Blu ray recorder

tmull

Boy,there is some very interesting reading in that tread.I see the last post was back in March.As it is so quiet now I wonder if the problems were sorted out?A few things are very obvious throughout that tread.One is the very unhelpful attitude of Panasonic and the other is that every retailer in the country selling Panasonic tvs must have a fair few irate customers as a result of said problems.Back now to the main issue of this tread. received my box back and had it set-up again at 1530hrs.Have set about six timer programmes up to 2200hrs on about four of the Saorview channels.Will check in the morning and hopefully everything will workout.One positive out of all this is the great customer service I have received from the store.Have had no problem on phone calls or emails etc. I would recommend them to any members here.TMULL

tmull

Have made seventeen recordings in the past 24 hours. Every one perfect.Whatever that girl did seems to have cured the problem.I hope to speak to her later this evening.If every thing stays as they are I see no point in posting here again.But if all is not right ye shall be hearing from me.TMULL

bridster007

tmull wrote: »

Have made seventeen recordings in the past 24 hours. Every one perfect.Whatever that girl did seems to have cured the problem.I hope to speak to her later this evening.If every thing stays as they are I see no point in posting here again.But if all is not right ye shall be hearing from me.TMULL

Thanks for update. Could you ask for and post the required settings here ?
Do the recordings you had on the unit when you returned it to them now have sound also or were they deleted ?

tmull

I though just after closing my last post that posting the settings would be a good idea.I spoke to Jean the girl who seems to have sorted out the problem and apart from playing around with the settings she dosent quite know what she did.Now I spent days playing around with the same settings and though I had tried every combination of same.I am busy babysitting grandchildren this evening and pretty busy tomorrow,but when I get the chance I shall go into the menu and write them down and post them here.
It strikes me that after reading all the sound problems on the Panasonic tvs if this has not been a broadcast problem all along and now getting close to analogue switch off if someone at the broadcasting end decided to switch all the switches instead of some of them. But saying that,it is verly early days on my test of the 720.TMULL

ambulator

Great to hear the good news, tmull. I’m looking forward to receiving my unit back tomorrow and keeping my fingers crossed. I spoke to Jean today and she says she has it 100% fixed. I asked her to write down the settings and send them with the unit just in case I ever do something stupid or get some automatic software update and lose the settings. She said she will do. Whatever I get, I will post on here.

BTW. My software / firmware version is 1.05. I presume yours is the same.

Happy viewing and recording.

tmull

First some answers to a few questions posed here. My firmware is the same as yours.No, my harddrive was not formatted by the store even though I had giving permission to do so if needed. All my original recordings were still there when I got it back but I eliminated most of them once I got it back.As I was away most of yesterday I set 15 timer recordings on a different range of the Saorview package.Checked this morning and all 15 have perfect sound and picture.What I have noticed is that all 32 recordings that I have made are all still in the DR mode.I thought then that the conversion was after been switched of in the store but no.It is still set to convert files in the stand-by mode.The machine was in stand-by all night but no conversion took place. I can live with that.
The settings are a long-winded affair but I feel may be helpful to record here that proberly will be useful to members and possibly retrievable in the future if needs be
Just found out the settings will not fit on this page so I shall follow this post with another one just for them.TMULL

tmull

These are the settings in the Sound and Audio menu of the Panasonic DMR 720 Blu-ray recorder that appears to have fixed the problem of no sound on the harddrive of recordings on some but not all,on the Saorview package.
There are six main settings under the heading SOUND
There are six sub settings under the heading DIGITAL AUDIO OUTPUT

SOUND
1 Dynamic Range Compression

---

Automatic
2 Downmix

---

Stereo
3 Bilingual Audio Selection

---

M1
4 Digital Audio Output
5 Audio Delay

---

0 MSEC
6 Audio for HG/HX/HE/HL/HM Recording

---

5.1 Channel

Note that No. 4 appears blank,but on highlighting the line the sub menu opens up.
1 PMC Down Conversion OFF 2 DolbyD-D+1-HD PMC 3 DTS/DTS-HD PCM 4 MPEG PCM 5 HE_ACC PCM 6 BD-Vidio secondry Audio OFF.
to summerise the sub menu Nos1 & 6 are OFF Nos.2,3,4,5 are PCM

Hope this is helpful to someone. TMULL

ambulator

Many thanks for posting the settings, Tmull. I got none from Jean (I know she is extremely busy and travelling away today). Your settings will be a useful reference to have for the future,

First, I would like to record here a big vote of thanks to Jean for all the time and effort she put in in solving (or trying to solve in my case) this problem.

