[The News Bot]

Reviewed by David Mackenzie
The DMR-BS850 receives satellite TV in both SD and HD, records to its sizable hard drive, does a fantastic job of playing back Blu-ray Discs, a great job of playing back DVD, and still has additional features to offer. As a result, it’s not difficult at all to recommend it to anyone who decides that free-to-air satellite is for them.
Read the full review...

[Pecker]

David, RE:

Digital “Rights” Management

Unfortunately, Panasonic have to pander to the paranoia of rightsholders, who, for some reason, have decided that the worth of a particular TV broadcast is directly proportional to the number of pixels used. For that reason, the BS850 employs Digital “Rights” Management and limits the number of times you’re allowed to transfer recordings from the HDD to a Blu-ray Disc - but only if they’re in High Definition (we’re allowed to do what we please with grubby old 576i).

BBC HD programmes can be shifted to BD once, and ITV HD programmes can’t be transferred at all, but everyone’s hoping that the latter situation will change shortly. Now, I can understand that BBC will have to keep Hollywood studios happy, but what does not sit well with me one bit is the fact that this restriction affects ALL of the corporation's publicly-funded HD output, rather than specific films. It does make me wonder if our public service broadcaster has the interests of their commercial arm at the forefront.

Regardless, I’d imagine that this won’t really inconvenience most users, who’ll typically record a programme for later viewing and then delete it. Still, I thought that the inanity of the situation merits attention. Again though, none of it is Panasonic’s fault.

David, I don't quite understand this.

If you want a HDD recorder you can get one a lot cheaper (SKY's own HD box?). Indeed, you can buy both a Blu-ray Disc player and HDD recorder for a combined cost of far less than this.

So the only real advantage of this machine is to back up on to Blu-ray Disc, which you can't do for 'protected' content.

Oh, and you can only record Freesat, not Sky Movies HD, Sky Sports HD, etc. I would imagine these constitute a large majority of broadcast HD content viewed in the UK.

Otherwise, thanks for the typically excellent review.

Steve W

[David Mackenzie]

Hey Steve,
Yes, Sky are the only people who seem to be making HDTV happen in the UK.
Not sure what that has to do with DRM specifically, though?

[Smith2004]

David, Thanks for the review. I have just received a BS850 today and am well pleased with its performance. I agree with your point about SD being restricted to mpeg2. The ability to re-encode SD stuff to AVC mp4 would have been brilliant. By the way, what did you think of the 'HL' mode for HD recordings? It was much better than I expected, particularly as its done in real time.

[Pecker]

Originally Posted by David Mackenzie

Hey Steve,
Yes, Sky are the only people who seem to be making HDTV happen in the UK.
Not sure what that has to do with DRM specifically, though?

I think what I'm trying to say is that this machine can only record a very limited amount of broadcast high def to Blu-ray Disc, and as such is not worth c.£1k.

By the time HD is the norm (BBC1, BBC2, etc all showing all films, etc, in HD) you'll be able to pick up a BD recorder for far less than this.

What good is a BD recorder with so little to record onto BD?

Steve W

[YellowSphere]

Whilst I agree that this product is of currently limited to appeal for various reasons, I have to take my hat off to Panasonic for releasing it. We all know that consumer electronics is a trickle-down thing, so this gives us a decent indication of what's to come for Blu-Ray recorders.

Regarding some points raised in the review. The pointing out HD simulcast feature is something which I believe is part of the freesat+ spec, at least, the Humax Foxsat-HDR also performs this function. It can also look for repeats if you try to record three programmes simultaneously so you don't miss one which the Panny unit may do also, but obviously you were unable to test.

Also, I believe the BBC have said on their HD blog that currently everything is flagged copy once because they don't yet have the ability to reliably set different levels of copy protection for different programming and that's something they're looking to rectify (though I may be remembering this incorrectly!)

[David Mackenzie]

It raises questions about what constitutes a "review", I think. I took the view that people looking at the DMR-BS850 would be aware that the amount of HD content on free to air UK TV is woeful, and that this wasn't Panasonic's fault. If it had been more of a "here's what to buy" article, I'd probably have mentioned it more.

It's a bit like how we can still give a TV close to full marks, even although there's never anything good on

YellowSphere: thanks for the info.

[Pecker]

Originally Posted by David Mackenzie

It raises questions about what constitutes a "review", I think. I took the view that people looking at the DMR-BS850 would be aware that the amount of HD content on free to air UK TV is woeful, and that this wasn't Panasonic's fault. If it had been more of a "here's what to buy" article, I'd probably have mentioned it more.

It's a bit like how we can still give a TV close to full marks, even although there's never anything good on

YellowSphere: thanks for the info.

Yes, I see what you mean.

Good review, as ever.

