Panasonic DMR-BWT735 Hard drive

Brian566

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Hi all
I am completely gutted my Panasonic Blue ray Hard drive recorder is starting to pack up Model DMR-BWT735 keeps not reconsigning hard drive But my main issue is i I have four external hard drives all full of films

If the units hard drive finally pack in i realize i would lose all my recordings but i dont want to loose all the external drives content

Is there any way can transfer the films on these external usb drive to another machine What worries me is even if i buy another Panasonic the USB drives wont play as the instructions say these are matched to the original Machines hard drive

One way i could try is to transfer the films content to DVD but i dont think this will be possible with HD due to DVD disc space

Any ideas before it pack in
 
You can burn HD recordings to Blu-ray discs (BD-R / BD-RE) using the DMR-BWT735. You could then rip those Blu-rays to a PC to store on HDDs if you wanted.
 
Somebody was looking into solving the issue with external HDDs only working with the original machine. Not sure how far they got:
 
You can burn HD recordings to Blu-ray discs (BD-R / BD-RE) using the DMR-BWT735. You could then rip those Blu-rays to a PC to store on HDDs if you wanted.
Oh, and, as long as the recordings are not copied protected, I believe you can load them into another Panasonic Blu-ray recorder from the BD-Rs/BD-REs if you get a replacement for your DMR-BWT735.
 
Sadly no further, I had to press on spare unit into service so now only have one to experiment on.
We know there is a "tying together" of the HDD, the unit and all ext HDDs.
The unit stores its part of this data in both the processor pcb and in the EEPROM on the power pcb.
The int HDD has data related to this in the reserved area accessed via negative cylinder numbers.
The big question for you is if you change the int HDD will the ext HDDs still work?
I don't know, but would be very interested to know. I think theremis a better than evens chance they will work, but a gamble.
 
Thanks All for quick reply

I was leaning towards a Sony But if i can rescue my content from the External hard drives may stick with Panasonic
 
I should have investigated this aspect before.
Still I only need one machine to investigate, so I can have a go if you want.
I know there is data stored in the EEPROM when a USB HDD is registered, so hopefully that is the only place. In this case you could replace the int HDD and all your USB HDDs would still work ok and the recordings be safe.
I can fire up my spare 720, register a USB HDD make a recording on it, then swap the int HDD and see if it will play the USB HDD recording.
I don't want to waste my time if it would not help you, so please let me know.
I don't have a 735 but it is almost the same as a 720 so the test should be valid.
 
That would be good If its not to much trouble
there is a thread on hear about changing hard drive and if it finally packs in i have nothing to loose

As i said dont want to loose everything off the external drives
 
Ok
Give me maybe 24 hours, I will respond with results.
 
Just made it, 50 minutes to go!
Good news, yes it works.
You can swap the int HDD and recordings on USB HDD remain and can be played.

For the record:
I took a 720, made a couple of recordings, one in SD other HD, both recordings being in DR mode.
I then connected a USB HDD and went through the registration process.
I made a further recording.
Next I copied these 3 recordings to the USB HDD (In fact although it's called copy it actually moves the recording to the USB HDD)
I then told the 720 I wanted to disconnect the USB HDD, then disconnected it.
I switched the 720 off and after it shut down I unplugged it.
Swapped the int HDD for an unused (in the 720) one and plugged it back in and went into HDD management and formatted it.
I then powered up the USB HDD and then plugged it into the 720
The recordings I made were all there and played perfectly.
I made a new recording and copied/alla moved it to the USB one and that was all OK and all recordings on the USB HDD would play OK.
Finally, I told the 720 to disconnect the USB HDD, I unplugged it, powered down the 720, u-nlpugged it from the mains.
Replaced the original int HDD, powered the 720 up, formatted the int HDD. Powered the 720 down, unplugged it, connected the already powered USB HDD, re-plugged the 720, powered it up and all the USB HDD recordings were still there and played OK.

Whether all the powering up, down and disconnecting is necessary I don't know. I do know the 720 can complain if you unplug a USB HDD without having told it to disconnect it first.

My conclusion is that yes you can safely (on a 720 and I can't see a 735 being any different) replace the int HDD and recordings on USB HDD are preserved.
Please do note though that you will loose recordings on the int HDD due to the required format of the HDD.
I hope this helps. (Replacing the int HDD is easy and it doesn't have to be the same model or even make.
 
