This is the machine I have been waiting for! Just about everything else in the house is Panasonic and I am impressed with their quality and it is nice when the AV kit can all be operated from one remote.
£700 is a bit of a stinger. I will wait a few weeks and hope it pops up for about £600.
This looks pretty sweet, save the price tag and the fact that I have no need to burn anything to Blu-ray. Wake me up when they release a box minus the Blu-ray player/recorder and with a sub-£500 price tag!
A comment about reviews like this in general. Although you usually (but not always) comment on the quality of EPGs/on-screen menus (graphic style, readability, usability, speed, flashiness, etc) I think it would also be worth showing screen-grabs of them. This is the part of the system that most people will interface with the most often. And if you are making video reviews I think that video cuts showing interaction with these menus would be even better.
The device would be better served by removing the blu-ray recorder and putting in a 2TB hard drive. Who backs up programs to disc in this day and age? With the cost of blank blu-ray media it's cheaper to buy the boxset.
£700 and you get a 250Gb hard drive. Is that a typo or a sad joke? That's terrible. Totally agree with @jopey in regards to "who backs up programmes to Blu-Ray" and the price of blanks.
Obviously the folks who are responsible for this are not paying any attention to what their colleagues are doing as with Panasonic Viera TX-P42G20B 42in Plasma TV.
The HDD size (agreed 1-2TB is not too much to ask) is not the only short coming: Why not also Freesat tuner albeit in place of a second Freeview one. After all more and more tv's (as AV manufacturers catch some common sense flu from Pani)are being sold with Freeview HD and soon no doubt Freesat also!! After all the old VCRs didn't have two tuners.
£700 is too much even with a 0.5-1TB HDD - not in this day an age. £500 tops Pani if you a listening and feel free to give us a measly 500GB HDD!! or you can live up to your reputation and fit a 1TBHDD.
As for all this DMR nonsense, why? The VCR didn't destroy the media industry. The DMR on DVDs didn't work – why then all those ads at the start of the DVD about copyright theft blah, blah... yawn. The money saved on not implementing DMR is probably more than compensates.
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Now way to transfer recorded data from existing PVR
Quirky menu systems
Over complex setup
No upgrade path
Well, I thought this was going to be a great PVR to upgrade to, but it went back to the suppliers. Why? Basic functionality is missing!
The vast majority of people who buy a PVR like this are going to be existing PVR users, who are upgrading. Therefore, they will have loads of TV programmes and films already on an existing PVR that they don't want to lose, so come on Panasonic, where is the ability to transfer them over?
Well, here are the options. I could do them in real time playing back over s-video or SCART, losing picture fidelity in the process and leave both PVR's running for a week. However, even this is not possible, because I either get a one week long programme on the Panasonic, or it stops after every one and has to be restarted copying!!! AAAARRRRGGGHHHH!!!!
I tried recording several films and TV programmes to a DVD and then copying them to the HDD on the Panasonic, but despite it allowing me to select them all to copy, it actually only copies the first programme and then stops, making you go through the whole copy process again for each programme on the DVD. Why on earth have the menu allow multiple selections of they don't work? VERY FRUSTRATING!
Some basic functionality is needed that provides an HDMI input that can be recorded from, which will automatically detect new films, etc coming in and record them separately with the correct file name - not "Thursday 29th June 09:52" etc. I want to know whether it is an episode of Poirot or whether it is a film such as Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Lethal Weapon 3, etc.
For goodness sake guys it has a hard disk in it. You should be able to copy the data from other devices for other manufacturers WITHOUT having to void the warranty and take the disks out of both units!
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Far too complex and missing basic functionality
30th June 2011, By Gordon Hunter
Well, I thought this was going to be a great PVR to upgrade to, but it went back to the suppliers. Why? Basic functionality is missing!
The vast majority of people who buy a PVR like this are going to be existing PVR users, who are upgrading. Therefore, they will have loads of TV programmes and films already on an existing PVR that they don't want to lose, so come on Panasonic, where is the ability to transfer them over?
Well, here are the options. I could do them in real time playing back over s-video or SCART, losing picture fidelity in the process and leave both PVR's running for a week. However, even this is not possible, because I either get a one week long programme on the Panasonic, or it stops after every one and has to be restarted copying!!! AAAARRRRGGGHHHH!!!!
I tried recording several films and TV programmes to a DVD and then copying them to the HDD on the Panasonic, but despite it allowing me to select them all to copy, it actually only copies the first programme and then stops, making you go through the whole copy process again for each programme on the DVD. Why on earth have the menu allow multiple selections of they don't work? VERY FRUSTRATING!
Some basic functionality is needed that provides an HDMI input that can be recorded from, which will automatically detect new films, etc coming in and record them separately with the correct file name - not "Thursday 29th June 09:52" etc. I want to know whether it is an episode of Poirot or whether it is a film such as Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Lethal Weapon 3, etc.
For goodness sake guys it has a hard disk in it. You should be able to copy the data from other devices for other manufacturers WITHOUT having to void the warranty and take the disks out of both units!
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