I got my machine back this morning. Connected up – no signal- utter frustration. Spent ages tracing the fault, unplugged RF feed and sent it direct to TV and had a signal, so nothing wrong with aerial. Finally the only option left was to retune the unit. This is called setup in manual. I was afraid to do this as I feared that all would default back to factory settings and I would lose Jeans settings. Rang shop. Jean away for all next week. After many calls to shop we decided the only option was to run setup again. I did this and made a few recordings. Alas picture and no sound. I was getting more and more into an “I want my money back” frame of mind as I was back in the same position as before I sent the unit back to them.

I turned AD off and bingo everything worked perfectly after that. I made 12 recordings from various Saorview channels to the hard drive and all worked perfectly. I wish I had known about the AD thing before I returned the machine as it would have saved me €15 on a courier charge.

Maybe it was that simple all along. I didn’t even go into settings but reading tmull’s post above; the settings look very similar to those on mine before I returned it.

All’s well that ends well after a very frustrating morning.

tmull

Ambulator,One question please.How do you turn AD either on or off? I also had no signal on receiving the box back.Straight away I realised for the shop to receive the Saorview package to test the machine she would have had to retune it to get the package in Limerick..So I just went into set-up and retuned to my signal and was up and running again.I bought my machine in mid July and three months later after Panasonic and the factory engineers couldent fix the problem a girl in a shop in Limerick comes up with a solution.Them engineers you wouldent get in a Lucky Bag.I seriously dought if anyone really had a look at the problem.Pity the manual is so poor.The manual for my 750 is not much better,but I am very happy with both machines. Good luck with yours.TMULL

bridster007

ambulator wrote: »

Many thanks for posting the settings, Tmull. I got none from Jean (I know she is extremely busy and travelling away today). Your settings will be a useful reference to have for the future,

First, I would like to record here a big vote of thanks to Jean for all the time and effort she put in in solving (or trying to solve in my case) this problem.

I got my machine back this morning. Connected up – no signal- utter frustration. Spent ages tracing the fault, unplugged RF feed and sent it direct to TV and had a signal, so nothing wrong with aerial. Finally the only option left was to retune the unit. This is called setup in manual. I was afraid to do this as I feared that all would default back to factory settings and I would lose Jeans settings. Rang shop. Jean away for all next week. After many calls to shop we decided the only option was to run setup again. I did this and made a few recordings. Alas picture and no sound. I was getting more and more into an “I want my money back” frame of mind as I was back in the same position as before I sent the unit back to them.

I turned AD off and bingo everything worked perfectly after that. I made 12 recordings from various Saorview channels to the hard drive and all worked perfectly. I wish I had known about the AD thing before I returned the machine as it would have saved me €15 on a courier charge.

Maybe it was that simple all along. I didn’t even go into settings but reading tmull’s post above; the settings look very similar to those on mine before I returned it.

All’s well that ends well after a very frustrating morning.

Do you mean turn AD off before recording or before playing a recording ?
If you have time could you check if Irish language recordings on TG4 are ok ?

ambulator

tmull wrote: »

Ambulator,One question please.How do you turn AD either on or off?

Sorry, this is a quick post as I am rushing to get Saturday chores done and watch the Munster rugby match.

I simply pressed AD button on the remote control. A menu came up. It was set to AUTOMATIC. I think choice is AUTOMATIC, ON or OFF. I set to OFF.

"Do you mean turn AD off before recording or before playing a recording ?"

bridster 007, I switched off before recording and I think it will stay permanently off on my machine from now.

I concur with TMULL's comments about Panasonic engineers.

tmull

Ambulator, Thanl you. I have never touched that button on the remote so have never seen that menu.
Bridster007, Of the 42 programmes I have recorded to the harddrive since Thursday,8 of them are fromTG4 but not all in the Irish language. All recorded picture and sound perfectly.
Sound has never appeared on the original recordings. they were still silent when I got it back .Now eliminated except for two movies I intend to experiment at some futere date.That girl is good but she is not a mirical worker.TMULL

ambulator

Disappointing news. I am back to square one. I switched on my recorder a short while ago and all of my recordings have been converted to HG mode set by Jean. I have picture but no sound as usual on all of them.
Maybe the AD function is not the problem after all.

tmull wrote: »

What I have noticed is that all 32 recordings that I have made are all still in the DR mode.I thought then that the conversion was after been switched of in the store but no.It is still set to convert files in the stand-by mode.The machine was in stand-by all night but no conversion took place.

TMULL,
Interesting that all recordings are in still in DR mode. Maybe it is the conversion process that is causing the problem. I don’t have access to my TV at present as it is being used by others so I am writing somewhat on the blind. (I’d love to be able to set a day or evening aside to get to grips with this machine).

I had intended switching off the conversion mode and trying a few recordings but you say yours is still set to convert. I wonder why it is not converting. Maybe it is disabled elsewhere.

I am also puzzled as to why your machine works and mine doesn’t. I ran setup and it took about 3 minutes to retune. I still don’t know whether this setup defaulted everything back to factory settings. Did you retune your machine in some different way?

