Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #602 in Consumer Electronics
• Brand: Panasonic
• Model: DMR-EX769EB-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!

Customer Reviews

Fantastic Machine
Bought this last week and although it takes a little while to work out how to operate it and read the 100+ page manual, I just connected it up as per the diagram in the manual, switched it on and it set itself up, tuned in lots of Freeview channels and was ready to go in about 5 minutes. The picture quality is superb when played back through my Panasonic Viera tv and I can operate both TV and PVR with either remote using Viera link. I think the previous reviewer who complained about the lack of a Series link must have an older model as mine has a Series link option which works a treat.

Idiot-proof recorder!
I owned a Sony SVR S-500, which recorded two programmes at the same time, and was almost £300 when I bought it 2 and a half years ago. It was nothing but trouble and in the first year had both circuit boards replaced.It often started recordings early, so I got 4 minutes of ads and missed the end of a programme. That's when it bothered to record anything at all. Sony didn't even reply to my letters, so I have voted with my feet and gone to Panasonic and- it's brilliant so far.It DOES have a series link, and the only negative so far is that irritating ad box which takes up so much of the guide page.Easy to operate and pretty idiot proof! One of my better buys and a nice piece of kit that I would recommend.

Excellent for transfering old VHS to DVD
I bought this mainly to transfer some old VHS-C camcorder tapes to the digital realm, and this it does extremely well. The unit features noise reduction which is adjustable to three settings, it is not intrusive and does a fine job to cut out some of the noise inherent on old VHS tapes. I used a decent old Sony VHS deck to play back the tapes and piped the output from that via a SCART block and A/V leads (yellow, red, white) to the AV3 input on the front of the Panasonic. The resulting recordings are first saved to the internal hard drive where they can be edited, cut, chaptered, etc before being recorded onto DVD. Editing can be done very precisely on this unit, something which I found to be quite impressive.

The Panasonic is however quite picky about which DVDs it will record to, I had to go and buy some Panasonic DVD-RW discs online but they're not too expensive. Haven't tried any DVD-R discs yet but I would go and buy some Panasonic branded ones just to be on the safe side.

There doesn't appear to be much choice for DVD menus on DVDs you record yourself - just the same layout of squares with a few different coloured backgrounds. OK for basic stuff, but once on DVD it's not too difficult to rip the DVD contents to a computer and drop the footage into your favourite DVD creation software. Note that the Panasonic will not record from a VHS tape or DVD that has protection on it (which many commercial pre-recorded ones do).

My main criticism of this unit is that it's a pretty poor DVD player, this almost seems like an after thought as it's not a patch on my old Pioneer DVD player, the thing I miss most is the memory - the Pioneer DVD player would remember the precise moment that I last stopped a disc and would resume playback from that point even if the disc was removed and the unit shut down (it had memory for quite a few discs too); the Panasonic doesn't remember anything, if a disc is in the unit it will start playing at chapter one, scene one when the unit is switched on in DVD mode, which is annoying if I am on chapter 4, or episode 4 of a series, as I have to stop it, go through the initial main menu animation (which cannot be skipped), scroll to episode 4 and then finally click on play episode. It makes the unit a poor replacement for my old player, I am considering re-instating my old player and using the Panasonic only for recording.

I've given it four stars because of the excellent recording ability this unit has, one star is knocked off for the poor DVD playback features (or lack thereof). If you just watch films all the way through it won't be a problem, likewise if you just want to record Freeview programmes the unit does an admirable job of this too (the HDD previews and menu system for recorded programmes works very well). Also it integrates well with my Panasonic TV and allows me to use another of my HDMI ports instead of SCART, giving me a slightly crisper image from old VHS recordings and such.

Overall a very good unit, let down only by the DVD playback portion.