Sound and pictures are converted into a digital format and compressed, using as few bits as possible to convey the information on a digital signal. This technique enables several television channels to be carried in the space used by the current analogue signals to carry only one channel. Digital signals can be received by standard aerials, satellite dishes or via cable but have to be decoded and turned back into sound and pictures by using a separate set-top box, or a decoder built into your television.

However, Panasonic top-of-the-range DIGAs come equipped with Integrated Digital Tuners so there is no need to purchase any set-top boxes. What is more, thanks to new technology, the ability of new DIGA digital tuners to compensate for poor broadcast signal conditions is approximately twice as high as conventional types. It provides stable reception and prevents block noise even when signals are reflected by surrounding buildings. This ensures stable digital programme broadcasts and superb picture and sound quality for you!.

VIERA Link - Bringing control of all your AV Devices to just one fingertip
So what is VIERA link? Well, before we explain what it is, lets look at how people currently have to operate their AV products. Suppose you want to watch the latest film on Blu-ray disc - to do that, first you would have to power up the Blu-ray player with your Blu-ray remote control, then turn on your TV and select the correct AV channel input using your TV remote. After that you would need to switch back to the Blu-ray player remote control and press 'Play'.

Oh, wait! What if you have have a Home Cinema Surround system too? Then you need to search for the Home Cinema remote in order to to switch on your AV Amplifier too. Therefore before you can do something seemingly simple like settle back to watch a film, you are forced to use three completely different remote controls! Sounds like a lot of bother, right? Well, Viera Link allows you to do all of this with just one remote control!

Box Contains

Customer Reviews

The best just got better! Buy it!
This is a wonderful machine which is packed with useful features. The picture quality is outstanding and it up scales pictures to high definition very well. Incidentally I am currently using a cheap HDMI cable from Amazon and it works very well. You can set up program recordings (both one off and entire series) with about 2 clicks thanks to the 7 day TV guide. It also has a feature which allows you to skip adverts through playback!! (simply put the machine into fast forward then click the skip button) To cap everything off the machine uses less energy than previous models and runs very quietly. It is a neat slimmed down design and will look great with any other equipment. The remote can operate my Samsung TV thanks to an automatic link system (amazing). Buy this, it is an absolute bargain and one of the finest recorders around.

The World's Best AV Manufacturer Delivers a Stunning DVD Recorder
I recently bought a 42" Panasonic plasma TV with in-built FreeSat and wanted a DVD recorder to complete my all Panasonic AV set-up - which includes a separate Home Theatre system and Video recorder (essential for the hundreds of old VHS tapes I still own!)

This is NOT a technical review - I'm very much a layman in such matters - however, I did want to express my satisfaction with the product, so here goes:

I opted for this model and I'm so glad I did. For well under £300 you get a machine that produces stunning picture quality - virtually indistinguishable from the source. However, I would advise that you budget around £30-£40 extra for a good quality HDMI cable - it's worth it.

Set-up was a piece of cake, and once I'd read the essential sections of the 'War and Peace'-sized operating manual, I was away and able to do everything I wanted out of the machine in an hour or two; and that's without any previous experience of a DVD recorder. However, I would point out I bought it for very basic recording/playback purposes only and if you want to do anything fancier with it, it may take a good while longer to master all the functions.

The HDD is capable of storing close on 60 hours of downloaded programmes in 'XP' mode. However, it's double that for 'SP' mode and I hardly noticed any degeneration in image quality at that speed, and very little in 'LP' also. However, the 'EP' setting is another matter and you may wish to avoid this.

Ease of use is an important aspect of the machine: programming using VideoPlus+ was a revelation - it's so easy to get the hang of and very convenient. And the remote is clearly and simply set out and after a few goes I found I was using it almost intuitively.

When you want to view what you've recorded, simply press the 'Direct Navigator' button on the remote and this allows you to view six downloaded programmes per page on either HDD or DVD. Once you've finished with these it's easy to delete them from the HDD forever, although you'll need to use a specific type of re-writeable DVD if you want to delete from this medium.

I've only recorded onto HDD so far, then copied onto DVD where a programme (or film) is worth keeping. However, don't make the mistake I made (before someone kindly put me right) of copying onto a DVD+R disc where a title was recorded in 16:9 aspect. There's no high speed transfer to disc this way - it copies in real time. If you've saved a 90 minute film it takes 90 minutes (plus additional formatting time) to copy.

On Friday of last week I went out for a drink, but pre-recorded the last semi-final of 'Britain's Got Talent' (I'm sorry to admit this), 'The Jonathon Ross Show' and 'Later with Jools Holland'. I watched these on Saturday morning, in glorious quality playback, decided none were worth keeping, and deleted them simply and without fuss from the hard drive.

So much better results than a VHS recorder, and so much less faffing about too!

Although a previous reviewer reports sound issues with non-standard DVD playback, this is not something that would affect me: I'm using this to record to, and playback from, HDD - or copy to disc to play on my home theatre system, which offers superior sound quality. But as a player alone, it's still pretty good and also features an excellent in-built Freeserve tuner.

Once again, my apologies to those expecting a run-down of technical aspects etc, but this is aimed specifically at those, like myself, who previously didn't own a DVD recorder and wanted a basic summary of features - and comments on how good the recorded results were.

Excellent PVR
We're very pleased with this, excellent service from Amazon as always, it arrived by courier in a sealed manufacturer's box inside a padded plastic bag.

Recording quality is the same as the original on XP setting. You can only watch or record one channel at a time from the PVR, but you can record on the PVR tuner and watch the TV on its own tuner at the same time if you want. You can't record a program and play a different recording or a DVD at the same time though, or if you can we haven't worked out how to yet!

The series record option works brilliantly. It identifies all instances of the named program on the selected channel, even if they are at different times.

Plays DVDs and CDs well, can connect the RCA output to a stereo amplifier with no problems. The CD quality is about the same as a £200 budget CD player. Music DVDs are very good, and you can play American imports as well if you change the setting to NTSC. We don't know how well it upscales, as we only have an ordinary TV.

Loses a star for the advert panel on the program guide. We discovered that the grey Diga picture changes to an advert once you put your post-code in. The panel really does spoil the use of the guide, we'd gladly pay a bit more to be rid of it. Many people have commented on this, Panasonic will start losing out to Sony if they don't take notice soon I think.

But it gets the star back again for the button on the remote that skips adverts in recorded programs! This works so well that we now choose which channel to record on this basis, e.g. watch BBC and record ITV when the programs overlap.

People have said it takes a long time to switch on, but it doesn't if you keep to the default Stand-by option for the power button. Then it sits there silently, showing the time on its digital display, and switches on in about 2 seconds when requested, the same as a VCR.