When I get access to my TV later tonight, I will check if my settings are the same as those posted by you.

Bridster007,
Sorry. I was in such a rush this morning, I overlooked your query about Irish language recordings on TG4. Unfortunately, it’s too late now as I have lost all sound.

ambulator

I made 4 recordings last night (3 TG4 & 1 RTE) with REC mode set to stay in DR. After a night on standby all have perfect sound and video. This would seem to suggest that it is the conversion process that is corrupting the files.

I am not relaxing yet as this machine has a habit of coming back to bite me every time I think I have it cracked.

Some of the recordings had AD function switched off, some on. This would seem to suggest that the AD function is not an issue.

What are the implications of leaving all recordings in DR mode especially for copying to BD or DVD disk? I have about 260hours of recording time left on my hard drive in DR mode. From memory, I had 400+ hours in one of the modes (XP or SP) that I normally use. Does leaving in DR mode mean upscaling to HD cannot now happen?

My sound settings are all the same as tmulls except for No. 6 Audio for HG/HX/HE/HL/HM Recording. This is set to 2 channel instead of 5.1 channel.

tmull

Disappointing news.I am as pusseled as yourself.As i have some of my grannchildren here for the weekend so I shall not have the main tv till after lunch.If being in DR mode means a dvd is made in real time rather than in high speed then I could live with that.My machines are mainly for recording films and classical music from my satellite boxes.If there was a programme that I needed to keep from Soarview I have another way of recording it to my harddrive. I shall try and burn a few dvds later on and post here again.TMULL

tmull

Ambulater,We were grasping at straws thinking the problems were fixed.Before my box went back to the store I was convinced that if sound was on the HHD that it would transfer to dvd. My only testing since I got it back was to keep recording programmes to make sure that sound was on the HHD as well as the picture.On reading your post this morning I decided to put some of them on to a blank dvd disk. I have using DVR-R disks for years and generally dont have any problems.
First thing I did was to go into the conversion menu and convert one of the programmes from DR to SP . I set it to Convert &Delete so that the original recording would be deleted(the DR one)and the SP one would replace it on the drive.This took about an hour and the SP recording has no sound.I have kept it on to see if it has sound tomorrow.
I then decided to put three 30 minutes programmes on to dvd but the minute I started to record I knew the sound was not there as I can see the programme as it was recording. Sure enough the dvd has three silent programmes on it.I next switched AD from OFF to Automatic and all the programmes saved since I got the box back were silent.Changing setting to OFF and the sound re=appears.I then recorded four programmes to a blank Bluray disk and all are perfect.I am as confused as yourself. Did you get my PM TMULL

ambulator

tmull wrote: »

I then decided to put three 30 minutes programmes on to dvd but the minute I started to record I knew the sound was not there as I can see the programme as it was recording. Sure enough the dvd has three silent programmes on it.I next switched AD from OFF to Automatic and all the programmes saved since I got the box back were silent.Changing setting to OFF and the sound re=appears.I then recorded four programmes to a blank Bluray disk and all are perfect.I am as confused as yourself. Did you get my PM TMULL

Hi tmull. I did not get your PM. I am not too familiar with how PM works. I checked my inbox and no message. I checked my profile & settings and private messaging is enabled. I will try to send you one as soon as I learn how to do it. It may take some time as I have to get back to the real world tomorrow and earn some money.

When you tried to transfer the three 30 minutes programmes on to DVD, were they in DR mode or converted mode? My thinking is that they were in converted mode.

When you tried to transfer the four programmes to a blank Bluray disk were they in DR mode or converted mode? My thinking is that they were in DR mode.

I am becoming more inclined to think that it is the conversion process that is corrupting the files.

(I am assuming that it is possible to transfer a DR mode file to disk. It may not be. I have been concentrating until now on saving them to the HDD in a format that will at least allow me to watch and listen to them at some stage).

I think this machine has some very 'flakey' software in it.

I made more recordings today in DR mode (conversion disabled) from RTE1, RTE2, TV3, TG4 and other saorview channels. I will check them tomorrow

tmull

They were as recorded,ie in DR mode.Sound on HDD but will not transfer to dvd but will transfer to bluray.I initally thought that a software upgrade may fix it but Panasonic don't seem to be bothered.Over the next week I shall study the manual and try the settings again.I feel we are going to get there eventually. TMULL

bridster007

ambulator wrote: »

Hi tmull. I did not get your PM. I am not too familiar with how PM works. I checked my inbox and no message. I checked my profile & settings and private messaging is enabled. I will try to send you one as soon as I learn how to do it. It may take some time as I have to get back to the real world tomorrow and earn some money.

When you tried to transfer the three 30 minutes programmes on to DVD, were they in DR mode or converted mode? My thinking is that they were in converted mode.

