Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(37)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

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. UPDATE 15/04/12 - 3D is superb - see comment 86!

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 - and Strictly Come Dancing from November 2010!

6) This box is still no TiVo when it comes to setting recordings and general
ergonomics of use, however it is at least on a par with most other boxes
I have used - and anyway TiVo cannot write its recordings to a Blu-Ray disc!

Odd minor grumbles I had with the BW780 still seem to apply with the BWT700,
see my BW780 review (cons list item 6).

7) Copy protection - same as BW780. Basically most BBC HD stuff is not copy
protected at all - you can make unlimited copies in HD. Films on ITV HD are
frequently 1-copy only in HD. Other channels vary according to the wishes
of the programme producers. On all items you can make unlimited copies in SD.
See my BW780 review for comments on DRM protection which applies to all HD
products and is the cause of much complexity and restrictions (and sluggish
response) on any HD box. This restriction I suspect also means no playlist-based
editing which some reviewers have complained about, however there are quite
reasonable editing facilities available (e.g. partial delete for removing
adverts).

8) Aspect ratio problem - when viewing in HDMI, programs originally recorded
in 4:3 look stretched on the TV, and I hate this! A comment I received
said it was because I have Sony TV's (which I accept could well be true
but didn't help much). However another comment allowed a cure - basically
Menu - Others - Setup - Connection - TV Aspect for 4:3.
Once in there then - apparently strangely - select 16:9 NOT 4:3 and it works!
My thanks to Mr David Valentine for this one!

CONCLUSION
==========

If you don't have a camcorder and don't think you'll get one - this is definitely
a five-star box! For general use - highly recommended!

However I am a bit worried that the AVCHD camcorder data input is still
flaky (and very peeved that the DV input has been removed), so I think
I'll go with four-star again. If there was a four-star plus I'd use it.

Watch this space for updates and changes - or more likely - have a look at the
comments. I tried to edit my BW780 review but the Amazon system wouldn't let me,
so much of the updates are in fact in the comments.

This recorder covers the best of both worlds. Firstly it records the + HD channels (two at the same time-no less!) in superb quality of both picture and sound. Secondly you may put any treasured recordings onto DVD if required. I looked at other PVR's but did not like the option of only viewing the recorded programs on one particular machine. To be able to transfer recordings onto other media and then to view on any other players was one of my priorities. My previous hard disc recorder failed with the loss of many treasured programs. This loss made me take the time to check which recorders you could archive from and also take into account which would record the latest Freeview +HD channels. The set up and menu's I found easy to follow and I'm now enjoying what the full Freeview HD channels have to offer.

The BWT700 (/ BW800) is my sixth Panasonic DMR recorder. I've been brand-loyal since the very first model, a decade ago, enjoying continuity of both functionality and quality. However, despite being the most advanced recorder I've ever used (and one of the most expensive), it's the only one not capable of playlist creation and thus non-destructive video editing.

It's such a glaring omission that it's even confirmed as a "problem" under troubleshooting in the manual (see below), which is a shame because this device is replete with impressive bells and whistles, yet it's without of one of the most standard core features, and one which I use all the time.

It's important, as this type of device is becoming more and more niche, and the kind of user who would pay a premium for a machine that records HD content, with the ability to archive that footage to Blu-Ray, is likely to want the option of safely editing the material first.

I have returned mine now but hope that this basic component is restored in a future iteration, as I would like to continue using Panasonic.

Q. Cannot create a playlist.
A. Creation or editing of playlists cannot be done on this unit.

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.

This (my first DVD Recorder/PVR) is a super product. I was initially attracted by the twin tuner feature and noting it also played Blu-ray was an added bonus. However, on reading other reviews here, I proceeded with caution! A natural progression was to check the competition, but I quickly established that there was almost no competition! There's the Panasonic BW780, but that's an older model, albeit very similar in spec., but with smaller HDD. Then there's the larger sibling known as the BWT800 (Shares same user manual with this one), with 500 Gig HDD, built in WiFi and additional Sound feature. At the moment, that model costs an extra £200 and it's a job to say whether the increased spec warrants the outlay (see Amazon reviews for that elsewhere), although serious home theatre audiophiles may think so - and they may be right. The BWT700 records about 85hrs in DR mode and you can buy a WiFi dongle for about £60. However, if your PC/Router is nearby, then use a cable!

