Panasonic DMR-BWT700EB 320GB Blu-ray Disc Recorder with Twin Freeview + HD Tuners

 

 

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I bought a Panasonic DMR-BWT700EB from Amazon just over a week ago. It is an excellent product, with a vast array of functions not available elsewhere. I have it connected to a Samsung Smart TV, and the picture quality is good for all channels and particularly so for the Freeview HD channels. I was able to pick up all available Freeview channels from my existing aerial, and the set-up took seconds to complete.

The 2 Freeview+ HD tuners enable viewing of one channel while simultaneously recording two others, and also allow pausing of live TV. It plays 2D and 3D blu-ray discs. The picture quality for both is the best I have seen. I am especially impressed with the way it upscales DVDs to give a near HD quality picture with amazing depth and colour. I haven't tried to record to blu-ray yet, but recording to the hard drive is simplicity itself and takes a couple of seconds to set the timer for single programmes or series.

Recordings in DR mode are faithfully reproduced in full quality, but there are other recording options to use, e.g., long play, standard play, etc., if you want to record more programmes to the hard drive, such as when going on holiday. The DMR-BWT700EB accepts all types of recordable DVD, except disappointingly double-sided DVD-RAM discs meaning I cannot use it to view programmes I recorded previously on a DMR-EX98VEB using the double-sided discs. Also, as a previous reviewer has pointed out, the BWT700EB is not capable of playlist creation, which makes editing recordings a little less easy than it might be.

The DMR-BWT700EB also has a SD card slot and a USB port, enabling easy viewing of photographs or video captured on, e.g., digital cameras or camcorders. It is also wi-fi ready, but to use this function requires the separate purchase of a suitable dongle. Nevertheless, it has a LAN slot so by connecting a LAN cable to a wireless router you can easily access the internet functions, such as You Tube.

At around £420.00 it is expensive. Its inability to play/record on double-sided DVD-RAM discs and its inability to allow playlist creation means it isn't quite perfect. Nonetheless, I am very pleased with this product and recommend it to anyone looking for a piece of kit to record in HD and with which to play 3D blu-ray discs.

I have had this machine for several days now, and have tested many of the
myriad of functions on it - except 3-D as my TV (Sony 52" LCD) is too old
(Feb 2010!), however it is capable of a stunning HD picture so is a good
testbed.

I also have two examples of the BWT700's predecessor, the Panasonic BW780,
which has very similar capabilities except 3-D and Skype. The fact that I
bought a second one of those machines is an indication of what I thought of it -
the fact that I have now effectively bought a third one means either I'm an idiot
(the wife is nodding her head at this point) or that they are REALLY good!

In fact I bought the BWT700 as there were several niggles with the BW780 which
I hoped would have been fixed with the BWT700 - some are, some aren't -
read on for details.

I did a comprehensive (i.e. long) review on the BW780 back in December 2010,
many of the pros and cons and niggling details are in that review - and
many of them apply to the BWT700 as well - so I will not repeat them here.
If you want to see that review put "BW780" in the search box at the top of
the Amazon page, select 4-star reviews - mine is the second most helpful one
listed - currently! There are also several useful details in the comments.

The Pros
======

1) The BWT700 is capable of giving stunning pictures from broadcast Freeview
HD TV. Ok there are only currently 4 HD channels, but it's all free (OK OK -
included in your basic TV Licence) - no ongoing (and quite expensive) fees to pay.

Altogether I can get 78 free TV channels (it says - I haven't checked them all)
and this is using an aerial and downlead which are 20 years old, many yards
of (cheap) co-ax cables with numerous connectors and several pieces of kit
inserted in the cables in front of it and it still picks up a total of 117
channels. I mention this as one or two people seem to have had trouble in
receiving channels - seems OK to me with a less-than-ideal aerial setup.

BBD HD Preview and BBC One HD seem to give the best and most consistent Picture
Quality, ITV HD is also frequently very good on its programs, but has been known
to stick in upscaled SD programs which can look a bit iffy (but at least they
usually admit it on the program info), Channel 4 HD can also be very good.

2) The BWT700 can also record programmes to its sizeable hard disk - I saw
83 hours free recording time listed for HD DR mode when I first switched it on -
I was impressed - I only got 63 hours or so with the BW780.
(This is understandable as there is a 320Gb hard disk on the BWT700 as opposed
to a 250Gb disk on the BW780.)

