November 24th, 2010
Panasonic DMR-XW380EBK 250GB HDD DVD Recorder with Twin Freeview HD Tuners
- Twin Freeview-HD tuners
- DVD Recorder
- HDD Hard Drive Recorder
The Panasonic DMR-XW380 is a Freeview PVR featuring recording to the capacious 250GB hard disc or almost any type of recordable DVD disc, 1080p upscaling of recordings and DVDs via HDMI, Freeview+ Playback time-shifting functions which include pausing and rewinding live TV and even DivX playback and USB connectivity.
Rating: 
(out of 9 reviews)
Price:
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202746 items found. Showing results 1 to 15 next page
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Review by Mark for Panasonic DMR-XW380EBK 250GB HDD DVD Recorder with Twin Freeview HD Tuners
Rating:
I already own the XS-350 freesat model from last year but wanted more recording options, to save the hassle of installing another two satellite cables, thought the option of freeview hd would be a wise choice, unfortunately it wasn’t, as a normal freeview twin tuner recorder it would be great but it’s the hd side that falls short especially compared to freesat, firstly is the extremely poor sound on the hd channels, they are very quiet, half the volume of freesat but secondly and more annoying is the poor quality picture on itv hd, on freesat the true hd programs look stunning but on the freeview equivalent it seems all programs are just upscaled, resulting in a picture that looks very poor in comparison to freesat, also the itv hd logo that appears in the corner of the screen on a true hd program on freesat is strangely absent on the same program on freeview, on a positive note though, ch4 hd is a plus which looks excellent, if itv can sort this problem out on freeview hd or possibly a panasonic fault that needs sorting with a firmware update, this could be a very good recorder, i am thinking of returning it for a refund but bbc hd and ch4 hd are fine, so i just don’t know?
*UPDATE*
After my initial disappointment, itv have finally fixed the picture problem on it’s hd channel and i must say the picture looks marvellous, if the broadcasters can increase the volume on the hd channels, it would make this machine a 5* product.
*UPDATED* on 4/9/10
After 3 months of owning this unit, the volume level looks to have been resolved, the hd channels are now on par with the sd channels plus they are output in 5.1 through the hdmi connection to an appropriate amp, so overall i’m very happy with the performance, enough in fact to have upgraded to the blu-ray model.
Review by Peter for Panasonic DMR-XW380EBK 250GB HDD DVD Recorder with Twin Freeview HD Tuners
Rating:
I have had this DVD recorder a few weeks now. The picture quality is excellent. It also up scales the non HD TV pictures very well. Sound it fine but I’m not into surround or that stuff. There are a lot of features on this machine and I haven’t used them all yet. It is a vaste improvement over the Sony DVD HDD recorder I have been using. Not only better quality pictures but much more useful in terms of its feature. There is a down side though. The instruction manual is very poor. There are a few translation issues which are easy to get over but it is not totally comprehensive and the index and contents pages leave so much out, you find yourself flicking through trying to find the bit you want. And I’m someone who likes instruction manuals! There is a quirk that can be overcome. If you butt end two recordings, it will cut off the last minute of the first one. Not sure why. To fix this just either extend the first recording by at least one minute or start the second one a minute or more early. Obviously you can only do that if there isn’t another program needing to be recorded at the same time. The adverts on the Guide screen are a drag but I don’t even notice them now. It has the odd feature of giving series recorded programs a code rather than the program title although you can still see the program details if you press ‘i’ for information on it. Also I can’t see how you can stop a series record once you have set it up. Nothing in the Manual. The parental guidance also irritates me, because I don’t have kids and I don’t want to have to keep entering the code before I watch a program but I can’t turn that off either. Even with these irritants I would not hesitate to recommend this machine although I think you need to get it at a good low price as I did otherwise there can be slightly cheaper competitors.
