Questions from an idiot about blu-ray

[Lucky Luke]

Hi, Audio Visual savants. Our DVD recorder/player has just ceased to function, and I suppose that now, DVD players belong to the past, so I thought it would be good policy to buy a blu-ray recorder. I see lots of these on Amazon (I went there just to get some information) but, although it mentions many blu-ray players, it does not say that they are also recorders. I am quite scared of making a wrong purchase, so I need to be sure of things — hence my being here, with questions to ask. Here they are:

When a blu-ray player is advertised, is it to be taken for granted that it is also a blu-ray recorder? Or are there exceptions where ithe machine might only play blu-ray discs?

All that my wife and I need from a recorder is that it will be able to record to DVD-discs from the television (we are not greatly interested in the superfine quality of recording that blu-ray discs can deliver). Is it to be taken for granted that a blu-ray recorder of any make will also record to a DVD disc?

It seems a good idea to look for a blu-ray recorder/player that has a USB port, so that images from other sources can be shown. So, for someone with not a lot of money to spend, what would a good quality basic-function blu-ray player/recorder cost (roughly) in sterling, and which model/make would be a good purchase? (our TV is an LG smart TV.) However, we would not mind having to use a separate handset for the recorder, as we are used to this. So, a make other than LG would be OK if it were a quality item.

Oh, I nearly forgot to mention that we would require the machine to have a hard drive, for recording TV programmes to, for viewing later (timer recording"). Also (this is very important), the machine would need to be able to receive and record BBC channels 1, 2 3 etc. (broadcast in the UK).

Any answers to questions, recommendations etc., would be very much appreciated.
L.L.

 

[Lucid]

It's not safe to make any presumptions. In the main, you have
- Blu-ray players - a device which only plays discs. The discs can be DVD or Blu-ray. There is no recording. Play/player means exactly that.

- TV Harddrive recorders with Blu-ray playback. This is a one-box solution for someone who wants to record and watch TV without the hassle of unwrapping new blank discs. They also want something to playback DVDs and Blu-ray discs they've rented/borrowed/bought

- Blu-ray recorders. These are TV recorders with a built-in hard drive, but with the ability to play and record to Blu-ray and DVD disc. That last bit answers one of your main questions.

To add a slight complication, there are some machines designed to receive Freeview (comes from a TV aerial) and others that are made to receive TV via Freesat. This is the one that uses a satellite dish. Since it's mostly all Panasonic machines we're talking about, then recorder model numbers tend to start with DMR-. You can ignore anything that begins DMP- or DP-.

Recording TV direct to disc isn't really the way things are done with the Blu-ray recorders. You'll find that anything that records from live TV, be it Freeview or Freesat, is recording first to an internal computer hard disc drive (HDD). These recordings can then be transferred later to disc for archiving.

Recording to HDD offers some significant advantages over direct-to-disc recording. Where a recorder has twin tuners, then two overlapping recordings can be made. This means no more timer-record clashes. It also removes the need to put the machine into timer-record mode. You might also find that watching live TV via the recorder offers the ability to pause live TV, then resume playback or even fast-forward to catch up to real time.

Other benefits include the ability to edit out adverts and trim up the beginning and end of recordings.

A DMR-BWT850 is around £500 new. This is the only Blu-ray recorder in Panasonic's current product line-up. Panasonic's other recorder is the
DMR-EX97EB. This is a Freeview twin-tuner recorder with HDD. It archives to DVD. It plays DVDs. It does not record or play Blu-ray. The retail price is £299.

Everything else in Blu-ray and DVD recorders is used.

I can understand folk archiving TV to disc. There are occasions where if it's news or current affairs, or some local interest programmes, then this won't appear on catchup and is unlikely to get repeated. For the rest of it though, most of what we're doing is recording to playback at a more convenient time. Just recording to a hard drive is perfect for this. Record it. Watch it as many times as you need, then delete. The hard drive in my Humax Freeview recorders holds up to 300 hours of TV recording time. The time reduces if I record more HD than SD. I still have stuff on here from a year ago that I haven't got round to watching yet. The question here is whether you really need hard disc recording.

A Freeview HD (high def) recorder will make two recordings at the same time whilst also allowing live TV to be paused. If you're working on a budget then one of these as a used buy is cheaper and more reliable. If you want something good without breaking the bank then let me know.

 

[Lucky Luke]

It's not safe to make any presumptions. In the main, you have
- Blu-ray players - a device which only plays discs. The discs can be DVD or Blu-ray. There is no recording. Play/player means exactly that.

