Panasonic DMR-BS850: First Dual-Tuner Freesat HD Blu-ray PVR Comments

Shouldn't that be "*Panasonic's* First Dual-Tuner Freesat HD PVR"? The Humax FoxSat PVR is dual tuner, HD and has been available since before Christmas.

Hopefully it'll be cheaper then the Humax box. And it will good to have a bit of competition in the Freesat PVR arena - maybe bring prices down - as I think they're too high at the moment.

Agreed Jonslon. I did wonder what makes this so special when Humax's baby has been doing this for a couple of months and very well too. It's even been reviewed here on TR.

In reply, to jonstone ( 24/2), if one wants to get technically correct, Panasonics' heading of being the 1st is actually right, as they've worded here, as it is the 1st 'Blue Ray' incl HDD twin Freesat tuner!!

Ah, so it looks like none of the new models will just be plain PVR's with no integrated Blu-ray or DVD drives? Shame, as I was hoping for some competition for the Humax.

Great to see these appearing at last. I'd much prefer one of these to the Humax box as archiving HD will be much more straightforward (at least the non-protected stuff of course). I think the 500GB model will cost much more than the Humax box, somehow I don't think we'll see it south of the £500 mark (at least initially).

Great news, twin tuner, HD recording, blu-ray recorder. But seeing at the moment there is only 1 24hr HD channel on freesat with ITV having occasional broadcasts, is it possible for those of use with Sky HD to hook up our sky box to this Panasonic box and transfer all our Sky HD recordings onto Blu-Ray ? Can anyone clear this up ? If it could, this could be a killer feature.

Rich, I suspect not as there does not appear to be a high-def input (HDMI or component). Sky wouldn't allow lossless digital copying anyhow (ie via HDMI). The most straightforward (and possibly least expensive) way to copy HD recordings at their full resolution from Sky HD if you already have a fairly speedy PC or Mac, is to use a Hauppauage HD PVR.

Gulp! Apparently the DMR-BS850 (500GB) will be around the £1,000 according to a Panasonic spokesman! Internet prices should be cheaper of course, but lets hope this drops pretty swiftly.

In reply to PS3 & half!, if the DMR BS850 does debut at the 1 grand mark, i certainly won't be jumping on the band wagon just yet! Granted it's exactly what the industry needs to be producing right now for Freesat. It would be interesting to know where you got that figure from? If you're correct, i wonder what other info you know about this model, i.e. any technical details yet? like the DVD/HDD recorders, i reckon wait 6 months, if that, before it tumbles in price, especially in this credit crunch age. If they want this to be successful as i presume Panasonic do, they're going to have to drop this suspected price very rapidly!I wonder what Sony will do now? Bearing in mind a little while, TR checked out some new Sony HDD/Blue Ray recorders with up to a terabite capacity, but alas only for the Japanese market! I bet they'll be under pressure now, to ship these over here for Freesat users! Like most here, i was all set to go for the Humax PVR, but i think i'll hang on and see what review this machine gets & of course confirmed price!