Blu-ray recorder with HDD why so few around?

[gshughes]

As per the title really, boxes that need to be ticked are the ability to record Blu-ray Discs and also record onto an internal hard drive. Among the plethora of products available iI can only find a few that can do this. Any ideas why?

[OldSkoolRS]

Perhaps most people just use a hard drive recorder? No massive need to transfer things to disc if the drive is a decent size. I've left various films on my PVR incase I've nothing to watch one evening, yet still don't run out of space. The price of blank discs might also have something to do with it too.

Trouble is you won't end up with a disc as good as the shop bought one since it's only going to be from a 1440 x 1080p source (from the 4 UK Freeview HD channels) let alone the lower bitrate that they broadcast at rather than the higher bitrate and 1920 x 1080p sourced disc content.

Anyway, if you still want one I'm pretty sure that Panasonic make them, but as you say not many others.

[clockworks]

As above. A pretty pointless product, unless you want to archive broadcast or satellite programming (is that even strictly legal?). HDD is far easier to use for time-shifting.

[Bullett]

Pretty much all of my recorded HD content has the little ENC symbol so it's encrypted. Would it be likely that any ENC content is nt allowed to be saved to disc, making such a feature pointless?

I know you can get around these issues but it was just a thought as I dropped my Humax onto my home network and can playback SD streams but not HD.

[dave stew]

I too faced this problem when my old Sony unit needed updating. I went for one if these: http://www.panasonic.co.uk/html/en_GB/Products/Hom... Great product, 1tb hard drive, twin tuners, plays and records Blu Ray discs etc.

[Bonefish Blues]

dave stew said:

I too faced this problem when my old Sony unit needed updating. I went for one if these: http://www.panasonic.co.uk/html/en_GB/Products/Hom... Great product, 1tb hard drive, twin tuners, plays and records Blu Ray discs etc.

You rate this, then?

I've been umming and aahing about whether I can be bothered moving to HD. What are your thoughts - been looking at this one as I have no need to record to Blu-ray:

http://www.richersounds.com/product/digital-set-to...

[jmorgan]

I went for the DMR-BWT720. Really ticked all the boxes for me.

[gshughes]

dave stew said:

I too faced this problem when my old Sony unit needed updating. I went for one if these: http://www.panasonic.co.uk/html/en_GB/Products/Hom... Great product, 1tb hard drive, twin tuners, plays and records Blu Ray discs etc.

Cheers for that, I have seen this one, and it looks great, is a little pricey at £400 though (I am a tightwad!), so was wondering if there are any alternatives? I don't need to record on Blu-ray, but have a load of old Camcorder tapes I want to archive, and fancy a unit that lets me watch Blu-ray discs. Does anyone know if there is a Blue-ray players with HDD which would let me connect it to my laptop, as that has a DVD burner.