Panasonic DMR-BWT800 Full HD 3D Blu-ray Disc Recorder Launch

Tonight, I attended a launch event with a number of the Insider Crew for the Panasonic DMR-BWT800 Full HD 3D Blu-ray Disc Recorder (henceforth called “the recorder”) at Panasonic HQ in Macquarie Park.

The Function Centre at Panasonic HQ

This was the first time that we had a go at live streaming the event so that Insiders who weren’t lucky enough to attend and those interstate. For the event, we used a popular video streaming service called USTREAM. There were some teething issues with the webcam contrast and making sure people used the microphones so the web audience could hear everything but I think it was pretty good for a first go.

The Insider Crew in Attendance

The event itself was pretty good with some very good nibbles on offer and a range of drinks (mineral water and orange juice was fine for me).

The Insider Crew Live USTREAM

We also got an overview of the DMR-BWT800 and a live demo of some of the key features of the device, in particular the recording function, a comparison of recording quality of  a TV show in its original quality and the special “DR mode”. You’d have to be pretty close to notice the difference but at normal viewing distances you would be hard pressed to notice a reduction in quality. We didn’t get to see the 2D to 3D conversion though which was a shame but it was good to know that the 3D output was compatible with non-Panasonic televisions through the use of sequential frames at full HD resolution.

The 2011 Panasonic Blu-ray DVD Recorder Range

Another great feature is the ability to stream recorded content to other DLNA client devices either over Wi-Fi or cabled Ethernet. This goes some way to freeing the recorded content from the box in the living room so you can head elsewhere in the house for your viewing. I would have loved to have seen a solution that streamed content to devices outside the home like an iPhone, iPad or Android device but I guess there needs to be room for future innovation.

One amazing fact is with the included 1TB and recording in DR mode it’s possible to store 28 days of full HD video. That’s enough for every episode of every season of The Simpsons with space left over – pretty impressive.

That said, there is still the Foxtel dilemma – the only way it seems you can record to this device is via an analogue connection (so like a composite connection). If you have an IQ2 then that will have superior quality in comparison but it’s a shame that Foxtel content is locked down as much as it is and their set top boxes are crippled.

Anyway, it’s over to our lucky product testers now to do their thing and you can be sure I will be keen to get across everything they publish!