When you tried to transfer the four programmes to a blank Bluray disk were they in DR mode or converted mode? My thinking is that they were in DR mode.

I am becoming more inclined to think that it is the conversion process that is corrupting the files.

(I am assuming that it is possible to transfer a DR mode file to disk. It may not be. I have been concentrating until now on saving them to the HDD in a format that will at least allow me to watch and listen to them at some stage).

I think this machine has some very 'flakey' software in it.

I made more recordings today in DR mode (conversion disabled) from RTE1, RTE2, TV3, TG4 and other saorview channels. I will check them tomorrow

I'm pretty sure it's not only the conversion process that is at issue. The machine I had, which is basically the same as yours without a blu-ray record function, did not have a conversion process, the only mode available was DR. Yet the problem was there.
I still think AD is at the root of it somewhere but I also notice that in comparing Saorview Audio specs, AC3 is specified in the Saorview standard but does not seem to be supported on these machines. However, the fact that the machine can play all audio from the tuner but not from recordings should rule the lack of AC3 out. This is the real puzzling aspect together with the knowledge that in all cases, the sound is being recorded, just not playing back. I still have the files on my pc playing with sound that could not play on the machine. I examined the Audio codecs of a good file and bad file and saw nothing diffferent either.
One thing to try would be testing the audio of a soundless recording with HDMI sound output disabled and putting the sound out through separate audio cables.
Also worrying would be the fact that TMulls original recordings still had no sound when the machine was returned "fixed". A truly fixed machine would have had this fiexed unless they really did lose their sound during a conversion. If so, then are are 2 distinct problems.
As regards the Panasonic engineers I would be 100% sure they did not even look at it as in my discussions with them they said Saorview related queries on non approved devices won't be considered.

tmull

Recorded a movie last evening from RTE.When it finished I checked the hhd for sound and all was ok.Went into the edit menu and set that file to be converted to SP.This time I only set it to Convert Only and not Convert & Delete. This morning i had two recordings of the film on the hhd .The original in DR and the copy in SP. Still sound on the original but no sound on the SP one which means that I cannot make a dvd but can make a blu-ray recording.Playing around with settings and the only thing I can say is setting the AD to automatic is a definate no.If you do all sound disappears from all recordings on the drive.I think that this is about as good as this machine is going to be. A pity as Panasonic is going to lose great deal of customers who are waiting for the right box. TMULL

tmull

The problems presist.Recordings on DR retain their sound but on conversion they lose it.If I set the RECORD MODE to SP some of the recordings retain their sound but others dont.If I set the Mode to SP and set up a No. of recordings on timer the first recording will record in Sp but all the rest record in DR.In other words the machine defaults to DR on the later recordings.I have changed the audio settings to multiable combinations but it makes no diffrence.At this stage I am now convinced that it is not a setting problem but a software one.The bottom line is that the 720 will record a programme to its harddrive that you can watch but you cannot make a DVD but you can make a bluray disk.Therefore if you Want to record to watch make sure you record in DR mode.A truly disappointing outcome. TMULL

bridster007

tmull wrote: »

The problems presist.Recordings on DR retain their sound but on conversion they lose it.If I set the RECORD MODE to SP some of the recordings retain their sound but others dont.If I set the Mode to SP and set up a No. of recordings on timer the first recording will record in Sp but all the rest record in DR.In other words the machine defaults to DR on the later recordings.I have changed the audio settings to multiable combinations but it makes no diffrence.At this stage I am now convinced that it is not a setting problem but a software one.The bottom line is that the 720 will record a programme to its harddrive that you can watch but you cannot make a DVD but you can make a bluray disk.Therefore if you Want to record to watch make sure you record in DR mode.A truly disappointing outcome. TMULL

For the SP recordings with no sound, does AD appear on the display panel when playing ?.
Page 8 of the manual makes interesting reading as it appears only one audio stream can be recorded in non-DR mode. I wonder is it selecting the Audio Description audio stream "nar" ( which has no sound because probably nothing broadcast for AD) instead of "eng" for some recordings / conversions.
There appears to be 2 places to set the AD, via the AD button and via the options menu.
Might be worth asking in AVforums again, focusing on the conversion/sp issue only and playing down the Saorview problem. It seems clear that the machine can record sound from Saorview in DR mode, and plays it as long as AD is off. Its what happens after that that is the problem. A lot of knowledgable people there, especially Gavtech who seems to be a Panasonic expert and has the previous incarnation of this machine.
I'm thinking of going back for the DR mode only version of this machine as I did like it.

bridster007

http://www.avforums.com/forums/blu-ray-dvd-recorders-media/1566067-panasonic-dmr-bs850-audio-commentary-aka-audio-description.html

