Cleaner pictures

Panasonic has equipped the EX88 with new DVB-T Adaptive Noise Reduction technology, which reduces the block noise common to Freeview broadcasts, and you can really see the benefits in the clean picture quality, both with live TV and recordings. XP mode replicates the live broadcast exactly, with no block noise over fast movement or banding on background shading.

SP mode delivers practically the same results, with a little more noise on movement, but it's hardly noticeable. Most impressive however is the quality of LP recordings, which uses a lower bitrate than SP but the same resolution, and as a result retains more detail than some rival recorders' LP modes.

There's a lot more pixel noise flickering around the edges of objects, but not to the point where it becomes a distraction - and the 4hr recording time on DVD is worth the sacrifice.

EP mode looks soft and noisy and doesn't cope with tricky stuff like crowds or smoke particularly well. Brian Blessed jumping around on the Paul O'Grady Show was a positive carnival of noise, but our low expectations meant that we weren't particularly surprised or disappointed by this.

Watching The Departed on DVD reveals the DMR-EX88 to be a very competent movie source, particularly with the 1080p upscaling engaged. Scorsese's gorgeous shots of the Boston skyline are delivered with deep, punchy blacks, strong yet natural colours and pin-sharp detail.

Dolby Digital

Sound is recorded using a stereo Dolby Digital encoder and does a great job with both speech-based material and action fare, making everything sound sharp and dynamic.

Dolby Digital and DTS soundtracks are equally exciting through a decent sound system, while CD and MP3 playback is perfectly enjoyable (though the lack of WMA support is a shame).

Pricey Panasonic deck

There's no denying that £500 is a lot to pay for a digital recorder, but shop around online and you can shave over £100 off that price.

Not to mention it's also worth considering that for the money you get a phenomenal amount of features, excellent performance and the most user-friendly operating system on the market.

All of these factors still makes it feel like good value for money despite the high price tag.