- TV Harddrive recorders with Blu-ray playback. This is a one-box solution for someone who wants to record and watch TV without the hassle of unwrapping new blank discs. They also want something to playback DVDs and Blu-ray discs they've rented/borrowed/bought

- Blu-ray recorders. These are TV recorders with a built-in hard drive, but with the ability to play and record to Blu-ray and DVD disc. That last bit answers one of your main questions.

To add a slight complication, there are some machines designed to receive Freeview (comes from a TV aerial) and others that are made to receive TV via Freesat. This is the one that uses a satellite dish. Since it's mostly all Panasonic machines we're talking about, then recorder model numbers tend to start with DMR-. You can ignore anything that begins DMP- or DP-.

Recording TV direct to disc isn't really the way things are done with the Blu-ray recorders. You'll find that anything that records from live TV, be it Freeview or Freesat, is recording first to an internal computer hard disc drive (HDD). These recordings can then be transferred later to disc for archiving.

Recording to HDD offers some significant advantages over direct-to-disc recording. Where a recorder has twin tuners, then two overlapping recordings can be made. This means no more timer-record clashes. It also removes the need to put the machine into timer-record mode. You might also find that watching live TV via the recorder offers the ability to pause live TV, then resume playback or even fast-forward to catch up to real time.

Other benefits include the ability to edit out adverts and trim up the beginning and end of recordings.

A DMR-BWT850 is around £500 new. This is the only Blu-ray recorder in Panasonic's current product line-up. Panasonic's other recorder is the
DMR-EX97EB. This is a Freeview twin-tuner recorder with HDD. It archives to DVD. It plays DVDs. It does not record or play Blu-ray. The retail price is £299.

Everything else in Blu-ray and DVD recorders is used.

I can understand folk archiving TV to disc. There are occasions where if it's news or current affairs, or some local interest programmes, then this won't appear on catchup and is unlikely to get repeated. For the rest of it though, most of what we're doing is recording to playback at a more convenient time. Just recording to a hard drive is perfect for this. Record it. Watch it as many times as you need, then delete. The hard drive in my Humax Freeview recorders holds up to 300 hours of TV recording time. The time reduces if I record more HD than SD. I still have stuff on here from a year ago that I haven't got round to watching yet. The question here is whether you really need hard disc recording.

A Freeview HD (high def) recorder will make two recordings at the same time whilst also allowing live TV to be paused. If you're working on a budget then one of these as a used buy is cheaper and more reliable. If you want something good without breaking the bank then let me know.

Lucid, as usual, you astonish me — not only with your knowledge, but also with your willingness to help others with it. What you wrote has been MOST helpful, and I thank you very sincerely.
L.L.

 

[Lucky Luke]

Lucid: I hope you will not mind a further question. Here it is: On the Web, I see "Freeview boxes" for sale, but there are two things that don't seem to be made clear. What I need to know is whether these Freeview boxes/recorders to hard drive can receive BBC channels. If they there are any that can, I presume that they will be HD-ready, for the time when SD BBC broadcasts cease.

Ta muchly, for a bit more information.
L.L.

 

[Lucid]

Lucid: I hope you will not mind a further question. Here it is: On the Web, I see "Freeview boxes" for sale, but there are two things that don't seem to be made clear. What I need to know is whether these Freeview boxes/recorders to hard drive can receive BBC channels. If they there are any that can, I presume that they will be HD-ready, for the time when SD BBC broadcasts cease.

Ta muchly, for a bit more information.
L.L.

Are we talking new or used?

New; everything should be HD capable, and yes, that means it will pick up the BBC HD channels so long as you can receive them from your local transmitter. The good stuff from reputable brands will be pricey though. I'm seeing Manhatten boxes with a built-in hard drive going for £200. Humax Aura with a 1TB drive at £250, the odd Humax FVP-5000 (model before the Aura) going for over £450!! It has all gone a bit nuts.

The cheapest option new is the August Freeview HD box for £45-£50, but there's a big catch. There's no hard drive supplied. It is a recorder, but it records to a USB pen drive that you have to buy from some other seller.

Aside from the cost of a pen drive, folk get stressed over the various specs and whether they're compatible. I see this a lot from other forums where folk discover that their TV can record on a pen drive. They hope this will be the same as the Sky or Virgin box from the contract they just ditched. It isn't. The TV often won't record a different channel to the one being watched. That's a bit of a deal breaker for most folks. IDK if the August box is the same, but it wouldn't surprise me.

