What has happened to all the DVD recorders with VHS and hard drives? Is anyone making these anymore? The last two I owned came from Toshiba and Panasonic, but neither of these companies seems to still be manufacturing DVD recorders with VHS playback and hard drives. Neither are Sony and JVC, as far as I can tell. You can get a DVD recorder with either VHS or hard drive, but not both.

The reason I'm worried is because my Toshiba crapped out after a couple of years, and I've sent my Panasonic in for repair three times already this year (their customer service stinks, but don't they all?). However, it doesn't look as though I'll be able to find a replacement, because no one is making this type of machine anymore. Or am I looking in the wrong place?

You might have better luck overseas, but it looks like that combination has been permanently discontinued. You may have to kluge something together with a dvd-recorder/hd combo + vcr.

I'm surprised you could find a DVD/HDD combo. After buying mine [a Panasonic w/100GB hard drive], I recommended it to several friends and they couldn't find it anywhere. It looked to me like they stopped making them altogether.

Whoa! I didn't realize this had happened. I bought my Panasonic (with a slightly smaller HDD) about a year and a half ago when my older Panasonic DVD-recorder stopped wanting to burn discs (it'll still record on the HDD, so it's like a big ol' TIVO now).

Glad I paid to get it. It was at a Circuit City. Hard to believe that only 18 months would make all the difference there.

My Panasonic DMR-E80H (I think that's the model number) with the 80-gig hard drive is still going strong after 4 years.

The woman I spoke with at Panasonic's Customer Care Center told me that there is not enough demand for DVD recorders with hard drives for Panasonic to continue producing them, even though she also said my model, the DMREH75, was their most popular and they sold out every one. Seems like a contradiction to me, but...