I understand that Panasonic HD Freeview recorders, and others, did not originally record Dolby Digital or even surround sound, or perhaps it was that they could not transfer it to disc. Can anyone tell me what the truth of this is and if the limitation still exists?

In addition will DVD and Blue Ray transferred recordings of broadcast material play on other machines?

I would also like to know more about the recording capacity to blue ray discs. How many hours of HD broadcast programme will fit on one disc firstly recorded directly and secondly from the internal HDD?

I can't answer your first question, but DVD and Blu-Ray stuff will not on the whole play on other machines, even PANASONIC machines.
I have B/R discs which play on both the Panasonic B/R recorders and on an SA-BT230 (B/R player and sound system)
They wont play on a SA-BT200 or a DMP-BD60
Some will play the pictures, but no sound.
I have not managed to get a response on why from Panasonic.

Finally you will get answers to most questions by downloading the manual from the Panasonic website.
A 25GB B/R will hold 6½ hrs HD and 13 hrs SD and 13 hrs and 26 hrs 50GB
Compressing will give up to 84 hours on a 50GB B/R

You can't record directly to B/R or DVD

I believe there is no sound on other players with a recorded Blu-Ray because in their wisdom the HD versions of BBC and C4 use a different type of sound format called AAC. From what I understand most none recordable Blu-Ray players don't support it-hence picture but no sound.

DVD shouldn't be a problem. If you look on your DVD player it should say what type of DVD formats they playback. Most these days support DVD RW, R, etc.

I asked Panasonic if they had a list of compatible blu-ray players...
Their response to this was:
" you will need to carry our a DR file conversion on the
recorder before transferring onto disc to guarantee both picture and sound are played back on a separate blu ray player."

I tried doing a conversion to HG
There does seem to be some sound conversion as I can hear some compression which I can't hear on the HDD.
However it made no difference.

If Panasonic don't know which blu-ray players will play (with sound) blu-ray discs recorded on a Panasonic blu-ray recorder, then perhaps someone out there can help?

Further to my last posting, I have discovered that if you do a DR conversion to HX (which is same size) it works
Presumably to anything lower as well.
It plays back on my Sony blu-ray and looks great, and sounds great, if a bit compressed.

I have a Panasonic DMR-PWT635EB hard disk recorder. I use Homestream to stream the recorded TV programs to my Sony TV. However I notice that I cannot play recorded TV programs with the G child lock symbol - they are not even shown on the Homestream screen. My question is how can I remove the child lock symbol from already recorded programs so that I can play them on the TV?

Many thanks for any help.