One other problem is pen drives are not reliable. They don't like heat. I found this out to my cost a couple of weeks ago.

A friend loaned me a DVD of a film he recommended. I ripped it on my laptop and put the file on a Samsung 1TB pen drive. I had this plugged into a Panasonic smart TV. The drive stayed connected for a few weeks. All seemed fine. Then it failed. The film was no loss. I planned to delete that anyway. What was more annoying was losing some bits of holiday footage with our old Springer Spaniel. I think the drive got too hot being plugged in 24/7 for a few weeks. A lesson learned.

Used boxes provide a reasonable choice, but you have to be very careful about what to look at. Private sellers give poor or misleading descriptions; HD meaning hard drive rather than HDTV is a common one, and good condition being a euphemism for 'a bit tatty and missing some pieces'.

BT YouView boxes are a reasonably safe bet, but be aware there are several generations of box. All are HD capable. Recording capacities vary as do the specs. Prices range from under £50 for a bare box (no remote, no accessories) to over £200 for the latest generation machines with 4K streaming. BT Youview is their broadband enhanced TV recorder.

For standard Humax boxes the Humax FVP-5000T is pretty good. It has Freeview Play. This is the catch-up service where the TV guide goes back in time to show you the selected programmes that are available to stream if you missed the live broadcast. You'll need an internet connection to the box for this. More recent smart TVs have the same thing. There's also access to the main streaming apps for BBC, ITV, Ch4, Ch5 and some others. All of this is on top of a recorder box with hard drive capacities ranging from 500GB through to 2TB and that allows three overlapping programmes to be recorded whilst watching a fourth live. Used prices tend to be around the £100-£200 depending on HD capacity and whether the device comes with all the accessories.

Avoid the Humax FVP-4000T like the plague. This was the forerunner to the 5000. Humax screwed up writing the software. It was buggy as hell and made the machines a nightmare to use and own. Eventually, Humax resigned themselves to the fact that they had to start with a clean sheet. The FVP-5000T was the same physical box, but the software was written fresh from scratch and they might have put in some better processing chips to run it.

Before the 4000 we had the HDR-1800T and HDR-2000T machines. These were pretty much bullet-proof. They were the chassis that the earlier Youview boxes were based on. These both receive and record HD channels. The difference between them is in the size of the hard drive and that the 2000 comes with a remote which can be programmed to control the TV volume. The streaming features are limited. BBC iPlayer works but the rest are patchy. However, as a way to receive and record Freeview, they're a great option. That's why I keep a few around for when customers ditch the cost of their Sky or Virgin subscriptions.

A nice clean machine. Two remotes (the original, plus a brand new Youview remote with TV volume control), original power supply, 3-month warranty. I'll chuck in a couple of Energiser AA batteries too. Unlike Duracell, these don't leak. £50 + courier delivery at cost.

Forgot to add, I have a nice Panasonic Blu-ray player (does DVD too) and it's unlocked so it will play any region of DVD disc. I could do a package deal on both together.

 

[Lucky Luke]

Are we talking new or used?

New; everything should be HD capable, and yes, that means it will pick up the BBC HD channels so long as you can receive them from your local transmitter. The good stuff from reputable brands will be pricey though. I'm seeing Manhatten boxes with a built-in hard drive going for £200. Humax Aura with a 1TB drive at £250, the odd Humax FVP-5000 (model before the Aura) going for over £450!! It has all gone a bit nuts.

The cheapest option new is the August Freeview HD box for £45-£50, but there's a big catch. There's no hard drive supplied. It is a recorder, but it records to a USB pen drive that you have to buy from some other seller.

Aside from the cost of a pen drive, folk get stressed over the various specs and whether they're compatible. I see this a lot from other forums where folk discover that their TV can record on a pen drive. They hope this will be the same as the Sky or Virgin box from the contract they just ditched. It isn't. The TV often won't record a different channel to the one being watched. That's a bit of a deal breaker for most folks. IDK if the August box is the same, but it wouldn't surprise me.

One other problem is pen drives are not reliable. They don't like heat. I found this out to my cost a couple of weeks ago.

A friend loaned me a DVD of a film he recommended. I ripped it on my laptop and put the file on a Samsung 1TB pen drive. I had this plugged into a Panasonic smart TV. The drive stayed connected for a few weeks. All seemed fine. Then it failed. The film was no loss. I planned to delete that anyway. What was more annoying was losing some bits of holiday footage with our old Springer Spaniel. I think the drive got too hot being plugged in 24/7 for a few weeks. A lesson learned.