Brian
I went out of my way to try and help you.
I unboxed my spare unit, registered a usb hdd, made recordings, swapped the int hdd and checked the usb recordings. I then had to reinstate everything.
I posted the results here for you.
You however can't be bothered to provide feedback and help the knowledge pool.
It is people like you who make me ask why I bother.
 
Hi Mate
Im so sorry I have in and out of Hospital and just realized my my settings were not on auto reply

Sorry to put you out but your information is well received now nearly recovered will get back onto the project
 
its for my daughter she has now bought a new unit so i can play around with the old unit so will change the Hard drive and then do what you have done and it should be OK
Again sorry
 
Very sorry to hear that you have been poorly, I wish you a speedy recovery.
I apologise for the tone of my comment, a bad day, but that is no excuse.
Thank you for the feedback.
 
No problems no offence taken we all have those days
But your test is much appreciated now i know it works can go ahead as its now a spare unit
 
Hi, I have another issue, just transferred a lot of recording to exterior registered hard drive so I can re-arrange but now worried reading all these issues that Zi have lost all of these, or can I burn to blu ray but will this mean a loss in quality
 
You don't loose the USB HDD recordings if you swap the internal HDD (see post 10 here:Panasonic DMR-BWT735 Hard drive)
But you DO LOOSE them if the Panny itself dies, they are tied to that specific recorder.
What makes you think you might have lost them?

You can copy DR mode recordings but only in real-time - no high speed copying to a DVD (i guess Blu-ray the same). There is absolutely no loss of quality when using DR mode - it is just a copy of the incoming data stream, no lossy compression applied.
 
You don't loose the USB HDD recordings if you swap the internal HDD (see post 10 here:Panasonic DMR-BWT735 Hard drive)
But you DO LOOSE them if the Panny itself dies, they are tied to that specific recorder.
What makes you think you might have lost them?

You can copy DR mode recordings but only in real-time - no high speed copying to a DVD (i guess Blu-ray the same). There is absolutely no loss of quality when using DR mode - it is just a copy of the incoming data stream, no lossy compression applied.
Hi, I might not have explained myself, I know they are still on the exterior hard drives
You don't loose the USB HDD recordings if you swap the internal HDD (see post 10 here:Panasonic DMR-BWT735 Hard drive)
But you DO LOOSE them if the Panny itself dies, they are tied to that specific recorder.
What makes you think you might have lost them?

You can copy DR mode recordings but only in real-time - no high speed copying to a DVD (i guess Blu-ray the same). There is absolutely no loss of quality when using DR mode - it is just a copy of the incoming data stream, no lossy compression applied.
You don't loose the USB HDD recordings if you swap the internal HDD (see post 10 here:Panasonic DMR-BWT735 Hard drive)
But you DO LOOSE them if the Panny itself dies, they are tied to that specific recorder.
What makes you think you might have lost them?

You can copy DR mode recordings but only in real-time - no high speed copying to a DVD (i guess Blu-ray the same). There is absolutely no loss of quality when using DR mode - it is just a copy of the incoming data stream, no lossy compression applied.
Hi, Thanks for you answer but iI might not have explained correctly, I know that they are still on the USB hard drives but can I then move them back to the internal hard drive in preferred order or do I then loose them, there is nothing in the manual that suggest you can do this, I suspect this is a security measure, just like the fact recordings made on computers to a blu-ray disc cannot be recorder to the hard drive but recording made on the same computers to dvd-r/W, dvd ram are all accepted and can be recorded, this may be down to file type or architecture the blu-ray is recorded in which is [email protected] FPS which I cannot find any converter and burning software which can manage this, or perhaps because I again suspect it is due to the fact that Blu-ray Discs cannot be finalised which the dvd-r/w discs seem to be, I know this is an old machine and Chromecast, Firestick, and Roku which are all streaming methods which are unrecordable, I have never seen any discussions on this and even Panasonic are unable? to help, I think I re-collect they told me, in an old email, they use AVCHD file format which I cannot find a way to burn this file system to the dvd discs, hope this explains my predicament, thanks Dave
 
Hi Dave
Yes you can move recordings back and forth between int HDD and USB HDDs.
Note that Panasonic call this copy but it is acually move, defintely for HD recordings, not sure for SD, it might be more or might be copy.
As to the order, I guess it wil be the order you copy them in.
I should add I take thus from a 720 not a 735 but I expect itbis the same, pages 71,2 of the 720 manual refers.
Blu ray discs can be finalised. This stops further recording on them.
You can copy AVCHD to a DVD-R. Page 59, of 720, manual refers. But they will not play on a DVD player, needs a Bluray player.
AVCHD is pretty common but is registered to just Sony and Panasonic.
You shouldn't have any issues with 720x576 25fps format recordings, a very very common standard ,in DVDs for example, ofter referred to as SD, in Europe.
It is not usual however to have SD in AVCHD.
AVCHD is really just a file structure and format, it uses H264 and ACA3 codecs.
It does include menus and makes provision for subtitles, muliple audio tracks etc.

