I have recently bought a Panasonic DMR-PWT530 Bluray player and Freeview HD recorder to replace a somewhat similar Sony recorder that was failing. I understand that recordings on the Panasonic can be exported to an external HDD but that recordings on such a hard drive can be played back only on the recorder they came from. Is there a way round this restriction which, given that my Sony device would allow you to burn a DVD of anything it recorded, does seem odd? I do not see the sense in Panasonic providing the means of archiving recordings that, if the recorder fails or gets stolen, cannot be used by another device.