Used boxes provide a reasonable choice, but you have to be very careful about what to look at. Private sellers give poor or misleading descriptions; HD meaning hard drive rather than HDTV is a common one, and good condition being a euphemism for 'a bit tatty and missing some pieces'.

BT YouView boxes are a reasonably safe bet, but be aware there are several generations of box. All are HD capable. Recording capacities vary as do the specs. Prices range from under £50 for a bare box (no remote, no accessories) to over £200 for the latest generation machines with 4K streaming. BT Youview is their broadband enhanced TV recorder.

For standard Humax boxes the Humax FVP-5000T is pretty good. It has Freeview Play. This is the catch-up service where the TV guide goes back in time to show you the selected programmes that are available to stream if you missed the live broadcast. You'll need an internet connection to the box for this. More recent smart TVs have the same thing. There's also access to the main streaming apps for BBC, ITV, Ch4, Ch5 and some others. All of this is on top of a recorder box with hard drive capacities ranging from 500GB through to 2TB and that allows three overlapping programmes to be recorded whilst watching a fourth live. Used prices tend to be around the £100-£200 depending on HD capacity and whether the device comes with all the accessories.

Avoid the Humax FVP-4000T like the plague. This was the forerunner to the 5000. Humax screwed up writing the software. It was buggy as hell and made the machines a nightmare to use and own. Eventually, Humax resigned themselves to the fact that they had to start with a clean sheet. The FVP-5000T was the same physical box, but the software was written fresh from scratch and they might have put in some better processing chips to run it.

Before the 4000 we had the HDR-1800T and HDR-2000T machines. These were pretty much bullet-proof. They were the chassis that the earlier Youview boxes were based on. These both receive and record HD channels. The difference between them is in the size of the hard drive and that the 2000 comes with a remote which can be programmed to control the TV volume. The streaming features are limited. BBC iPlayer works but the rest are patchy. However, as a way to receive and record Freeview, they're a great option. That's why I keep a few around for when customers ditch the cost of their Sky or Virgin subscriptions.


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A nice clean machine. Two remotes (the original, plus a brand new Youview remote with TV volume control), original power supply, 3-month warranty. I'll chuck in a couple of Energiser AA batteries too. Unlike Duracell, these don't leak. £50 + courier delivery at cost.

Forgot to add, I have a nice Panasonic Blu-ray player (does DVD too) and it's unlocked so it will play any region of DVD disc. I could do a package deal on both together.

Lucid, you bowl me over with the wealth of your information (and your experienced advice). So thanks a million for going to all that trouble for a bonehead like me. I am not ready to buy anything just yet, but if I could have the address of your website, I should certainly be looking at it in due course (I never realised that you were a retailer). I hope you will be allowed to post details of your website, on this forum.
With best regards, and with sincere thanks again,
L.L.
PS: I would never buy used electronic equipment.

 

[Lucid]

Lucid, you bowl me over with the wealth of your information (and your experienced advice). So thanks a million for going to all that trouble for a bonehead like me. I am not ready to buy anything just yet, but if I could have the address of your website, I should certainly be looking at it in due course (I never realised that you were a retailer). I hope you will be allowed to post details of your website, on this forum.
With best regards, and with sincere thanks again,
L.L.
PS: I would never buy used electronic equipment.

I'm in the trade but not as a retailer. My skill set is different. The main business I have centres around installation, so the physical stuff of taking houses apart to conceal cabling and fix hardware into the fabric of the building before putting it all back together again. The other part of what I do is design, and calibration.

Design is about planning what gear to use, how it will integrate with other gear, and optimising the room layouts for the best sonic and visual results. This includes things such as lighting design, room decor, seating positions, and how a system will be controlled. Calibration is the process of improving the performance of TVs, projectors and sound systems so that they work better than their price point would suggest.

All of my business comes from referrals. I don't advertise and I don't have a web site. New customers see what I've done for the friends, and so my name gets passed around. It's a lot about trust in my game.

If you'll only buy new gear, then there are retailers happy to take your money. I've given you the model numbers of the DVD and Blu-ray recorders. Humax Aura is available from Argos at the moment (£249 and £279 depending on drive size), but stock is sporadic. Personally, I wouldn't touch the August box with a ten-foot barge pole, but you must decide for yourself. Manhattan seem to have disappeared apart from a basic Freesat receiver.