The first DVD recorder with a HDD and a freeview tuner is here; and it's the Panasonic DMR-E60D. See these links:-

http://www.panasonic.co.uk/dvd-recor...h60d/index.htm

http://www.avland.co.uk/panasonic/dmreh60/dmreh60.htm

Well the major manufacturers are getting closer to what we have all been waiting for.
Shame it doesn't have twin freeview tuners and HDMI. But given the pain I have in archiving off my Toppy and onto a Panny DVD recorder this will be quite tempting. Although I hope the Freeview/HD bit is better than Panny's first effort in the UK.

Have a look at this:-

http://www.avforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=228659

I would presume the 20 and 60 will be more or less the same!

The Panasonic page says "integrated DVB-T tuner" - shouldn't that be tunerS ?? It's still not the machine everyone's waiting for if it only has one tuner. What if you want to watch a different broadcast to the thing you are recording?

Cliff

PS Holy cow - £500 - they're having a larf aren't they?

>>>> It's still not the machine everyone's waiting for if it only has one tuner. <<<<

as there are no machines proposed with dual tuners I'm quite happy to buy now as opposed to wait another four years!

>>>> What if you want to watch a different broadcast to the thing you are recording? <<<<

You watch on the tuner in your iDTV!

>>>> £500 - they're having a larf aren't they? <<<<

Av is no place for paupers!

CHarnick,

But it's the 2xDVD-T+HDD+DVDR machine that everyone's waiting for - that is a dual tuner PVR with DVD achive built in so that recordings can be dubbed to DVD in faster than realtime without leaving the digital domain. Otherwise folks might as well stick with a PVR (Toppy/Thomson/Inverto/Fusion) and an external DVD recorder (like most of probably have already).

When, for example, you "watch your iDTV" in the above as the channel that's not being recorded what do you do when the mother-in-law calls the wife and you want to pause the "live" channel you're trying to concentrate on?

Cliff

PS I thought Fusion had made mutterings about a dual tuner PVR with DVDR in the box?? And surely Thomson, Inverto, Topfield, etc. etc. must be having similar ideas - if not they want shooting!

Speak for yourself only please!

I want a machine where I can select the correct channel when I set the Timer (rather than AV2).

I want a DVD recorder where recordings are titled from the EPG information.

I want to be able to edit and then dub a recording to DVD-R without having to have two boxes connected by cumbersome cables.

I want a machine that gets it EPG data from the Freeview EPG as opposed to the shoddy and unreliable Guideplus service.

I want a machine that will work without lockups and is from a company people have actually heard of!

IMO the Panasonic DMR-EH60D has now made every other HDD/DVD recorder totally obsolete. Twin tuners would, of course, be nice but as everything is repeated these days it's hardly a massive concern. I have never used that feature on Sky+!

I want a machine that has 5.1 surround sound input.

I want a machine that can write to double layer disks.

I can't get freeview at the moment, and when I do we'll all have blu-ray devices, so i won't care about the tuner. I record off sky. So RGB input is a must.

It would be nice to have upgradeable hard disks.

I guess I'll carry on waiting then.

>>>> I want a machine that can write to double layer disks <<<<

You can already get several machines that do that!

>>>> So RGB input is a must <<<<

You can already get many machines with this!

Almost tempted but I also want 2 tuners (at least) plus double layer disc recording. Also wouldn't mind an ethernet facility that could like up to other devices for playback.

>>>> I also want 2 tuners (at least) plus double layer disc recording. Also wouldn't mind an ethernet facility that could like up to other devices for playback. <<<<

Double layer and ethernet might appear in Panny's big release in November (E600???). No Twin tuners though!

Does anyone know if you can watch a previously recorded program or DVD, while recording another show with the DMREH60D.

you can on the eh50.
you can watch something from the dvd-drive while recording to hdd or watch hdd while recording to dvd-drive.

you can on the eh50
watch dvd while recording to hdd
or
watch hdd while recording to dvd

....still none with 5.1 surround sound input then. Bah......

Any word on this next big release from Panasonic yet?

Anyone know if the DMREH60D has iLink?

Does the EH60 record from its Freeview tuner to its HDD losslessly,staying entirely digital like a Freeview HDD recorder does.
If it does ,its a winner,even with a single tuner-if it does not,it should be confined to the waste bin along with the Sony 500

does anyone own one of these then?

Yes I'd like to hear some views from anyone who has this machine..........although I expect the price puts most people off.

I have had the panny DMREH60D for a few days now. It is used with a Sony digibox which allows me to record one freeview channel while watching another. Only problem I have at the moment is with the TV picture quality of the panny which is not as good as that from the sony box. I think this could be because of the scart leads that I am using. Can anyone recommend a decent scart lead?

Cheers
Roy C

My dad has owned one for a couple of weeks now.

So I can answer some of the questions asked about it.

I myself have a DMR-E95H which I have had for a year.

Someone asked whether it has iLink (Firewire, IEEE1394, DV), the answer is yes.

No it doesn't record the Freeview signal straight to the hard drive it passes it through its encoder (Bad idea).

I think the manufactures are struggling with the idea of making a product simple. There are plenty of PVRs eg Topfield that record the Freeview signal straight to hard drive. I know recording it to DVD causes a few headaches but don't rencode the whole stream.


Regards

Phil

*Crosses off list of potential purchases*

Why Panasonic, why?

Because they haven't worked out a simple way to burn the Freeview mpeg stream to DVD yet. I'll be surprised if any of the DVD recorder manufactures work a sensible method of doing it.

Well that crosses the Panasonic off my choices then!
It was me asking about iLink but thats acedemic now.
I also see on another thread that the Panasonic can only record Widescreen onto RAM and NOT onto DVD-R !!!
Unbelievable that a so called multiformat machine should effectively be made incompatible with the majority of users (those with DVD-R and Widescreen TVs) by a manufacturer who, correct me if I'm wrong. has been pushing Widescreen Tv for some while now!