DVD / Hard Drive Recorder With 28-Day Capacity 252
fenimor writes "Panasonic today unveiled new DVD-recoders with astonishing 709 hours video recording capacity. The top model has onboard components of a good PC: 400GB hard drive, Ethernet port, broadband receiver, SD Memory Card slot, and a PCMCIA card. The DVD recorder is the fastest in the industry as it can record a one-hour program onto DVD-R disc in just 56 seconds. Internet access allows users to program recording through cell phones or PCs while away from home."
A 'good' PC? (Score:1, Interesting)
Um, I thought my 120 gig was pretty swell. If 'good' is 400GB, I wonder what constitutes 'great?'
How's that supposed to work? (Score:1, Interesting)
Finally a product that people want. (Score:5, Interesting)
Remote Programming(!) (Score:5, Interesting)
This would be highly welcome as I'm often away from home and miss shows I might want to record, also could give peace of mind that it is programmed to record the show you really really really don't want to miss.
Of course, it being PC-like and on the internet, I wonder how secure it is. I'd hate to got on a trip in July, hoping this is recording stages of the Tour de France and coming home to a title "SUXX0RS11 UR 0WN3D1!" and a mess of Oprah shows.
the horror, the horror
The day the MPAA was afraid of has arrived... (Score:3, Interesting)
I would expect to see more attacks against computer makers and users by the MPAA on the order of what happened/is happening with the RIAA.
GJC
Pioneer already did this and has TiVo to boot (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure it's only 120 Hours but who really cares? I get 9 hours with a Series 1 TiVo right now and it's fine. I could upgrade it to 130 by replacing the one drive with two big one's but seriously, 9 hours is enough for me.
I don't record movies most of the time. It's just shows that I watch and most of them are an hour.
Frankly just waiting for both the Pioneer and Panasonic devices to drop in cost and I will buy them. But the Pioneer is $1,800.00 for 120 Hours plus you still need to subscribe to TiVo or buy a lifetime connection. I would rather buy a new PowerBook then spend the money on a new TiVo when I am still not exceeding the capacity of the series 1 unit I have now.
Seriously, how many would really record a lot onto DVD just to avoid buying a series on DVD when it's released at the end of a season?
Why rip movies from HBO, etc. to DVD when you could just stream it from Comcast or rent it?
I have friends who rent and rip DVD's using 321 Studio's software. But I tell ya, it's easier for me to rent the iffy movies and buy the ones I care about. I just don't have the time to rip to DVD.
Actually... (Score:3, Interesting)
"Yo my man... I can score you some Bob the Builder! It's FRESH!"
28 days? Nooooooo... (Score:2, Interesting)
I already have something that ruins my life every 28 days. Why rub salt in my wounds?
No, Honey, really, it was a joke! Sorry! Sorry! Glaahkkk! mmmffffpppt! AIEEEEEEEE>>>
Re:Cost inefficient? (Score:2, Interesting)
It isn't always as easy as this. My installation looked a bit like this:
Total time: 18.6hrs
If everything goes OK, mythtv setup is a breeze - I've done it before. But when you have audio card that only records in 48kHz and start having prebuffering problems, or live outside US where you have to do little more than use ZapIt it CAN get ugly.
During my three workdays with MythTV most of the problems were mentioned in some web forums, but the answers proved to be few and far between. So far I've at least learned to hate the troubleshooting-section of MythTV documentation, which is about as much of use in shooting the trouble as a robot that eats flies.
Surely a super-expert in ALSA could've solved the haunting audio problems with a flick of his wrist, but sometimes it seems like a waste of good freetime to start learning devfs and the inner workings of