Panasonic Combined DVD-R & PVR Device

Raetsel writes "Caught a commercial the other day hawking the device I've been waiting for. TIVO is a great idea, but what if you want to keep something more permanently? Enter the Panasonic DMR-series. The top-of-the-line DMR-HS2 ($1000 US) has a 40 GB hard drive, offers "Time Slip Playback" (TIVO's "pause live TV" function), and allows you to move shows off the hard drive onto DVD. Heck, you can even record straight to DVD-R or DVD-RAM discs (which is what the $700 DMR-E30(K/S) does). There's also a IEEE-1394 input, so you can record from sources that have a FireWire output. Oh, yeah... it's a progressive-scan DVD player, too."

Formats

[tmark]

So what formats will it recognize over Firewire ? I wonder whether a S-Video In would be more useful than firewire....does it have that ?

Re:How did this make it past hollywood

[SkulkCU]

How did the industry let this happen?

I've heard it said that companies make way more on hardware than they ever could on entertainment. I don't really have any numbers on that, but it doesn't sound unreasonable.

what i've wanted

[ceswiedler]

The biggest reason I would want this is very specific: tell it to record every Simpsons episode which airs (including syndication repeats) and burn them onto a DVD when there are enough of them. Ideally it wouldn't re-record episodes it had already recorded (though I don't know how it would be able to compare them) and put tables-of-content as DVD menus and printed labels (or DVD liner notes) telling me what episodes are on the discs.

I suppose you could use this for shows other than the Simpsons...but why?

Re:what i've wanted

[Anonymous Coward]

Well this isn't Tivo, from the looks of it, its PVR fuctionality is very minor. Personally I'd love it if Panasonic would have licensed the tivo software and used that as the interface for this device. I'd buy it in a heartbeat. But we really don't know much about the interface with this device and the discription leaves more questions than answers.
Anyways its clear that this device doesn't use a service to get its listings, and apparently it has to be programmed like an old style VCR.

Here's a review

[rfischer]

Here's a review [edgereview.com]

Re:Yeah, that's great and all...

[Jobe_br]

This is the type of idea I had a while back, but the short answer, unfortunately, is no. At least, there's no way of building a hardware-based DVD player on the up-n-up (e.g. no DeCSS) w/o getting your own decryption key approved (that ought to set ya back a few).

It'd be nice, though .. its gettin' to be more and more that the DIY type thing is out of the picture. And just think, we don't even have broadcast flags yet! Even so, I can't think of any way that I can build my own box that can play DVDs, have TiVO like functionality, tune both my regular cable channels as well as my digital cable channels - never mind if I had satellite, which I don't, and never mind premium cable channels or InDemand or PPV, which might require totally different chips on your tuner.

Ah well, that's what we've got capitalism for, right? To see to our every need ... supply & demand, God bless.

Cheers.

Re:DMCA

[Zathrus]

This makes me wounder when TV broadcasts will come with a signal saying that the show can only be seen once, then the recording will be deleted

The studios are trying to get exactly this. Actually, they don't feel that this is adequate either - they want to have time-limited recordings and remotely deletable recordings.

In the ongoing HDTV wars between the equipment manufacturers and the studios (with the broadcasters caught in the middle), about a year and a half or so ago the studios once again whined about there being insufficient copy protection on DTV broadcasts. They wanted all set top boxes and recording devices to comply to an as-of-yet-unspecified standard that would allow for them to set flags allowing maximum number of viewings, time durations, and remote delete capability.

The electronics manufacterers told them to go fuck themselves.

HDTV does have a "do not record" bit in the broadcast. But that's it. The attempts to get more invasive control have failed, and while the cable companies and studios are still pouting, the reality is that it's a dead issue now. There are too many HD receivers out there already and the US government has mandated that all TVs will be manufactured with decoders in the next few years - at that point the installed base is too big to change it. And the various companies will have the choice of selling their wares with "insufficient" copy control or not selling them at all.

Darn.

Re:Why are people still buying TiVos?

[grahamX0r]

Dunno where you're shopping, but I got my ReplayTV for 250$ retail. The HD upgrade IS easier. My commerical skip works like a champ on anything not Big 5 network. On those its 50/50, on cable shows its so close to 100% right that we don't reach for the remote anymore. The program that streams/records video from/to the ReplayTV can also automate tasks. You set up an hourly task for the Replay to chek the website while you're out of town and it gets the shows you want it to. TiVo is so very much the MAC of this competition. People seem to think its far superior without any grounding in fact.

Re:Why are people still buying TiVos?

[ivan256]

People seem to think its far superior without any grounding in fact.

I think my TiVo is superior because I paid $150 for it over 3 years ago. It took ReplayTV too long to get it right. Their early versions were crap. In the time it took them to make it worthwhile, lots of people already bought TiVo. What you have already is better than what you can buy for more money.

Re:Linux solutions?

[masoncooper]

Well, a linux solution is closer than you'd think. Check out MythTV [mythtv.org]. This guy has been working on a PVR in Linux running fairly cheap hardware. Definately worth a look-see.

Re:DMCA

[Steve B]

Consumer Electronics manufactuers want to sell hardware (to make money).

And they do not want a million calls from Joe Sixpack demanding to know why the box didn't record and play back whenever he wants, just like his old VCR.

Firewire with DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

Sony et all have made the requirement of drm in firewire applications. Therefore, if the format supports connectivity through firewire, in all likelyhood, the firmware contains drm that is either on by default, or can be turned on using various methods (os, discs, patches, etc).

So has anyone done the proper due diligence on whether this product contains any unknown drm? Sony has already been caught in a news article about a month ago quietly installing drm into all of its CD/DVD drives through firmware.

Re:TiVo + network + PC

[Anonymous Coward]

because TiVo and DirecTiVos do not record mpeg2 video suitable for directly burning to CDs or DVDs. Its the wrong resolution and audio bitrate. some players can handle it, many can't. DirecTiVos are even worse as the directivo VBR video is not in a normal mpeg2 format and takes VBR way further than any normal SVCD / DVD standard allows.

whats the point of buring onto a DVD or CD if you can't play it in any arbitrary player in the future?