Additional info in this thread for similar machine.
Seems to be plenty of exmples of this problem around for other recorders on SKY etc. Was also a problem on the Humax.

http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1690582
http://www.andalucia.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=26704

On this machine, for some reason, the AD is not staying off and is therefore getting recorded. I don't think any Saorview stations broadcast any AD so therefore no sound. Once recorded to DVD as the top post indicates, it can not be avoided.
From reading around, it appears that AD can either be broadcast within the main audio stream or as an additional stream. This could account for the problem not appearing on all Saorview recordings and may explain why Freeview users don't seem to have the issue. Some more playing with sound settings may sort it.
One idea would be to record a 1 hour show in 6 separate recordings of 10 mins and then convert each small recording one by one using different sound settings for each.

tmull

Bridster007,In fairness to you you seem to have a more technical idea of what might be the problem than Ambulator or my self.We seem to be the only three people that have an interest in this box at the moment.At least we are the only input on here.There are surely more owners of this unit but proberly not members here.At the moment I a pugalised from trying diffrent things. I may post again on avforums as I realise that Gavtech is a bit of an expert on these boxes.So is a chap that writes reviews for Amazon.com named Brian Lee. I tried to communicate with him but failed.If only Panasonic would come on board to help us even to suggest some options. like you I think it is A wonderful piece of kit and I intend to hang on to mine.Would you mind if I sent you a PM? TMULL

tmull

Made a dvd of six recorded clips. Some with sound and others without.Finalised and played it on my second Panasonic machine,the750.Played back great but the silent ones are still silent.Next played it on my laptop and the same result. Is there another way to transfer the files to a laptop just to see if the sound can appear? TMULL

bridster007

If you connect the machine to your home network either via wireless or Ethernet then you can stream or copy the recorded content onto your laptop. Need to use VLC player or XMBC player to do this. Both are free. Works very well and once setup could be a nice solution to get around the current problem as you could then burn the recordings to DVD on your laptop if you have a DVD writer. Need to copy in DR mode to keep the sound.

Looking at page 50 of the manual, I presume you have tried a conversion to SP using “now” mode rather than “standby” with AD surely set to off on the popup screen. ?
You mentioned that you have some SP conversions with sound and some without. When each one is played can you see anything different in the front display panel symbols ?
Might also be worth to look again at post #22 in this thread to check the sound settings for conversion.

tmull

Bridster007,Thanks for that.I can see no diffrence on the information displayed on the listed recordings.once the DR recordings are converted all are listed on the drive as SP.I then dont know which are converted recordings and which recorded as genuine SP recordings.But at least I now know that a recording in DR that converts to SP then has no sound. If I could permantly turn off the DR record mode and do all my recording in SP I may have found a solution.Last evening I set two recordings after setting the rec.mode to SP. Checked after they finished and both had sound but noticed the second recording had recorded in DR with an arrow pointing to SP indicating that it would be converted once the box was put in stand-by. This morning the DR version has vanished to be replaced by a SP version of itself.That version is silent but the first recording(the one that had recorded in Sp) has the sound still.I made a perfect dvd from it.
My two Panasonic recorders are connected to my network and both are DNLA capable but unfortunatly I do not know how to do it for streaming . Hopefully my grandson may help me at the weekend.I shall take your suggestion of turning off the Convert in stand-by and try the convert now option.Thank you again for your input.If I make any progress I shall post here.It is not for the want of trying. TMULL

ambulator

I have a limited amount of time to spend trying to make this machine work properly. To be honest, I have more or less given up on it as I can live with DR recording only. I made 22 Soarview recordings last week in XP or SP mode. Some had sound; some had not. I transferred them to a DVD-R disk, finalised it and put it into my old Pioneer recorder ( mainly to see if it is a playback problem or a recording problem in the Panasonic).

It made no difference. All recordings played back on the Pioneer exactly as on the Panasonic- some had sound; some had not. I am no wiser.

tmull wrote: »

Last evening I set two recordings after setting the rec.mode to SP. Checked after they finished and both had sound but noticed the second recording had recorded in DR with an arrow pointing to SP indicating that it would be converted once the box was put in stand-by. This morning the DR version has vanished to be replaced by a SP version of itself.That version is silent but the first recording(the one that had recorded in Sp) has the sound still.I made a perfect dvd from it.

I thought all Saorview recordings record initially in DR mode -no matter what conversion modes are set. Is there a way to record initially in SP without going through the DR mode first?

