Panasonic DMR-BW780EBK 250GB HDD Blu-Ray Recorder with Twin Freeview HD Tuners

Review by S. Williams for Panasonic DMR-BW780EBK 250GB HDD Blu-Ray Recorder with Twin Freeview HD Tuners
Rating:
I decided it was time to upgrade my old Sony 120GB hdd dvd recorder with this machine, the latest in blu ray/hi def freeview technology from Panasonic.

It’s slightly smaller and lighter than I expected (compared to my old Sony) which is no bad thing. Setting it up was easy. I connected it to my tv using hdmi and also plugged it into my internet router.

Switching on for the first time, it found all of the channels in a couple of minutes and I was ready to checkout freeview HD on my 40″ Samsung LED TV. The quality of the HD channels was as good as I had hoped. Standard freeview looked very good but I still prefer the picture from the tuner in the tv. Next I tried a blu ray movie. Again, the quality of the picture and sound were excellent. Dvds looked great too. It upscales them to HD but it’s hard to say how good it performs because my tv upscales the dvd picture too.

Recording onto the hard disk stores it in an uncompressed format which means that when you play it back you get perfect broadcast quality. (Assuming the broadcast was “perfect” in the first place.) You get the option to compress it if you decide to record it to a dvd/blu ray.

I tried the Viera Cast (internet) functions. Hitting the button on the remote sends the screen black for 10 seconds which is slightly disconcerting when you’ve only been using the machine for 15 minutes. I was worried that I might have broken something but I now know that it’s perfectly normal. I was presented with a screen of “boxes” containing portals to various web services including YouTube and Picassa. There were several German language sites too. Viera Cast is probably something I won’t use every day but they will be adding more services in future, possibly including a film rental site which would make it a more useful feature.

And now for the EPG….

How can such a great piece of technology end up with such an awful electronic programme guide??

I am not complaining about it failing to show a small picture of the current programme (picture in picture) in one corner of the guide, the same as my Samsung tv. That would be have been useful.

I am not complaining about it switching off the sound when you switch to the epg.

I am not complaining that it’s not transparent which means that I can’t see the current programme in the background. Although that would have been nice.

I can forgive all of these failings but what I cannot forgive is the damn adverts which take up 25% of the left side of the epg. They’ve ruined it! There’s this large box on the left which contains random ads whilst the actual epg itself is squashed into the remaining part of the screen. Most of the programme names are too long to fit in the small boxes provided, so you find yourself having to highlight each programme in turn so that you can see the full title at the top of the screen.

I only use the epg for scheduling recordings. It’s too annoying to use all of the time. I have to use the epg on my tv for normal everyday use. That’s because Samsung have taken the radical approach of only showing tv programmes in their epg!

Anyway, I’ve been using this machine for several weeks now and I am generally quite pleased with it. It has never locked up/frozen which is more than I can say for my old Sony hdd freeview recorder or my even older Panasonic hdd recorder. If it wasn’t for the epg then I would have given it 5 stars.

Review by W. Paton for Panasonic DMR-BW780EBK 250GB HDD Blu-Ray Recorder with Twin Freeview HD Tuners
Rating:
The performance of the Blue Ray Player is excellent but the tv tuner locks up on station 3 and it is very difficult to get back to normal operation other than by switching to machine off, waiting for several minutes then switching back on. All works as it should until I select station 3 and the tuner locks up with a blank screen. Panasonic Customer Support is a contradiction in terms. Their web site is is very slow and is difficult to navigate – very disappointing. I am beginning to wish that I had bought Sony!