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Still the only contender in Blu-ray recording, Panasonic’s latest PVR-recorder is technically brilliant, if ergonomically niggly.
A year has passed, and still nobody is competing with Panasonic in making a Blu-ray recorder. The company’s original DMR-BW500 has now been replaced by two recorders — the DMR-BW750 and the DMR-BW850 models, which differ primarily in hard-drive size. Here we look at the 500GB DMR-BW850.
EQUIPMENT
This single unit acts as a twin high-definition personal video recorder (with large 500GB hard-disk drive), DVD recorder and player, and Blu-ray recorder and player. The 500GB hard-disk drive should be good for 72 hours of HDTV recording in original format. Plus it is a music jukebox (it sucks music from CDs, labels tracks with internet-derived names, and makes them available for playback). Plus it provides access to a very limited, but nonetheless fascinating, range of internet materials.
This is mighty impressive functionality. Better, as we’ll see, it does most of it very well. As a Blu-ray player, the unit is full-functioning, RECORDER PRACTICE Still the only contender in Blu-ray recording, Panasonic’s latest PVR-recorder is technically brilliant, if ergonomically niggly. offering both BonusView and BD-Live functionality. For the persistent storage required by these you must use SD (or for 4GB or more, SDHC) cards. These go in the front panel, but since they slot right into the unit’s body, the flap over the uglier parts of the front panel closes nicely.
You can burn your HDTV or SDTV (or HD camcorder recordings from an SD card) to Blu-ray or DVD as you prefer. In the latter case, they are scaled down to SD resolution.
A quick google suggests that, as we go to print, a blank single-layer BD-RE or BD-R is going to cost you at least $15, more commonly $25 or more, with prices for dual-layer (50GB) BD-REs in excess of $70! So the ability to use regular recordable DVDs for archiving where quality isn’t critical is welcome.
Changed from the previous model is that you get four additional modes for HD recording as well as the original ‘DR’ mode. ‘DR’ is a direct copy of the original material, unaltered, and can even include multiple audio tracks and subtitles. The four HD modes convert HDTV from its native MPEG2 to the more efficient MPEG4-AVC and so extend the capacity of the hard-disk drive to 80, 120, 180 or 240 hours.
You can also record from external sources, via DV or composite video or S-Video. And you can import video (including high-definition material) that you have recorded on your Panasonic camcorder, simply by plugging its SD card into the front panel slot on the unit.
PERFORMANCE
The limited internet access mentioned eariler brings you only two things, but they are doozies. You can access YouTube and Picasa. The former needs no explanation, while the latter is a Google-hosted shared photo site. Just press the ‘Viera Cast’ key on the remote control (assuming you have the unit wired into your network) and choose between the two. You can conduct searches and the results returned are effectively the same as if you were using a computer.
Picture quality is okay. Video quality on YouTube is less so — due, obviously, to source limitations. Oddly, the pause and skip keys on the remote don’t work with YouTube — you have to arrow to the relevant on-screen control and press ‘Enter’. The video buffering was seemingly purged the moment a video had been finished, so to watch it again meant downloading it again.
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