Unless I find something positive or useful to contribute, I probably won't be posting here again. Thanks to all for your help in trying to solve this irritating problem.

tmull

Ambulator,Bridster007,I just found your PMs.Sorry for delay. I am also having problems trying to post here in that as I get near the end of the page the whole text just disappears.This is my third attempt this after noon so I have decided to send what I have to say in two posts as it seems I may be trying to put too much on the page
Ambulator,You just about beat me in posting your final post. I had also intended to make this my last.Yesterday I sent an email to the store explaining that I believed that I had tried every combination of settings and failed in all attempts to fix the sound problem.But I have made some progress in that I have managed to make a dvd on my 720 from a DR recording without going through the conversion process.It was late last evening so I haave made just the one but have more files in DR to have a go this evening.
Pick your file on the harddrive after putting a blank dvd into the box.Ignore the normal way of trying to burn the dvd.Press play whilst still in the HHD drive (not BD) Press Option button.The Function menu appears.Press Record media playing and the burning starts.Perfect dvd but as I say early days. TMULL

tmull

Quick update. Just tried to put a half hour programe on to the dvd disk that I had put a one hour programe on last evening.A message appears sayong not enough space on the disk. Which means in all probility that a film over one hour long will not be possible to dvd.I suppose it was too good to be true.
I have four boxes in my system.Two HD satellite receivers,a Spiderbox and a Technomate 6900,and my two Bluray recorders. Each sat box has its own portable HHD connected so I can record to either of them on its own or to one of either Bluray recorder at the same time.Connections are as explained next
All four boxes have two AV inputs-outputs which are connected with qood quality scart leads. Spiderbox AV1 to 720 AV1.Spiderbox AV2 toAV1 to750. Tecnomate AV1 to AVA2 of 720 and AV2 to AV2 of 750 Note that not any of the two Bluray recorders are connected directly to each other.
Having finished recording a film one night last week from the Spiderbox I put that box in stand-by.The tv was on input one for the 750 recorder. I shifted the tv to input two to watch something on a Saorview channel but got fed up with it after a few minutes so I switched the tv back to watch the 750.To my surprise I was watching the Saorview channel on the Freesat box which has no terrestrial tuner. I pressed the record button on the 750 and had a perfect recording.Switched the power off the Spiderbox and the channel disappeared.

tmull

I was running out of space there so shall now continue now
I then realised that the two boxes could communicate through the connected Spiderbox as long as the Spiderbox was powered down but in stand-by. As I had been recording a film on the 750 the AV port on 750 was still active as I had forgotton to change it when I went to watch the 720. Experimenting then I can now transfer my files between boxes and a file played on the HHD of the 750 can be recorded on the 720 and visa -versa.Handy as my 750 HHD is only 250 mg and my 720 one is 1000. Also a film in DR mode transferred to my 750 can be burned to dvd with no apparent loss of detail.It was a pure accident that I discovered this.
I have managed ,with the help of my son to enable the DNLA functions of the 720 ( Unfortunatly my 750 is not DNLA capable but I though it was)I can now access all the files on the 720 to my laptop. My son set it up on my Media player but I cannot burn dvds as the file jumps straight back to where I started to drag it from and wont stay where it should in the burning part of media player. But the silent files still have no sound when sent to the laptop.TMULL

bridster007

tmull wrote: »

I was running out of space there so shall now continue now
I then realised that the two boxes could communicate through the connected Spiderbox as long as the Spiderbox was powered down but in stand-by. As I had been recording a film on the 750 the AV port on 750 was still active as I had forgotton to change it when I went to watch the 720. Experimenting then I can now transfer my files between boxes and a file played on the HHD of the 750 can be recorded on the 720 and visa -versa.Handy as my 750 HHD is only 250 mg and my 720 one is 1000. Also a film in DR mode transferred to my 750 can be burned to dvd with no apparent loss of detail.It was a pure accident that I discovered this.
I have managed ,with the help of my son to enable the DNLA functions of the 720 ( Unfortunatly my 750 is not DNLA capable but I though it was)I can now access all the files on the 720 to my laptop. My son set it up on my Media player but I cannot burn dvds as the file jumps straight back to where I started to drag it from and wont stay where it should in the burning part of media player. But the silent files still have no sound when sent to the laptop.TMULL

Do you mean silent "post conversion" files or silent DR mode files have no sound on laptop?
Use XBMC rather than media player to copy the files

tmull

I have no silent DR recordings only SP ones. The SP silent ones are silent on the HHD of the 720,silent on a burnt dvd.and silent on the laptop.As I stated I have now ceased testing as I have other means of making dvds.Unfortunatly a brillant machine but flawed. TMULL

tmull

As I said in previous posts I have given up testing the 720. The problem is in the machine and no playing around with settings will cure the problem.However after all the testing ,and owning the recorder since mid July I can finally make a dvd from the machine.All recordings in DR mode are perfect and it is only on converting that the sound disappears.The logical conclusion then is that the conversion process is at fault.Solution is to permantely turn off the conversion on the machine and record all files in DR mode.Now to make the dvd.
Put a blank disk into the tray.Select the hhd drive and start to play the file you want to burn to disk.Now press the option button (Not the function menu button).A menu appears and one of the options is .Copy Media Playing, highlight this and press OK.Burning starts in realtime and as you are watching it you can hear it.My first attempt was a one hour long file which recorded perfectly,but as I attempted to put another file on the disk the machine told me there was not enough space on the disk.The DR quality had used up all the disk and I thought that was not a great deal of use if I wanted to burn a two hour film. But I tried and succeded on two films, Apparently the machine compresses the file to fit on the disk.It is now well worth considering the 720 as a decent Saorview PVR. TMULL

