Sunday, October 22, 2006
Buying a HDD Video Recorder?
Things I wish I'd asked before buying ...
... how easy is it to keep an eye on remaining disk space?
Our Panasonic DMR-EH50 has been good overall, but there is no "in your face" display of remaining disk space. Not a problem if you are a very well-disciplined individual who will control all recordings yourself. Probably not a big problem if you are only ever going to schedule recordings using the machine's own timer.
But one of the brilliant features of this machine is that it cooperates with a Panasonic Digibox so that (if set appropriately) it will automatically record any programs that you choose for Autoview on Sky. That makes it nearly as easy as a Skyplus unit (without the need to subscribe to Sky, eg for those taking "FreeSat from Sky"). But in this mode, there can be no warning about disk space - because the recorder doesn't know what the Digibox is going to ask it to record until the instruction arrives.
But here comes the problem. If anyone else in the household might schedule recordings that you hadn't reckoned on, then without a display that keeps reminding you of remaining time, you may end up losing recordings because there isn't enough disk space left.
Yes, the Panasonic will tell you the time left - if you know where to look, but you have to seek it out. I wish it would show the remaining time on its display when in Standby, and on the main screen when you are reviewing the programs already on disk.
But otherwise this is a neat machine. And don't be put off by the restriction that you can only do one "partial erase" in the middle of a programme (eg to cut out a commercial break) - you can split titles in two as many times as you need.
... how easy is it to keep an eye on remaining disk space?
Our Panasonic DMR-EH50 has been good overall, but there is no "in your face" display of remaining disk space. Not a problem if you are a very well-disciplined individual who will control all recordings yourself. Probably not a big problem if you are only ever going to schedule recordings using the machine's own timer.
But one of the brilliant features of this machine is that it cooperates with a Panasonic Digibox so that (if set appropriately) it will automatically record any programs that you choose for Autoview on Sky. That makes it nearly as easy as a Skyplus unit (without the need to subscribe to Sky, eg for those taking "FreeSat from Sky"). But in this mode, there can be no warning about disk space - because the recorder doesn't know what the Digibox is going to ask it to record until the instruction arrives.
But here comes the problem. If anyone else in the household might schedule recordings that you hadn't reckoned on, then without a display that keeps reminding you of remaining time, you may end up losing recordings because there isn't enough disk space left.
Yes, the Panasonic will tell you the time left - if you know where to look, but you have to seek it out. I wish it would show the remaining time on its display when in Standby, and on the main screen when you are reviewing the programs already on disk.
But otherwise this is a neat machine. And don't be put off by the restriction that you can only do one "partial erase" in the middle of a programme (eg to cut out a commercial break) - you can split titles in two as many times as you need.
# posted by John Geddes @ 7:26 am 
