[kimfair]

When my last DVD player died, I wanted a DVD player/recorder to replace it, as I had tons of VHS tapes of music acts live on various TV shows, as well as some films that are only available on VHS (like Tom Waits Big Time). After consulting a friend (who spent some time on hardware forums) I ended up getting a Pansonic DMR-ES15. It is great. It isn't a dual player (I didn't need one as I still have a working VCR), but I have had great luck with it. I have transferred all my music stuff (about 10 2hr DVD's worth), as well as some movies, and even some laserdiscs that haven't been released on DVD or where the DVD is OOP and expensive (like Ian McKellen's Richard III, and the CRiterion Baron Munchausen). It won't copy Macrovision copyrighted tapes, however, but I've copied about 10 commercial tapes, and only one wouldn't copy, so it's my experience that most of the older VHs tapes don't have copy protection.