Review by Avery for Panasonic DMR-XW380EBK 250GB HDD DVD Recorder with Twin Freeview HD Tuners
Rating:
Very disappointing gizzmo. Much too slow to respond compared with the old Panasonic it replaces. Illogical, long winded menus that take for ever to navigate through, partly because of the number of key strokes and partly because of the incredibly slow response to key strokes. It is far too easy to get most of the way through the four or five keystrokes necessary to carry out simple functions only to hit a badly placed key right next to the ones you are trying to use. The result of this is that the machine loses the plot and you have to make three or four key presses to undo what you have done, just so you can get back to the beginning and start all over again. If you are trying to make a quick recording of something, by the time you have the machine ready, the moment has long gone. Just far too clever for its own good.
And the anti piracy system means that there is virtually no point in having a hard disk recorded and DVD recorder combined because the “anti piracy” system will prevent you from copying the programme over anyway! Unlike the old machine, you cannot edit out the adverts from a movie, so you have to keep everything or lose everything. A disastrously designed, and therefore grossly over priced machine.
The box was nice.
Review by R. G. Seymour for Panasonic DMR-XW380EBK 250GB HDD DVD Recorder with Twin Freeview HD Tuners
Rating:
Several disappointments for me, I think the description of this unit is misleading and the Manual is over complicated. lets be absolutely clear about some of the things it does and does not do.
it records HD from it’s own free view tuner, the surround sound is encoded AAC so unless you have a surround amp that can accept AAC you will not get surround sound.
You cannot feed HD into the unit from a HD satellite receiver or other set top box and record it, the external inputs will only record at XP,SP,LP,EP.
You cannot feed surround sound into the unit and record it through the external inputs.
Without a surround sound amp with an AAC input, the only way to get surround sound on a normal amp is to convert the recording.
Despite all the lists of what it can record on and in what mode, recording from the internal tuner is in one mode only,
DR direct recording, that basically means you get exactly the same as the transmitted signal, with the sound in AAC if it has surround sound. So you have to record the show, then edit the recording and convert the recording to one of the “H” modes HG,HX,HE,HL,HM. There is a setting in one of the obscure menu’s where you can set what you want the audio to be when you convert to one of these modes, with it set to 5.1 you will end up with a smaller file compressed with a codec similar to the MKV format and with 5.1 surround sound that will play on your amp, but be warned to convert a two hour film will take two hours.
So great 4 hours to get an HD film recorded from internal tuner to a format that will give surround sound. Nice bit of kit, I don’t think.
The manual is very missleading and it took me hours to figure out that you cannot record normal video and audio input directly into these “H” modes, it can only be done by converting a recording with the editit.
It is not a DVD recorder like my Sony is a DVD recorder, it is a HDD recorder that once you have recorded something, you can then move it to DVD and it takes as long to do that as it took to record it. All the claims about high speed transfer is rubbish, the requirements to transfer at high speed are extremely difficult to meet. All normal recordings you make will transfer to disk at normal speed.
You can only record directly to the DVD if you are recording from an external input and then you have to go through 2 menus to select a system called flexible Recording, having done so it then spends time asking you to wait while it gets the disk ready. Just make sure you start pressing buttons to record to disk five minutes before you need the recording to start is my advice.
Flexible recording? it means you have no control over the recording quality, you set how long the recording will be and it decides the recording mode.
I am getting fed up with little boxes popping up telling me I can’t do what I am trying to do.
All in all I am very dissapointed at what it can actually do, for the money it’s an expensive twin tuner freeview box with confusing claims about it’s abilities.
Update:- I forgot to mention that You pay nearly £400 for this and they cram adverts down your throat on the TV guide menu. A quarter of the page is wasted on adverts and the program listings are crammed into the remainder of the page.
Review by That Fella for Panasonic DMR-XW380EBK 250GB HDD DVD Recorder with Twin Freeview HD Tuners
Rating:
I already have one Panasonic recorder with which I am very happy. Needed to replace an ageing Liteon so plumped for an XW380 which I thought would allow me to record TV programmes in both high and standard definition depending on the programme.
Wrong! It will only record in HD which for me is a huge drawback. There is no facility to choose between storage hungry HD and the flexibity of SD with its XP,SP,LP,EP options. Panasonic say that this is the case for all their HD and Bluray machines.
Ironically this machine will only copy to DVD in SD according to the manual.
Sadly I have had to return the machine.