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The latest combi recorder from Panasonic is a powerful and flexible recording platform, blessed with many desirable attributes - so will it prove irresistible? The basic spec certainly seems so. You get a massive 250GB hard drive, which can store an unreasonable 443 hours of programming. If it takes 10 average working weeks to view it all, you're unlikely to ever need more.

This is backed up by the presence of the DVD recorder. Any programmes that you want to keep can be transferred to disc, and there are some very useful editing options.

You can delete sections of a recording (cutting out commercials and unwanted programme intros and endings), add chapters to make it easier to navigate through a programme after archiving, and even change the recording quality to fit more on to a DVD.

You can record on to any DVD - including dual-layered DVD-R and DVD-R discs, and our advice would always be to record on to the HDD first, tidy up the recording in the editing suite and then save to DVD. There are five recording modes, that will put one, two, four, six and eight hours on a single-sided DVD.

Connectivity is excellent, with an HDMI output for hooking up to the latest HD Ready fl at panel monitors (this connection also offers upscaling of standard-def material to 720p or 1080i). There are two Scart sockets, with RGB input and output, vital for connecting a digibox, and there is an optical digital audio out for hook-up with a home cinema amp.

No extra Pay TV

At the front there is a DV input for connecting a digital camcorder, and there are analogue alternatives too. A built-in digital tuner gives access to free digital terrestrial TV and radio channels, but, sadly, there is no provision for adding extra Pay TV channels.

Connected to a Sky digibox via an RGB Scart input the EX85 captures a practically perfect image in its XP (one-hour) setting. The picture is simply a clone of the original broadcast, so if that looked great, the recording will look great too. There is wonderful colour fidelity, fine detail and clarity.

This mode is also ideal for dubbing camcorder footage. You won't lose any of the information on your precious home movies and you can even indulge in a spot of rudimentary editing before committing to DVD. The SP (two-hour) mode introduces very minor digital artefacting on some sources, such as complex sports action where you can see some mosquito haze appear around fast-moving objects.

Less demanding material has no such problems, so the SP mode should be good enough with the added bonus of doubling capacity. The lower recording levels see picture quality deteriorate noticeably. But there is no need to tolerate this as the 250GB hard disk holds such a large amount of programming in SP mode (111 hours) that you should never need to go lower.

If you don't get around to watching stuff, or if you get behind on your archiving, the LP (four-hour) setting could be used in an emergency, but the picture is soft and fuzzy and fairly useless. Editing lets you create smooth edit points with faded audio, which is a professional touch.

Playback is similarly excellent, and upscaling adds a slight improvement, with a tad more film-like quality to the image - but nothing like true HD.

This is an excellent digital recorder, a tad pricey, but available cheaper online and for quality it's hard to beat. David Smith