Panasonic DMR-EA48VK DVD Recorder

This machine is a technological nightmare!!! The DVD player requires about 30 seconds to turn on from the time you hit the button to the time you can actually manipulate the machine. I can't tell you how many errors I have receive from this DVD player just from simply turning it on!! Panasonic offers a firmware update that doesn't answer any of the issues that this machine has. I have had countless failures of recording to the DVD because of an error that will freeze the machine. The most common and frequent error is a U99 which is simply, "general communications failure" which Panasonic says is not associated with one specific problem! I don't think the this series of DVD players are doing so hot with this error.......go to Google and type in "Panasonic U99 error" and see how many people have this problem. Waste of money and Panasonic seems to just be letting it go without a fix!