Switching to EP mode, we felt the quality was essentially unwatchable to all but the least-sensitive viewers. The loss in resolution is definitely noticeable, and scenes with a lot of motion in them were filled with video artifacts and chunks of pixelation. We can really only recommend using EP mode for shows with very simple animation--think Cartoon Network's Adult Swim.
Although video-playback quality on the DMR-ES25S via HDMI was far from perfect, it surpassed many of the upconverting DVD players we've reviewed this year. One of the major recurring issues on upconverting DVD players is that some struggle to display the full resolution of DVDs over the HDMI input. Given this history, we were happy to see the DMR-ES25S pass the resolution test on Silicon Optics' HQV test suite in 1080i mode, even though it failed in both 720p and 480p modes. Also on the upside, it passed the somewhat difficult 2:3 pull-down test, with the processing kicking in after about 0.5 second. It also did a particularly good job with the difficult opening scene of Star Trek: Insurrection, smoothly rendering the hulls of the boats and the arc of the bridge.
However, the Panasonic DMR-ES25S failed several tests from the HQV disc. For instance, there was visible combing when titles scrolled across the screen horizontally, and vertically scrolling titles did not look as smooth as they should. It also failed both of the "jaggies" tests completely, with jaggies appearing on a rotating line, as well as on three shifting lines. The most obscure issue we noticed was that the player seemed to change the color of green when it upscaled to 1080i. We first noticed this in an unrelated test in the Windows DVD test annex, as the color of the water in the test seemed to change drastically when we changed resolutions. We confirmed the issues by measuring green with a light meter on several TVs and confirming that it did indeed change the color of green in 1080i mode. This probably is an unnoticeable issue for most people, but it could bother enthusiasts with well-calibrated systems.
We were pleased to run into fewer snags with recordable media than we did with the DMR-EH75H. The Panasonic DMR-ES25S successfully recorded on DVD-RAM, DVD-RW, DVD+R/-R, and dual-layer DVD+R/-R. The only snag we ran into was DVD+RW, which we could not get to work.
On the other hand, disc compatibility in playing back other homebrew DVDs (whether created on PCs or other set-top recorders) continues to be a sore spot for Panasonic DVD recorders. The most frustrating hiccup we ran into was a message that indicated we needed to format the discs to play them. When we declined, the DMR-ES25S refused to play them. This behavior is definitely abnormal, as these discs are part of our normal test suite, and most DVD players have no problem handling them. Even excluding the formatting message issues, the unit choked on several discs we have marked as "easy" in our suite. Additionally, the DMR-ES25S also could not play DVDs with MP3s on them, which isn't a completely standard feature, but even the cheap Samsung DVD-V9650 didn't have a problem with it. If you'll be using only purchased DVDs and DVDs that were recorded by the player, you should be fine, but if you already have a collection of homebrew DVDs, you might want to think twice before purchasing this machine.
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