Steve W

[Miyazaki]

Originally Posted by YellowSphere

Whilst I agree that this product is of currently limited to appeal for various reasons, I have to take my hat off to Panasonic for releasing it. We all know that consumer electronics is a trickle-down thing, so this gives us a decent indication of what's to come for Blu-Ray recorders.

It does look good but is about £300 too expensive and around 18 months too early in terms of how we might expect freesat HD content to evolve based on how sky HD has over the same time scale.

[rossini]

Originally Posted by Pecker

David, RE:

Oh, and you can only record Freesat, not Sky Movies HD, Sky Sports HD, etc. I would imagine these constitute a large majority of broadcast HD content viewed in the UK.

Steve W

Is there no way you can hook this up to a SKY HD box and record directly from that?

[David Mackenzie]

Good question. There's not, because the recorder has no HD video inputs. I'm sure that there is some sort of copy protection fear behind that.

[BurgerAndFries]

Great review, cheers!!

One quessie: Can all Blu-ray recordings of BBC HD programmes made on the Panasonic DMR-BS850 be played back normally on all other standalone Blu-ray players (and the PS3)?

[David Mackenzie]

Yeah, if you burn a recorded programme to Blu-ray Disc, it will play on the European version of the PS3.

[Pecker]

Originally Posted by David Mackenzie

Good question. There's not, because the PVR has no HD video inputs. I'm sure that there is some sort of copy protection fear behind that.

Did you want to replace the word 'fear' with the term 'sphincter-tightening paranoid terror'?



Steve W

Hi,
I'm currently thinking of purchasing the DMR-BS850, but want to make sure I can take advantage of the HD audio. I currently have a Harman/Kardon AVR8500 Amp which has no HDMI inputs. I can not afford to replace the amp which just has a choice of analogue phono or digital optical or coaxial. I have been lead to believe that the digital optical and coaxial prevent the output of HD audio. Is this true, and if so, any ideas how I could get around this (without changing the amp)[FONT=Arial].[/FONT]
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[dicklodge]

Originally Posted by HarrisonStickle

Hi,
I'm currently thinking of purchasing the DMR-BS850, but want to make sure I can take advantage of the HD audio. I currently have a Harman/Kardon AVR8500 Amp which has no HDMI inputs. I can not afford to replace the amp which just has a choice of analogue phono or digital optical or coaxial. I have been lead to believe that the digital optical and coaxial prevent the output of HD audio. Is this true, and if so, any ideas how I could get around this (without changing the amp)[FONT=Arial].[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial][/FONT]

For some crazy reason, they didn't put analogue outs on their flagship model. This is the only other way you can get HD audio into an amp apart from via HDMI. Optical or coaxial don't have enough bandwidth for HD audio.

[David Mackenzie]

No, you'll need to change the amp for HD audio. The digital audio outputs (apart from the HDMI AV output) on this machine are limited to standard audio only, as usual.

[Rasczak]

Originally Posted by Pecker

What good is a BD recorder with so little to record onto BD?

Originally Posted by David Mackenzie

I took the view that people looking at the DMR-BS850 would be aware that the amount of HD content on free to air UK TV is woeful

Having just picked up the Panasonic BS850, I would argue that quality is more important than quantity - and BBC HD gives that. I have zero interest in SkyHD, especially the movie services, as I can get them in much better quality on Blu-ray.

[David Mackenzie]

I'm not really enamoured with the image quality on any of the HDTV channels I've seen after getting so used to BD, to be honest. It does vary from show to show, though.

[savvy249]

Originally Posted by David Mackenzie

Yeah, if you burn a recorded programme to Blu-ray Disc, it will play on the European version of the PS3.

See this post - it won't!!

[Rasczak]

Originally Posted by David Mackenzie

Yeah, if you burn a recorded programme to Blu-ray Disc, it will play on the European version of the PS3.

Originally Posted by savvy249

See this post - it won't!!

As David says you can burn compatible recordings that play on other Blu-ray players but you can't use the DR feature. We have a compatibility thread running for those interested.

Thanks for you help. I was hoping there might have been a way around it, but it looks like I'll have to wait either for a version of the recorder with analogue O/P or the demise of my my amp.

[nick243]

Hi
Apologies if this is a stupid question but....
I recently bought this very good recorder however I can't seem to save the sat channels outside of freesat because after downloading the page that comes just says how to delete channels.

So...how do you just download save and start watching weird and wonderful stuff from where ever???

Nick

[nick243]

Originally Posted by nick243

Hi
Apologies if this is a stupid question but....
I recently bought this very good recorder however I can't seem to save the sat channels outside of freesat because after downloading the page that comes just says how to delete channels.

So...how do you just download save and start watching weird and wonderful stuff from where ever???

Nick

It's OK I've now worked it out. You can't access the sat channels outside of freesat through the epg - that's just plain daft