The point to note is that this recording time is way better than you might expect
from the stated disk size. This is because Panasonic have (wisely in my view)
decided to use DR mode (Direct Recording - it records the broadcast data stream
directly) as the standard storage mode for these boxes. The advantage is the
extended storage capacity on the hard disk AND on Blu-Ray copies of those
recordings - you get 6 hours' worth of HD on a 25Gb (nominally 2 hours) BD.

Oh - and it writes it quickly too - just over 20 minutes for 6 hours' worth of
full quality (identical to original broadcast) HD.

Another advantage is that the quality of recorded programs is identical to the
broadcast - no degradation at all. And Blu-Ray disc copies are perfect too.

(It is worth noting as well that this storage and copying efficiency would not
be the same on the corresponding Freesat box as the compression algorithms used
for broadcast on Freesat are not as efficient as those for Freeview.)

Note that BD's copied in DR mode may well not play on a standard Blu-Ray player,
although in future Freeview DR may be a more accepted standard.
(I just bought a Sony BD writer and it does play them OK).
Other modes of recording are available on the BWT700 which are compatible but
slower to write - I have rarely used them on my BW780.

3) The two tuners are a real boon, allowing you to record two programmes whilst
watching a pre-recorded one playing back. However it's never enough - my VM
TiVo has 3 tuners - how about it Panasonic?(!)

4) The BWT700 has a Blu-Ray player so you can watch your BD's in excellent quality.
On a test viewing of Avatar many of the images were absolutely stunning.
(I may have seen some motion-induced judder at one point - I will investigate
further and update this info in the comments. The BW780 seemed slightly better
in this regard on an initial side-by-side comparison ...)

5) It has a Blu-Ray Recorder so you can transfer recorded HD material from the
hard disk to a Blu-Ray disc. Very quickly too in DR mode - like 6 hours' worth of
HD material to a single (nominally 2-hour) BD in about 20 minutes! With perfect
quality so you can play them back in full HD! Magic!

6) The BWT700 an accept HD movies from a Panasonic or Sony (AVCHD) camcorder and
copy them to the Hard Disk Drive and from there copy them to BD for distribution
to friends (if they ever bother to watch them!).

7) It can go on the internet so you can view YouTube videos and
watch your mates make idiots of themselves, go on to Euronews and
select video news items to watch (about 30 available when I looked) -
quality reasonable. Other apps were Twitter, Skype, Dailymotion
and Acetrax (Movies on demand) - not tried these yet. On the "more"
page were: Weather, Allocine (movies),Picasa, Bloomberg TV (business
site giving FTSE etc), some German channel apps. Another "more" page
contained Q-Tom (music - but as yet "only available in Germany"!),
Mein Klub, L'equipe, myTVscout (tells you all about the TV programs
on in Germany!) and two Czech sites.
(Some people may regard this as important ...)

Is it perfect then?

Of course not! What is?

The Cons (and solutions where applicable):
================================

1) The EPG has (or rather had) adverts! This was not as bad as several
reviewers have complained about - particularly as there is no sound with
them, and in any case the adverts can be suppressed by putting in a non-existent
postcode during setup, viz:

Functions - Others - Setup - Others - System Update - Postcode

I use a postcode of ZZ00ZZ and this worked on both my BW780 machines and (so far)
on the BWT700. (My thanks to "Voyager" for this titbit!)

However the EPG works reliably enough and has only missed one program in 8 months'
usage with 2 BW780's plus a week with a BWT700 (the EPG's are identical).

2) The BW780 had somewhat sluggish reponse when using the menus, particularly
from out of the box until an automatic software update improved it, however
it was still a bit slower than I would like.
I am pleased to report that the BWT700 is definitely better in this respect.
I will report later in the comments if it gets worse as the disk gets fuller.

3) If you haven't got an HD camcorder and aren't likely to get one in the near
future ignore the rest of this section (i.e. Cons section 3).

Panasonic have removed the DV input on the BWT700. This peeves me somewhat as
I was relying on it to transfer material from my tape-based (non-AVCHD) camcorder.
Problem was - the port on the BW780 only handled SD so I still had a problem as my
camcorder is HD and could send HD out to the DV port. It's even worse now!

