Performance
Using the SP quality setting, you can fit 70 hours of programming on the EX77's hard disk and the picture is pretty much indistinguishable from the original. Drop things down to the lowest-quality EP mode for 284 hours and recordings look pretty awful, lacking detail and gaining lots of MPEG noise, which looks like mosquitoes dancing around the edges of objects.
Freeview picture quality was pretty good on the Panasonic, although digital TV doesn't benefit much from being upscaled to high-definition resolutions.
DVDs, on the other hand, do look good when they're upscaled. We watched our old favourite The Big Lebowski on our Toshiba 37X3030D and it looked impressive, with plenty of colour, and images were sharp and surprisingly detailed. This player can upscale to 1080p, but you'd be hard-pressed to notice the difference between 720p and 1080p upscaled DVDs. We do think this player is on a similar level to some of the other upscaling DVD players we've looked at.
Using a decrepit VHS player and a composite cable, we copied an old VHS movie on to the hard disk and then once it was done we burnt it to DVD. This process was amazingly simple, and while the original film was poor quality, it was perfectly watchable. If you have a large VHS collection, you could transfer it to DVD, so old home movies and ancient TV shows can be preserved for a little bit longer.
The biggest problem with the EX77 is its lack of dual tuners. This restricts you to only watching or recording one channel at a time. We really think this is a missed opportunity -- adding a second tuner would greatly increase the usefulness of the recorder.
Conclusion
Despite its hefty price, the EX77 offers quite a bit more than a traditional PVR and it can replace a number of the boxes under your TV, including your DVD player, Freeview receiver and VHS recorder.
We are slightly disappointed by the single tuner and the lack of support for MPEG-4 files such as DivX and XviD, but these are relatively minor issues. All in all, it's an excellent all-rounder.
Edited by Jason Jenkins
Additional editing by Nick Hide
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tradestead 3 February 2009
Good: Configurable recording picture quality, resolution & frame rate
Bad: the price is too high
Comment: Selectable recording modes: 24hrs. continuous, motion detection & sensor triggered with pre-alarm watermark
http://www.tradesteade.com
douglas newton 10 May 2008
Good: Its so easy to use once you get used to it
Bad: When recording you can't watch a different channel
Comment: Once I got used to it, it was very easy to use. The picture was very good and all in all a very good buy.
Patrick Otter 15 July 2007
Good: Ease of use and superb quality
Bad: Lacks a second Freeview tuner
Comment: Bought to replace a horribly noisy Humax 9200, which was returned after 12 hours. Very impressed with how easy it is to use and the quality of recording on standard play, which is perfectly adequate. Set up was easy and it is so intuitive you hardly need the manual, which isn't a bad thing as it's not that easy to follow. Recording to DVD is simplicity itself and the SD card reader is an added bonus. We'll see what the upscaling is like when our current Panasonic TV is eventually replaced. The only downside is that it lacks a twin tuner but we have got round that by reinstalling our Panasonic set-top box (which was destined for an upstairs TV) and keeping the trusty VCR if we ever need to record two programmes at the same time. It also looks the business, much better than the rather ugly Humax. Highly recommended, but why didn't Panasonic install a second digital tuner?
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