No mention is made as to the omission of media server and PC/Mac connectivity utilising the ethernet port. At the current price it is the one one feature (on top of the already long list) I would have expected. Without this the unit needs to be pitched at a price point more like £700, given you could make a dual tuner media centre PC with Blu-ray burner for similar money.
This is certainly a technical tour de force (for now) and there's no doubt it's great to see an additional FreeSat recorder despite the excellent Humax HDR being available for over six months. My only reservation is in the Panasonic user interface which TR seems to love but after my comments on their EX78 and EX79 DVD Recorders, is not as good as it should be.
What is the on screen information like when viewing a disc/programme? Also, the screen shots appear to be in the wrong aspect ratio or at least the images are squashed as people's faces look stretched. Is this the TV, Recorder or something else?
It certainly seems to be a grand machine and though it's hard to objectively criticise the price of this one without having one to try out, i would intially say it does sound extremely expensive! Granted, when DVD and VCR recorders first hit our markets they were of a similar price, and i've little doubt that even in these 'credit crunch' times, they'll always be your first adopters who are willing to pay what i would describe as 'silly' money for these machines.Don't get me wrong, i'm very pleased to see the market steering this way, especially with Freesat and i sincerely hope it continues and progresses ( if only because i'm a staunch Sky subscription avoider on price & principle). However, if the market is going to succeed this way, in my opinion broadcasters definately need to allow at least 'record to disk once' tags on their HD broadcasts and more manufacturers need to follow suit with this sort of gadgetry if only to provide decent competition and force market prices down.That's of course aside from the fact that Freesat needs to adopt a lot more HD channels!I don't see Sony ( pioneers of the Blue Ray system) announcing a similar machine to the UK market yet!! My conclusion - bring these machines to a more sensible price, i.e. around £500 bearing in mind the Humax PVR is available for around £260, albeit online, and maybe more people would be tempted to go out and purchase?
It's a shame this Panasonic uses the same plasticky remote control shipped with their £300 HDD machines; for a flagship product, priced at a premium I'd expect better.
On the plus side, the guide seems to have dispensed with the tacky adverts that take 1/3 of screen real estate on the older models (hint to marketers: adverts that force a reduction of functionality irritate people. Irritated people don't buy your products).
The UI still looks very 1990s - but that's true of every HDD recorder I've seen.
Looks like a spectacular machine,just a pity about the price. But I guess come Christmas this may have dropped a couple of hundred quid or so(I hope). The lowest (HL) recording mode looks particularly spectacular, and this above all appears to have impressed all of those who have had a demo of the machine. I've been compressing 'raw' BBCHD files recorded on the Mac with Handbrake (x264 codec) at 4.5mb for a while now with very good results. But the encoding usually takes a good few hours for an hour's worth, so something as quick as the BS750 / 850 would be very welcome. Get the price down Panasonic!
Another thing, do people still archive recordings to disc any more? What's the point when hard drives are so much more capacious and accessible. I can understand the occassional copy to lend a programme to a friend who missed it but there's not much benefit otherwise. Besides, how much do blank Blu Ray discs cost?
@ Mike B: Regarding media server/Ethernet connectivity, I did say: "It's only a shame that you can't stream multimedia files over a network using {the Ethernet} connection as you can with the latest Samsung players..."
@ Orinj: I took screen grabs of every conceivable menu and still you want more! ;) The squashed images are nothing to do with the Panny, it's to do the program I used to take the screen grabs. As for the GUI, I concede that it's very basic-looking but that's what I love about it - it's wonderfully straightforward and intuitive. The same goes for the remote, but I take SRS's point that better build quality would have been nice on a product this expensive.
@ Helios2009: You can't copy files to an external USB device not even a USB stick. Didn't have time to take a rear shot, sorry!
I wonder if the fact that it can convert DTS HD Master Audio and Dolby TrueHD in to PCM format means I can send these soundtracks over the optical digital out to an older style amp (without HDMI)? Would this would mean no need to upgrade an amp for the new Hi-Def audio formats?
If not, then the omission of analogue audio outputs is a real downside.
We're sorry. We were unable to report abuse at this time.
We limit the number of reactions an individual user can submit over a given period for quality reasons. You have currently reached that limit. Please try resubmitting your abuse report again later.
Comment is too long. Enter 500 characters or less.
Comments
User reviews
There are currently no reviews for this product.
Read more reviews >
To add your own review log in or sign up