AVCHD video files transfer OK to the BWT700 but have the same quirky "logic" as
on the BW780 - there are still delays while it scans the camcorder's disk and
it still seems to insist on copying great chunks (like 70 Gb worth!) at once - and
thus failing as you get low on spare disk space. There is no selection facility -
all or nothing! Weird! But if you can get your files transferred over the results
are stunning and your friends are gobsmacked (or did they mean they wanted to smack
me in the ...?)!

4) I was relieved to discover that recordings made on my BW780's and written
to Blu-Ray disc ARE compatible with this machine. Note that they are still
made using DR (Direct Mode) mode as default which means that they do not play
(yet) on standard Blu-Ray players. If you need standard Blu-Ray player
compatibility, it is possible to write them using standard Blu-Ray formats -
see my BW780 review and comments for details.

5) HD Freeview has the potential for Dolby Digital sound. Not a lot of people
seem to know that - certainly the owners of the BW780 probably don't as it
doesn't work on those! (Apparently the BBC changed the spec for it rather
late in the day and Panasonic were caught out.)

I had hoped for a software download to fix it on the BW780 but I'm still waiting!
However - good news for BWT700 users - Dolby Digital sound is alive and well and
available on broadcast HD! So far I have only found the BBC HD channel (and BBC One
HD on some programmes) uses it regularly, but maybe when films are on ...?
(The Harry Potter film on ITV HD on 30th July was not Dolby Digital sound).

More good news - broadcasts recorded on the BW780 which had Dolby Digital
content will play back on the BWT700 with Dolby Digital sound, even if you
couldn't access it on the BW780 it is still there in the broadcast data
stream. An example is the Eurovision Song Contest (wot!) and Wonders of the
Universe. Oh -... Read more ›

This was a replacement for my old Panasonic recordable DVD player which after about 5 or more years good service had given up the ghost. It is so much better. The hdmi cable has made a vast improvement to picture quality. It is now so easy to record programmes using the programme guide and it appears to work correctly all the time without losing the beginning or the end of the programme which happened all to frequently with pdq. Playback is much improved as it now has the ability to remember where you were if you come back to a recording which you had only watched halfway through. Also fast forwarding through the adverts is easy and accurate. There is much more this box will do but getting these basics right is to me far more important.

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4.0 out of 5 stars Why do you need a title?
Overall this is a very good unit, it is stylish and has a multitude of facilities. It has now become, in effect, the control center for our TV viewing. Read more

Published 8 days ago by Dave

5.0 out of 5 stars it does the job it must be good
My wife and i bought it for christmas as our present, we both had different needs for it and it does what we have asked for. Read more

Published 17 days ago by steve

4.0 out of 5 stars Panasonic DMR-BWT700EB so far
This is the third Panasonic DVD recorder that I have owned but the first Blu-ray unit.

I have found (on all models) that the TV guide takes a bit of getting used to,... Read more

Published 21 days ago by Weldingblues

5.0 out of 5 stars Wireless networking
Wanted wireless networking so bought the Netgear Universal Wifi Internet Adapter works fine with this unit. Look forward to more content as it becomes available. Read more

Published 21 days ago by G. Maudlin

5.0 out of 5 stars It's all that
This is the first time I have every been compelled to write a review on anything.
But I just have to say how pleased I am with this product. Read more

Published 24 days ago by Stu

5.0 out of 5 stars Panasonic Blue Ray Recorder Review
I have nothing but praise for this recorder. It was simple to set up and did everything asked of it. What more can I say,thank you for a wonderful product. Yours Alan Newbold.

Published 25 days ago by arn

5.0 out of 5 stars Good piece of kit!
I bought this as a replacement for a rather annoying Top-up PVR( with Top-up not active) and am very pleased with the result! Read more

Published 27 days ago by I. Buchanan

5.0 out of 5 stars Fabulous
We have had this product for about two weeks and it seems fantastic so far! Really easy to set up, easy to use and it is nice to be able to stream from my windows 7 laptop to view... Read more

Published 28 days ago by Mandy Barnes

3.0 out of 5 stars Capable but fragile?
This is certainly a very capable recorder, with a hard disk as well (over 80 hours standard definition). Read more

Published 1 month ago by Mr. H. T. Newman

5.0 out of 5 stars Panasonic DMR-BWT700EB 320GB Blu-ray Disc Recorder
It's an excellent piece of kit! However it takes time to fully comprehend what it can do and how you set it up, you have to refer to the manual frequently until you become fully... Read more

Published 1 month ago by fixer48

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