Question Panasonic DMR-PWT530 recordings to external HDD

bratman91

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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.
 
It is meant to act as expansion of storage capacity only.

There is no workaround unfortunately.

If you had obtained a model with a Bluray / DVD burner then you would be permitted to burn material to a removable disc.

All these limitations are mandatory and because of the advent of HD.
 
It is meant to act as expansion of storage capacity only.

There is no workaround unfortunately.

If you had obtained a model with a Bluray / DVD burner then you would be permitted to burn material to a removable disc.

All these limitations are mandatory and because of the advent of HD.

I had a feeling that that was going to be the answer, but thanks for the prompt response. It still seems illogical though. As a work around, I am looking at the possibility of using the DLNA feature of the recorder to stream video recordings to a PC and recording them there. I would appreciate any comments you might have on this route.
 
You can but try - but it is a minefield of problems and limitations, and you will be likely to have very limited success.

HD material will not go across the network at all unless the device at the other end is another DIGA device.
Success with other material will depend on the software you use on the PC.
 
You can but try - but it is a minefield of problems and limitations, and you will be likely to have very limited success.

HD material will not go across the network at all unless the device at the other end is another DIGA device.
Success with other material will depend on the software you use on the PC.
Sadly, it seems that you are right. I can stream the SD content from the recorder to VLC on an iMac and also the Goodplayer and VLC apps on an iPad but the HD content will not play. I have installed Panasonic's GIGA Player on my iPad but the results are mixed. I can use this for the "Remote Recording" function but the "Watch Broadcast and Play all Video" functions is unable to find the recorder. Trawling through numerous and extremely tortuous Panasonic sites gives ambiguos information about whether or not this function should be available with a DMR-PWT530 recorder. I will open a separate thread to see if anyone has cracked this.
 
Update
This is in case anyone else is interested.

1. Recorded TV programmes can be fairly easily downloaded from the Panasonic DMR-PWT530 (and probably many other recorders as long as they have a DNLA server capability) using the Goodplayer App on an iPad to connect via UPnP to the recorder. Once downloaded to the Goodplayer app, such files can be exported to, for example, Dropbox, GoogleDrive or Onedrive.

2. Standard Definition files are in .mp4 format and will play on the Goodplayer and VLC apps on the iPad, and probably anything else that will play .mp4 files.

3. High Definition files will download but I have no idea what format they are in. I am working on this but at least playable SD files can be extracted.
 

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