Panasonic DMR-HWT260 owners thread.

Forums › Freeview (DVB-T/DVB-S) › Panasonic DMR-HWT260 owners thread.

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | ... | 19

423 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1570551 12-Jun-2016 16:18

My Tivo has finally died with the "blinking green light of death" after about four years!! Am looking at one of these Panasonics to replace it (looks like its a more reliable bet than the Dish TV T2200, looking through threads on here).

Have checked on the interwebby and it seems that Tivo was the only device that let you switch between tuners with the push of one button. Can anyone confirm this is not possible with the 260 (or other devices) - other than by setting one channel to record and then switching between live TV and the recording channel? I have just been having a play with one in HN and certainly couldn't see another option (nor in the instruction manual!). Its something I used reasonably regularly and just didn't realise that not everyone did it!!

I'll probably get one tomorrow anyway but thought I would check here (the font of all knowledge!) first.

If anyone else has come from a Tivo and has any useful comments on issues I might face, feel free to provide them :-). Thanks in adavnce.

"It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of what he was never reasoned into."
— most commonly attributed to Jonathan Swift, author/theologian

muppet

2570 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#1575363 16-Jun-2016 21:37

Right, so finally got a couple of blokes who know what they're doing to install a UHF Antenna for us.

Pretty happy, though have noticed a few times watching it picture going totally blank but sound still working. Probably the TV though, not the Unit.

The main gripes I have with it so far are:

1) You can't watch something on the DLNA server if the unit has been told to record something. It drops out of "Network" mode as it calls it back into Tuner mode to record. That'll be a little annoying if the little one is watching a movie over the network but something we want to record comes on.

2) The time between when you press "Pause" to pause Live TV, vs when it actually pauses is about 5 seconds. It seems to have to switch over from "Live" mode into "Now I'm reading from the HD Mode" and it takes a few seconds.

But otherwise, it works well. Freeview Plus is slow to start up, but I figured those sorts of "network" things would be.

These are my "first night" impressions. I'll post a bit more when I have some more feedback. Hopefully my two annoyances above can be addressed in later firmware, though I get the impression that Item 1 is a fixed issue.

littleheaven

2130 posts

Uber Geek

#1575507 17-Jun-2016 09:35

Yeah, the inability to record and use the network simultaneously is a pain. I'd heard before I bought my Panny that the DLNA was a bit patchy on them anyway, but luckily my home theatre system has that functionality and so does my AppleTV running Plex. Most streaming boxes have Plex ability, so that might be a good alternative for you. I think Chromecast does too.

Geek girl. Freelance copywriter and editor at Unmistakable.co.nz.

muppet

2570 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#1575511 17-Jun-2016 09:42

littleheaven:

Yeah, the inability to record and use the network simultaneously is a pain. I'd heard before I bought my Panny that the DLNA was a bit patchy on them anyway, but luckily my home theatre system has that functionality and so does my AppleTV running Plex. Most streaming boxes have Plex ability, so that might be a good alternative for you. I think Chromecast does too.

Thing is, the box proudly states that it can "Record TV while you watch Netflix!" so I assumed that it'd be able to play DLNA and record. Doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I haven't tried to watch Netflix using it while recording.

The other annoying thing is the "Freeview Plus (RED BUTTON)" thing that keeps popping up all the time when you switch channels.

I haven't found a way to turn this off, anyone know if it can be turned off (without having to fully turn off Freeview Plus in the settings)?

JaseNZ

2576 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Lifetime subscriber

#1575526 17-Jun-2016 09:52

I think that's built into freeview and the pop out thing at the side is not part of the box as they all do it.

Still pretty happy with mine with no issues that really bug me so far. (except the endless recordings of the soaps the missus has stored up already)

Ding Ding Ding Ding Ding : Ice cream man , Ice cream man

muppet

2570 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#1576440 19-Jun-2016 07:45

I just found a great feature of this box!

It supports "Casting" from Youtube/Youtube music on my Android phone. It works just like a Chromecast - you load the video you want on your phone and "Cast it" to the Panasonic box. The Youtube app loads up and it starts to play.

It's basically made my Chromecast redundant now, because I can now "Play some funky music Daddy" on the TV just as I used to, but without having to piss about getting the Chromecast working. The fact the box is also hard wired into the network as opposed to the Chromecast makes it even better.

What a great, undocumented as far as I'm aware, feature! I only found it when I went to cast a video the Chromecast last night and there was the Panasonic PVR as a Cast option too. I thought it was just going to be audio but it's the full deal!

I guess it only supports casting for Youtube though, not the full selection of apps that Chromecast supports, because the PVR only has a limited number of apps.

littleheaven

2130 posts

Uber Geek

#1576629 19-Jun-2016 17:31

muppet:

I just found a great feature of this box!

It supports "Casting" from Youtube/Youtube music on my Android phone. It works just like a Chromecast - you load the video you want on your phone and "Cast it" to the Panasonic box. The Youtube app loads up and it starts to play.

It's basically made my Chromecast redundant now, because I can now "Play some funky music Daddy" on the TV just as I used to, but without having to piss about getting the Chromecast working. The fact the box is also hard wired into the network as opposed to the Chromecast makes it even better.

What a great, undocumented as far as I'm aware, feature! I only found it when I went to cast a video the Chromecast last night and there was the Panasonic PVR as a Cast option too. I thought it was just going to be audio but it's the full deal!