Moving onto the 'in use' bit......

There's lots of features, so in the early days there will be time spent wading through the manual. Others have made comment about the Sluggish start-up, No tray-opening via the remote, Poor EPG, Adverts on screen, etc. All these have so far not been as major an issue to me as I thought they might. Yes, it does take 20 seconds or so to boot up and some functions do not kick in instantly, but it really isn't bad. I can live without tray opening from the RC, after all, I still have to leave my chair to load another disk! As for the EPG, it's not been a problem so far. As others have said, you won't get adverts if you skip the Postcode step when first setting up the machine. There's no need to enter a random one, just don't enter one at all! The manual will tell you that once you have entered something, there's no going back here, so beware!

The twin Freeview Tuners are great and were set up in 3 minutes. Standard DVD's look better when played and the machine seems to transfer to DVD's okay. The simple editing features seem to work okay and after a while one can get quite good at chopping out adverts, etc. I've not tried Blue-ray blank disks yet, just Sony DVD-RW's.

So to sum up, I think this model is excellent, with a wide range of useful features all in one box.

Next step is to archive some VHS tapes via the HDD!

I bought this as a companion to a new Virgin Media TiVo box. There is some duplication since both have large hard drives for recording TV. The Panasonic is a great piece of kit and is good for burning DVDs of TV programes that you want to keep. I also wanted to use the hard drive as a place to keep a large number of digital photos to show on my TV and as a jukebox to store my music. The idea is that you save a CD to the hard drive and then you never need to play it again. The Gracenote database pre-burned on to the hard drive picks up the track and album title and saves them.

Plus points: the Panasonic is whisper quiet during recording and playback and makes the TiVo sound positively noisy by comparison.
Niggles: you can't switch the subtitles on a Blu-ray disc whilst it is playing although you can do this with a DVD. You need to pick the subtitle option at the beginning of the Blu-ray so, if you can't hear a bit of dialogue properly, tough! Sorting photos into albums and titling them is not easy and a precise protocol needs to be followed. The inbuilt TV tuner would only pick up SD TV broadcasts before digital switchover in our area but, once HD terrestrial broadcasts went on to full power after the switchover, this has not been a problem.

If I had my time over I would probably have forked out the extra for the 800 model because it has a larger harder disc (500mB versus 320mB) and because it has built in wi-fi to access the bonus features on a Blu-ray disc and to update the Gracenote database and the player's own firmware.

The picture quality is first rate and the ability to record two programmes at the same time is very useful. Another nice touch is the option to record a programme in HD which pops up when you select a non HD programme. The controls aren't very intuitive though and it takes a lot of reading to find the instructions in the user manual. I was also disappointed to find that it takes 133 minutes to put a one hour recorded programme onto a DVD. It also takes a while to get used to the remote control as there is a delay when using the remote which can lead you to believe it isn't working.

Bought this as an upgrade from an older version of the Panasonc HDD system (which blew a capacitor, a common fault apparantly).

It was brilliant for the firt few months but then developed a fault in that functions became impossibly slow. Contacted Panasonic who were useless, but Amazon were brilliant with a no quibble immediate exchange for a new unit.

New one still has a few glitches (wouldn't chnage channel the other day, even after re-booting) so maybe technology is too advanced for mass prduction of a machine with so many functions and gizmos?

I have had this now for around six months and I am nearly happy with it. It's easy to set up as you just plug it into the wall / TV, plug in the Ariel and it almost sets it's self up. Even the timer is easy to set, even my dad could do it. (sorry dad)
The only problem I have is with the child lock it seems to have a mind of it's own. I had never sent the child lock and to start watching some programs it would not let me unless I put in my password. So i had to set it up which was annoying. To speed things up the password i used was 0000. I have even gone onto the set up menu to disable the child lock and a few days later its back on. Some people might thick I am being a bit petty but I don't want to be told that the programs i have recorded are not for children and I might be a offended by the content. I some time think Mary Whitehouse assembled my machine.