You can easily transcode AVCHD to the more common mp4 container format but will loose menus. Both can use H264 and AC3, AVCHD has yo.
An excellent converter that is free and open source is Handbrake.

But if you want to put these onto say a DVD-R then if you convert them to DVD video format that will go back to MPEG codec not H264, this is a much older less efficient
codec so the size will swell, a lot.
You could just burn mp4 straight to DVD-R, these would not play on standalone players though.

The question for you is why do you want to put the recordings on removable disc?
Backup or play elsewhere?
 
... I know that they are still on the USB hard drives but can I then move them back to the internal hard drive in preferred order or do I then loose them, there is nothing in the manual that suggest you can do this,
...

See page 55 column 1 of the manual for what can and cannot be copied to and from a USB hard drive.
 
Why not just try and move/copy one?
Make an unimportant recording if need's be.
 
Hi, Did that, selected ones I had duplicated over time and all moved successfully, I then attempted to move them back to the hard drive in a better order which again it did but some were marked with a blue cross as a different file which had to remain on the usb hard drive, I have spent several hours doing this-nothing else to do-never realising I could have fine this years ago, now in case the hard drive fails will burn these to my blank BD-RE discs which my computer will play, that is why I puzzled as to why the computer generated ones are not recognised and cannot be copied to the pannys hard drive, another achievement. I have numerious video converters but none seem to be able to convert to the pannys system, which is the old camcorder file variety apparently, never understood the numerious format:containers? Seems to be a lot
 
Hi Dave
Yes you can move recordings back and forth between int HDD and USB HDDs.
Note that Panasonic call this copy but it is acually move, defintely for HD recordings, not sure for SD, it might be more or might be copy.
As to the order, I guess it wil be the order you copy them in.
I should add I take thus from a 720 not a 735 but I expect itbis the same, pages 71,2 of the 720 manual refers.
Blu ray discs can be finalised. This stops further recording on them.
You can copy AVCHD to a DVD-R. Page 59, of 720, manual refers. But they will not play on a DVD player, needs a Bluray player.
AVCHD is pretty common but is registered to just Sony and Panasonic.
You shouldn't have any issues with 720x576 25fps format recordings, a very very common standard ,in DVDs for example, ofter referred to as SD, in Europe.
It is not usual however to have SD in AVCHD.
AVCHD is really just a file structure and format, it uses H264 and ACA3 codecs.
It does include menus and makes provision for subtitles, muliple audio tracks etc.

You can easily transcode AVCHD to the more common mp4 container format but will loose menus. Both can use H264 and AC3, AVCHD has yo.
An excellent converter that is free and open source is Handbrake.

But if you want to put these onto say a DVD-R then if you convert them to DVD video format that will go back to MPEG codec not H264, this is a much older less efficient
codec so the size will swell, a lot.
You could just burn mp4 straight to DVD-R, these would not play on standalone players though.

The question for you is why do you want to put the recordings on removable disc?
Backup or play elsewhere?
Hi, read your reply, firstly I am going to use bd-re discs, which Do not give the option to finalise so I do not know whether a computer will read them? It is because I have read all the worst results about loosing data if the Panny dies and because I have always recorder via the scarts, even when I first started with the vhs , Then when I bought my first dvd recorder I also looked for scart sockets and was pleasantly surprised this could also be achieved but I went through over 4 machines, (not just Panasonic,) with them having to be returned due to faults, loosing all the recording of motor races recorded via camcorder and subsequent races via sky box, also the infuriating disputes which entailed, off the subject, compare this to the fiasco, when updating your computer operating system from Windows XP to Windows 7, again hard drives crashing and a complete loss of everything on them. There is nothing out there which will record now, the Sky Q box does not have scart so these options are no longer available. Cheers Dave
 

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