I guess it only supports casting for Youtube though, not the full selection of apps that Chromecast supports, because the PVR only has a limited number of apps.

Ah, yes, I believe they call it Miracast. I've never tried it on my Panny, but it's a nice add-on.

Geek girl. Freelance copywriter and editor at Unmistakable.co.nz.

AliExpress

Shop now on AliExpress (affiliate link).

muppet

2570 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#1577954 21-Jun-2016 21:12

For anyone looking at this box, I wrote a review of it here.

Enjoy, or something.

DickDastardly

227 posts

Master Geek

#1578337 22-Jun-2016 14:01

Nice review - but in your "bad stuff" section you didn't mention the car crash these Panny boxes make of recording concurrent HD recordings where one show "overlaps" the other and the unit struggles and will chuck one of the recordings onto the +1hour Non HD channel. In a bid to overcome that on my 840 I slashed the lead in and lead out times so I could record HD shows one after the other on multiple channels, without these clashes....but if any of the shows over-run you have lost the end and are left feeling deflated. The Sky boxes did this effortlessly, but im not paying 80+ bucks for this privilege!

I don't want no sugar in it - thank you very much

muppet

2570 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#1578341 22-Jun-2016 14:05

DickDastardly:

Nice review - but in your "bad stuff" section you didn't mention the car crash these Panny boxes make of recording concurrent HD recordings where one show "overlaps" the other and the unit struggles and will chuck one of the recordings onto the +1hour Non HD channel. In a bid to overcome that on my 840 I slashed the lead in and lead out times so I could record HD shows one after the other on multiple channels, without these clashes....but if any of the shows over-run you have lost the end and are left feeling deflated. The Sky boxes did this effortlessly, but im not paying 80+ bucks for this privilege!

Interesting... I haven't had this problem because I don't really plan to record that many things - mostly wanted to be able to pause/rewind Live TV for when the kids burst in screaming/crying about something.

I'll update the review when I understand the problem a bit better though... How does the unit know to swap a HD recording for one of the +1 stations?

littleheaven

2130 posts

Uber Geek

#1578400 22-Jun-2016 15:43

muppet:

DickDastardly:

Nice review - but in your "bad stuff" section you didn't mention the car crash these Panny boxes make of recording concurrent HD recordings where one show "overlaps" the other and the unit struggles and will chuck one of the recordings onto the +1hour Non HD channel. In a bid to overcome that on my 840 I slashed the lead in and lead out times so I could record HD shows one after the other on multiple channels, without these clashes....but if any of the shows over-run you have lost the end and are left feeling deflated. The Sky boxes did this effortlessly, but im not paying 80+ bucks for this privilege!

Interesting... I haven't had this problem because I don't really plan to record that many things - mostly wanted to be able to pause/rewind Live TV for when the kids burst in screaming/crying about something.

I'll update the review when I understand the problem a bit better though... How does the unit know to swap a HD recording for one of the +1 stations?

You can do live pause but I'm not sure if you can do live rewind. I miss that functionality - I usually record the shows I really want to watch and then view them a bit later so I can do that with the recording (and skip the ads).

Geek girl. Freelance copywriter and editor at Unmistakable.co.nz.

muppet

2570 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#1578404 22-Jun-2016 15:46

littleheaven:

You can do live pause but I'm not sure if you can do live rewind. I miss that functionality - I usually record the shows I really want to watch and then view them a bit later so I can do that with the recording (and skip the ads).

You can do live rewind, it's one of the reasons I bought this unit.

B1GGLZ

1961 posts

Uber Geek

#1578405 22-Jun-2016 15:46

DickDastardly:

Nice review - but in your "bad stuff" section you didn't mention the car crash these Panny boxes make of recording concurrent HD recordings where one show "overlaps" the other and the unit struggles and will chuck one of the recordings onto the +1hour Non HD channel. In a bid to overcome that on my 840 I slashed the lead in and lead out times so I could record HD shows one after the other on multiple channels, without these clashes....but if any of the shows over-run you have lost the end and are left feeling deflated. The Sky boxes did this effortlessly, but im not paying 80+ bucks for this privilege!

I use Timer Record in this situation and edit/split the files later. Interestingly my Panny 840 recorded a program on the +1 channel the other night for no apparent reason. There were no conflicts so I don't know why it did this. It has happened before but very rarely. I hate it though because the +1 channels are SD with Linear PCM Stereo sound just like Prime.

littleheaven

2130 posts

Uber Geek

#1578412 22-Jun-2016 15:51

muppet:

littleheaven:

You can do live pause but I'm not sure if you can do live rewind. I miss that functionality - I usually record the shows I really want to watch and then view them a bit later so I can do that with the recording (and skip the ads).

You can do live rewind, it's one of the reasons I bought this unit.

You've made my day. I never get through anything uninterrupted (the joys of parenthood). How did I not know this? LOL.

Geek girl. Freelance copywriter and editor at Unmistakable.co.nz.

muppet

2570 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#1578418 22-Jun-2016 15:56

littleheaven:

You've made my day. I never get through anything uninterrupted (the joys of parenthood). How did I not know this? LOL.

Awesome - you have this unit too?

Had any problems with the screen blanking out as posted here?

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | ... | 19