tmull

Again I was running out of space so I shall conclude now.
The process explained does not give you an option to finalise the disk.To finalise just push the Open Tray button.The tray will not open but a new menu appears asking you if you want to finalise. You have to press the Rec.button to do so. My recordings play back on my other recorder no problem.
My laptop can now see my 720 through its DNLA facilities.However I cannot burn a dvd on the laptop from Windows Media player where my son set it up. I was advised to download VLC player which I have done but the Vlc player cannot see the 720. Can anyone here advise me please. TMULL

bridster007

tmull wrote: »

Again I was running out of space so I shall conclude now.
The process explained does not give you an option to finalise the disk.To finalise just push the Open Tray button.The tray will not open but a new menu appears asking you if you want to finalise. You have to press the Rec.button to do so. My recordings play back on my other recorder no problem.
My laptop can now see my 720 through its DNLA facilities.However I cannot burn a dvd on the laptop from Windows Media player where my son set it up. I was advised to download VLC player which I have done but the Vlc player cannot see the 720. Can anyone here advise me please. TMULL

I couldn't copy from VLC, only play. To copy, install XMBC from www.xbmc.org.
Setup the Panasonic machine as a source and test that you can play a file from the machine. (I think it shows up as a UPnP device)
To copy, go to System (the last option on the midle banner), and then File Manager.
You need to setup the Panasonic as a Souce again. When done, select your source file in the left pane and your destination folder in the right pane.
Right click on the source file and select copy from the dropdown list.
Thats it, very simple but takes a while to get used to navigating XBMC as no menus as such.
I have the similar DMR-HW220 now (HDD only) and its super. Good to hear you got a solution for copying to DVD.

tmull

Thanks Bridster007, I shall try that and if I succeed I shall post,if not I shall wait until my computer wizz-kid son decides to pay a visit. TMULL

ambulator

Well done tmull for finding a way to do it. I can quite easily live with that as I rarely copy stuff to dvd.

My machine gives me sound about 50% of the time when I record Saorview in SP mode.
One thing I thought of doing but haven't tried it yet:
Set record mode to SP.
Set record options to retain original after conversion. This retains the original DR recording after conversion so I now have two files of the same recording one in DR mode and one in SP mode.
If the SP file has sound I can keep that if I need to copy it to dvd. If not, I just delete it.

Will try it if I get time and can motivate myself. I mainly use my recorders for time shift.

tmull

Ambulater,I have done that loads of times.At least 4out of five have no sound but recordings from RTE+1 and TV3 have a higher success rate. I have asked questions of an expert on AVforums and yesterday posted my latest findings but I am getting no responce.Surely there are people out there with these boxes that are either having trouble or are unaware of the fact that the box has built in problems.TMULL

tmull

Have started recording some films off the RTE platform but have noticed the following.Most of my recording is on my 750 Freesat machine.I have never had a problem with the start time or finish time with this recorder.However on the720 I notice that the timer starts about five minutes before the programme so we can enjoy the ads on playback but I have at least one film that stopped recording before the end. I now extend the finishing time on my timer recordings.TMULL

cunnijo

Hi

I just found this info from the website http://www.saortv.info.

"From 2013 all Saorview equipment certified must have DVB-T2 like Freeview HD has"

It might be useful as the 720 already has a DVB-T2 tuner installed and could possibly be a solution to the Saorview recording issue.

Regards

tmull

Maybe,and hopefully so,but Panasonic dont send their recorders to be Saorview certified.No dough because it costs I believe about 25000 Euro to do so.The Rip-off section of the Celtic tiger is still with us.TMULL

newleaf

I presume no further news on sound issue with Saorview recordings on BWT 720? Do you know if BWT 700 had the same problem?
And I wonder if the upcoming 735 model will have it sorted. Any sign of Panasonic releasing a Saorview recorder?

