Panasonic DMR-HWT250EB (HWT250) PVR Review & Comments

Thanks very much for this review. I was considering buying one a couple of months ago but couldn't find any detailed reviews at all, so am very grateful for something from a site I trust.

I bought the Humax 4000T but returned it after discovering some of the limitations of the Freeview Play platform (ie HD recordings being encrypted and therefore not available to watch remotely). Can you confirm if the same applies with the Panasonic?

I ended up returning the Humax for a refund as their TV Anywhere apps also failed to work, much like your experience with the Panasonic it seems.

I've since bought the Nvidia Shield and a Freeview tuner card for the PC so run Kodi and NextPVR software. It's taken a bit of setting up but works so much faster and gives me the true "watch any TV any where" feature that Play promised.

You also state that "Panasonic has cracked the problem of using streaming services while recordings are taking place but you still can’t get in to the menus in that circumstance" - could you clarify this a little? Which menus can't you access while there's a (presumably background/scheduled) recording being made?

Thanks again.
 
Anyone know if the DMR-HWT250EB will allow you to watch Freeview Play catch-up at the same time as using both Freeview HD tuners to record off-air?
 
Help, don't know how to get rid of this, goes if paused but always comes back only on BBC 1 and 2
 

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Help, don't know how to get rid of this, goes if paused but always comes back only on BBC 1 and 2
Welcome to the forum.

This is an HbbTV teething problem.

See this thread for more information.
 
I have just purchased this exact box. I did have sky before but don't subscribe to it any more. However, I still have my sky HD box in situ and I have a cable running from the TV out socket on the back of the skybox going to a television in another room. The problem I've got is that if I remove my sky HD box that I don't know how I'm going to watch television in the other room. Do I simply connect the RF out on the back of the Panasonic box?
 
Is there someway of fixing overscan issues? In the Basic Settings menu under TV Aspect you can set the screen at 16.9, 4.3 or Letterbox but none of them remove the white dotted line at the top of the screen which appears when watching some films on channel 81.
 
Is there someway of fixing overscan issues? In the Basic Settings menu under TV Aspect you can set the screen at 16.9, 4.3 or Letterbox but none of them remove the white dotted line at the top of the screen which appears when watching some films on channel 81.
Look to the settings in your TV to deal with this problem.
There will be some setting that will handle overscan issues.
 
Thanks for your reply. The TV settings were the first thing I checked. However in the Aspect Ratio settings only Vertical Zoom and All Direction Zoom options remove the line but result in a unnatural looking picture. I'm curious rather than concerned.
 
There may yet be another setting which is not obviously named or associated with aspect.
Can you report which TV Model is involved?
 
Yes of course. It's a LG E6 OLED.
 
Unfortunately, I've drawn a blank there.

I've looked at all possible settings in an online manual and I cannot find anything relevant - Sorry.
 
No problem. It was good of you to try and much appreciated. Kind regards.
 
Hi there, I have just bought this box, well, the 500Gb HDD version, which I assume is the same apart in all other ways.

What puzzles me is that I only seem to be able to access the DIGA smart TV / app menu (the one with Netflix, Amazon and YouTube apps on it) by pressing the Netflix button, and then pressing the back button after letting Netflix load up for a while. There doesn't seem a direct way to get to it as I can't see an option to get to those apps from the Freeview Play menu or the function menu. Needless to say, that's a slow and irritating way to access a frequently used function.

Has anyone discovered an easier way to get to those apps?

Thanks!
 
Not sure if this post is in the right place.
Panasonic HWT250
I registered my external USB HDD as per the instruction book (p 53) and then recorded to it from the internal HDD.
Problem is the USB HDD is no longer recognised by my computer, can this be corrected?
Thanks.
 
Not sure if this post is in the right place.
Panasonic HWT250
I registered my external USB HDD as per the instruction book (p 53) and then recorded to it from the internal HDD.
Problem is the USB HDD is no longer recognised by my computer, can this be corrected?
Thanks.
It can be corrected - by reformatting the HDD on the PC... but of course you will lose the content.

It is the whole point of this registration system and dedicated formatting: To restrictively tie content to the machine and to prevent you from moving it about.

The best way to move content ( if that was your intention) is to use the networking facilities.

The '250 has client and server networking capability which you can use in conjunction with DLNA software on your PC (e.g. Twonky Media Server)

SD material should move easily - but there will likely be restriction on HD material.
 
It should be possible in the disc management section of the computer management console.

The computer management console can be opened by right clicking on My computer in the Start menu.
You can also open it from command prompt or from Run.
The Run command for opening computer management is compmgmt.msc
 
Does anyone if you get full editing capabilities with content recorded to the hard drive? Creating chapters, playlists etc?
Thanks.
 
Does anyone if you get full editing capabilities with content recorded to the hard drive? Creating chapters, playlists etc?
Thanks.
Yes - you do.
...but - you probably do not get playlists. Panasonic dropped that feature from their operating systems several iterations ago.
 
Apologies for bumping an old thread but I purchased one of these for my elderly mother’s bedroom and set up a few series links but just wondering whether there’s option to auto-delete older recordings (like the TiVo in living room) after a certain number of episodes of a show have been recorded, so the HDD doesn’t get clogged up?

I’m also struggling to get the Media Centre app (see that it has average rating of 1.6 on Store :blush:) to work with iPad and hoping someone can provide helpful pointers, as would like to be able to setup recordings at least.

 
Apologies for bumping an old thread but I purchased one of these for my elderly mother’s bedroom and set up a few series links but just wondering whether there’s option to auto-delete older recordings (like the TiVo in living room) after a certain number of episodes of a show have been recorded, so the HDD doesn’t get clogged up?

It is referred to as 'Auto-renew' on this machine.

It can be initiated by pushing the yellow button whilst on the timer setup screen.
See page 29 of your manual for more information.

It is limited to replacing the previous recording when the next in a series records.
 

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