I set up and had a play with my Dad's new DMREH60 over the weekend and while a DVB broadcast was being recorded to the HDD I tried playing some DVDs. Some of them played without any problem but about a third of them would not play and the message "Incompatible TV System setting" was displayed. All the DVD's which caused this message to be displayed played without any problem if a program was not being recorded. Anyone seen this or have any ideas?

Also I was assuming if while watching a live broadcast while in HDD mode I would just be able to hit pause to pause the live broadcast as every other HDD based DVR I have used does - do I need to do something to enable this or am I pressing the wrong button? (I know I should just probably just RTFM on this one!)

I haven't seen your incompatible TV problem so can't comment on that.

As for pausing live TV - this isn't like a Sky+ box, it's bacsically just like a normal video recorder except that you can watch a programme while it or another is being recorded. So to "pause" live TV as you wish you have to press "REC" to start recording. Then when you come back to the programme press "play" and it will start where you left it. Should you wish to see the picture paused then you will have to press "play" and then pause after you have started recording.

Hi

You tend to get the "Incompatible TV System" if you are trying to play a NTSC disc when the recorder is in Timer mode. If the unit is multi region then when taken out of timer mode it should play back NTSC discs as Pal 60 if the tv system type is set to Pal.

Hope that helps.

Regards

Phil

That makes perfect sense when I think about the discs I was trying to play so thank you very much for solving that mystery!

I am not technical enough to work out though if this should be considered a valid reason for them not to be able to play under the circumstances or whether this is a bug that could/should be fixed by Panasonic in the long term?

The Panny won't play any NTSC discs ,even in PAL 60 while the HDD is recording.
PAL discs will play fine at all times,but NTSC won't play if PAL HDD recording is going on

What happens if you change the settings in the background to to be NTSC. Will Pal discs not play i.e vice versa.

Changing the settings to NTSC is,incredibly,the only way to output pure NTSC from a dvd on a panny(it will be PAL60 otherwise),but changing it allows you to record NTSC.
Whichever setting you have it on,it won't allow you to record and watch in different formats simultaneously.
So if you have it in NTSC,you cannot record in PAL.
Pioneer are the same when it comes to watching/recording different systems,although you can output pure NTSC without changing any settings

None of the above is peculiar to the Panny though.
Sony recorders, for example, can't record in one format and display another.

Only the Panasonic will not play NTSC as NTSC without altering system settings.
Pioneer outputs pure NTSC.
Panny outputs inferior PAL 60 unless you change the system setting.Then you have to change it back to enable PAL recording again