Panasonic Combined DVD-R & PVR Device

Raetsel writes "Caught a commercial the other day hawking the device I've been waiting for. TIVO is a great idea, but what if you want to keep something more permanently? Enter the Panasonic DMR-series. The top-of-the-line DMR-HS2 ($1000 US) has a 40 GB hard drive, offers "Time Slip Playback" (TIVO's "pause live TV" function), and allows you to move shows off the hard drive onto DVD. Heck, you can even record straight to DVD-R or DVD-RAM discs (which is what the $700 DMR-E30(K/S) does). There's also a IEEE-1394 input, so you can record from sources that have a FireWire output. Oh, yeah... it's a progressive-scan DVD player, too."

Comments

Supports DRM Too....

[TXG1112]

From the article:

*Recording from the hard disk to a DVD-RAM or DVD-R disc cannot be done with images for which only single-generation recording is allowed. When recording these images to a DVD-RAM disc, the original image on the hard disk is erased.

I suppose we should be grateful that it supports any type of fair use.

Re:what i've wanted

[zsmooth]

Tivo doesn't re-record episodes it already has recorded. It looks at the schedule to see which episode is being aired and compares that to ones already saved.

Re:How did this make it past hollywood

[Raetsel]

Perhaps it's this little "feature" -- (from the Panasonic site):

• "Recording from the hard disk to a DVD-RAM or DVD-R disc cannot be done with images for which only single-generation recording is allowed. When recording these images to a DVD-RAM disc, the original image on the hard disk is erased. "

There you go -- only one copy of a 'restricted work' can exist thanks to this device. But you can have it on reasonably durable media.

So it's got some sort of restriction ability built-in. Bad that you can only make one copy (but then burn more from your computer?), but good that you could save, say, the Angels winning the World Series for posterity.

Works fine w/ Digital Cable

[alexhmit01]

I had a Replay hooked up to AT&T Broadband for a year. You use the included IR Blaster, which sticks to the IR Receiver and changes the box's signal. Now that I have DirecTV, my Replay connects via Serial cable, I just bought an older receiver that works with it.

I'm waitting on an HD Tivo Series 2 DirecTivo, which I expect to come out within the year. Then I can timeshift my HDTV programming. In the mean time, the 100GB drive I installed in the Replay should suffice.

I was tempted to grab this, as I could drop-in replace my Progressive Scan DVD player and get archiving capability. However, I really don't want to buy any more gear until the HD Tivo comes out.

Dish has an HD PVR in the works, I can't imagine DirecTV won't get one out soon, given that Tivo has gone on record stating that the Series 2 COULD handle it.

Alex

Re:Formats

[Shabbs]

As per their page:

Inputs:
DV In (x1)
Video In (x3) (Phono)
S-Video In (x3) (S4P)
Audio In (x3) (Phono)

Not all encoders are equal

[cvd6262]

I like this thing, but, as a professional DVD author, I have to warn you that not all encoders produce equal quality video streams.

You only have to look as far as QuickTime's encoder. Yeah, it's a software encoder that works at 2X, but it does not produce anywhere near the quality most people want, especially at low bit rate.

Of course, this could have hardware encoding, but the real quality, either software or hardware, comes from multiple passes. If this is recording to DVD in real time, it has no chance of doing VBR.

On pass VBR is worse that CBR.

So, I guess you could record, but only at VHS quality.