tmull

NEWLEAF, There are no sound problems on the 720 that I am aware of. The initial problems that I had with 720 are fully covered in my posts on this section of the forum.It took a few of us members here to sort out the problems with the sound. The Panasonic outfit ,based in the UK did not want to know and offered no help what-so -ever.Their attitude is that we have your money and if you bought crap from us then tough luck.However the Panasonic store in Limerick were amazing in the help they offered me.We eventually found that the problem was in the conversion process.Basically the recorder records in DR mode which has to be converted to Sp mode so it can be recorded from HHD to dvd disk. The converted file usually had no sound hence you could not make a dvd disk that was playable. But we found a way around it and I have now since I got the box last July have made approx 200 dvd,mostly films or music concerts and no problems of any kind.With the help of a fellow member on here I can now successfully transfer the files from my 720 to my nas drive using software freely available on the internet. I seriously dough there is a better Blu-ray recorder on the market.I would highly recommend it. TMULL

tmull

I have received a PM from a member asking if a firmware upgrade released in Feb had any improvement of the 720. Apparently that firmware was No.1.12. As my box is on permanent standby and set-up for automatic firmware downloads it is something I never check. Having checked this morning my box is upgraded to No 1.14. I have never noticed any change in the operation of the box which I use quite a lot most days so am at a loss to see what these firmware upgrades mean. In replying to the members PM I told him I would check out the system and report here on the open forum. As reported in some of my earlier posts once I discovered that the conversion system was corrupting the files as regards the sound I have never converted a file since. It is not neccessary as the original Saorview file,in DR ,will successfully transfer to a dvd disk. However,this morning I did convert a DR file to Sp and the original problem is still there. The SP file has great picture quality but silent. Whatever the firmware upgrades did it did not fix the conversion problem. TMULL

tomasdeb

Hi. Was looking at acquiring the 720 as a replacement for my Sony RDR1095 which is on its last legs (and cannot record Irish tv since the digital switchover). The lack of RGB input is disappointing. Has anyone tried the 800 in Ireland? I'm wondering whether to try looking for one somewhere rather than the 720.

tomasdeb

Update. 720 is now withdrawn and 735 expected in May. Spec sheet available in a week or so. Will be interesting to see what's new. RGB would be great but on the other hand they might do away with the scart input altogether!

tmull

I have come across the RGB problem mentioned on a few forums i am a member of,but really do not understand the lack of same. Could you give a brief description of same as I am sure that there is a lack of understanding of what it is.
Panasonic are the only major outfit that were still putting AV inputs on their boxes and a decent recorder without such inputs are not much use.Once Panasonic announced early last year that they were ceasing production of their Freesat bluray recorders I immediatly placed an order for one of them.I had extensively researched what was on the market at that time and in my opinion no major outfit came near the Panny recorders.Shortly after that I was one of the first buyers of the 720.The Freesat 750 has more AV inputs than the 720,though the 720 is not bad in that department. I have a motorized sat system connected to two HD sat receivers and do a lot of recording to my two recorders. If the new 730 has limited inputs you should not disregard the 720 if you can get your hands on one. TMULL

Peter Rhea

tmull wrote: »

I have come across the RGB problem mentioned on a few forums i am a member of,but really do not understand the lack of same. Could you give a brief description of same as I am sure that there is a lack of understanding of what it is.

You mean why is the facility lacking, or why someone would have a problem with it not being present?

Anyhow, the AV2 ext. scart socket doesn't do anything with RGB signals, only PAL/NTSC composite video or s-video.

As you're probably aware, RGB is better quality than either of the latter.

tomasdeb

tmull wrote: »

I have come across the RGB problem mentioned on a few forums i am a member of,but really do not understand the lack of same. Could you give a brief description of same as I am sure that there is a lack of understanding of what it is.
Panasonic are the only major outfit that were still putting AV inputs on their boxes and a decent recorder without such inputs are not much use.Once Panasonic announced early last year that they were ceasing production of their Freesat bluray recorders I immediatly placed an order for one of them.I had extensively researched what was on the market at that time and in my opinion no major outfit came near the Panny recorders.Shortly after that I was one of the first buyers of the 720.The Freesat 750 has more AV inputs than the 720,though the 720 is not bad in that department. I have a motorized sat system connected to two HD sat receivers and do a lot of recording to my two recorders. If the new 730 has limited inputs you should not disregard the 720 if you can get your hands on one. TMULL

The RGB issue as I understand it is that the AV input on the 720 does not support RGB. So any recording from a sky box will be of a lower quality as a result. Recording off air would be unaffected of course. (I find saorview inconsistent at the moment but I'm using a set top box. Perhaps it would be better through the 720 provided my aerial setup isn't at fault - but all that's a different subject).

If you're asking why RGB has been omitted, I can only guess that its something to do with commercial pressures to restrict copying. If so, its unlikely that the RGB will be reinstated on the new model.

Going back to my original question, would trying to source the older BWT800 be an option? It would probably have to be imported and would therefore come with no guarantee or comeback regarding compatibility with Irish digital. But it does have RGB and the recording technology should be the same....

So next step is to wait and see the spec for the new 735 and decide then.

A final thought.... Why is this not a bigger issue? Is nobody interested in making their own DVDs anymore?