I have just paid nearly £500 upgrading my Panasonic DMR-BWT720EB Blu-ray Disc Recorder to the Panasonic DMR-BWT850 Blu-ray Disc Recorder.
Great I thought, fully loaded, loads of apps Netflix, Amazon Video, access it on w-fi from anywhere, loads of goodies.

No, DISASTER.

Hooked it up, easy enough as all the cable were there from the very similar box.
Hang on, what's this, where is the perishing SCART socket.
No, not on the back, maybe on the front. No.
Well where is it you may well ask?

It isn't there.

Now, I am in the habit of any really good programs on SKY that I really like, I copy over to the DVD and either shift it over to the "2GB USB HDD I have attached, or write it to disc.

Panic. I went on to the Panasonic support site and asked politely how on earth I was supposed to copy onto the box.

This was the reply:

In response, I am writing to inform you that the newer recorder models would no longer feature a SCART connection. Therefore, it would no longer be possible to record from an external device.

No apology, nothing. Arrogant isn't the word for it.
So that's progress is it?
I know I should have checked before I bought it but I missed it.

I sold my old one on Amazon, who incedently will not pay me until I have money in my seller account when I sell something else. I'm not a dealer, I just wanted to sell one thing. Don't know if I will ever get my money, but that's another story.

The point is, don't be like me, do your homework.

Is there any chance a lead like this would work?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/SCART-Phono-...215964-8664460

The DMR-BWT850 has no input connections of any sort as far as I can see. So there is no way at all to connect any external device to it for the purposes of recording.

Actually having said that...

There is a way but it is a faff. You would need a RF modulator to generate a UHF TV signal from the external source to feed into the RF in and record the result as though recording BBC1 or ITV through the recorder's tuner. For the best quality that could mean a not so cheap digital modulator as well.

SCART is old technology - a bit like 5 pin DIN connectors on hifi, so no I don't think Panasonic have anything to apologise for on this. Only very early Blu Ray players had a SCART output - it was decided fairly early on that HDMI was the way forward.

As for the need to record onto Blu Ray from an external source - again the traditional users of such 'inputs' tended to be those with Camcorders - since those have moved onto recording on SD cards, the transfer to a PC is easy enough and the demand for an input on a device like the Panasonic has largely gone.

I wouldn't go down the RF route chrisjr is suggesting - the loss in quality on RF counts against it.

A better way would be to do it via a PC / Laptop and there's a couple of suggestions here that could help

http://www.radioandtelly.co.uk/skypluscopying.html

I agree that an analogue modulator would degrade the quality a fair bit. but you can get pretty good digital modulators (albeit at 100 quid + ) that even do HD resolution and produce pictures as good, if not better than Freeview broadcasts.

That's progress for you casablancauk, glad I still have two dependable SONY HDRs.
Been recording concerts via 6 music, especially the Bowie at Glastonbury one. Make it into a DVD pop in to the laptop and convert to a mp3 and viola ready to play in the car.

Seems that streaming is the latest thing to do.

Scart with many other things (eg discs) are fast dying out.
For everyday use the route is to have a pvr box for sky or freesat or freeview, + a separate disc player for DVD/bluray.
But as I said even discs are not going to be around much longer. Most brand new laptop computers don't even come with a built in optical drive anymore.
Streaming services are becoming evermore and more popular. Your internet connection speed and reliability is more important than being able to record from sky to a blank DVD.

Even tho I am reluctant to do so, I fully plan to shift 99% of my movies and other pre recorded content to online before much longer, inc upgrading the Internet connection. Even tho I have been very pleased with bluray, I doubt I will be upgrading to a 4K (uhd) bluray player.

Discs such as bluray or better will exist because people need media for archiving, for example, where would you store priceless camcorder footage, on the cloud or on a computer or external hard drive?

The Panasonic bluray recorders are superb and they are not being made obsolete anytime soon.

Well, they were superb when they could record from external sources!

Where would I want to store it.....in the cloud.
That way I can have access to it anywhere anytime on multiple devices.

If I burned the data to a blank DVD.....when I next upgrade my PC I won't be able to play the disc on it as most laptops no longer ship with a built in optical drive. Would need to buy a separate drive. My iPad doesn't have an optical drive either.

With my over 2 TB of video and audio, a hard drive (backed up) is the only feasible option. Storage and maintenance of 2 sets of 80-odd 25GB BDs would be a nightmare and would take ages to burn... they'd just go the way of most of my LP and CD collection... into a cupboard and rarely if ever get played.

On the other hand, havng everything immediately available and moveable/re-orderable on a 3TB hard drive, which can quickly be backed up onto another one, all at less cost than the BD method, is a breeze. I do have an excellent Panasonic Blu Ray recorder/PVR incidentally and believe me, I have tried both methods!

No RCA Phono cable connection at all. No audio in either. Digital audio out only.

That's a particularly inelegant way to do it.

All you need to do is download a piece of free software - get_iplayer.

That way you can download the programme you want from the BBC website as a suitable file format to your PC - which you can back up - and then copy it to whatever format you need for your car. No messing around with recording DVDs and converting them.

But I still have the recording on the SONY, along with others, radio and TV which is connected to my amp so I can have the concert playing through my amp and speakers anytime I wish.
Also the recording will restart from the last stop point. Works for me.

But I do get what you're saying though.
Did use to use the radio down-loader program for BBC shows until it disappeared a few years ago, don't know why.

From what I read on the iPlayer FAQs the program is deleted after 30 days.
I have been told that you are only able to watch the program on iPlayer and not on anything else.
Have you actually managed to copy to disc or flash drive as a MP4 or xvid etc?

If you use a piece of software by the name get_iplayer it downloads the stream as a file - which is does not then 'expire'.

And once its on your PC you can modify it to whatever format you want and save it to whatever media you like.

If you download it from iPlayer then yes, it does expire - get_iplayer gets around that.

I did download it and then extracted from the zip file.
It was far too complicated. It made my brain hurt, so I uninstalled it!!!