Panasonic DMR-HWT150EB Smart Network HDD Recorder with Freeview Play, Black

I've only had this for a week and a half, so I'm still at the "playing about with it" stage. Read this in that context. Since the digital switchover, I've always been a bit of a H*m*x freak; I reckon I'm typical in that respect, so I'll be making comparisons between the two here. The Hummie (a 9300T) had started to play up, and with its software bugs and all, I was fed up with it. And I needed to upgrade anyway. I already have a Panasonic smart TV and home theatre setup, which are very good, and I tend to be brand-loyal if they give good service, so I went that route. I ordered this and another item at the same time, and it all came in the same Amazon package. I thought it was just the recorder till I opened it; the Panasonic is tiny, about two-thirds the size of the Hummie. I think the dimensions given are wrong. Physical installation was a faff though, because the Hummie has a hard-wired mains lead and the Pannie uses a bog-standard figure-of-eight. All my spaghetti is in cable tidies, and I had to undo it all. That's not Panasonic's fault of course, in fact it's an improvement. Setup was a breeze; like the TV, it tore through the auto-tune and presented me with a choice: list all found services by signal strength, or select your transmitter. Works perfectly. Saves remembering your MUX numbers and doing a manual tune, like with the Hummie. Veira Link works well; turn off the TV and the recorder waits a second or two, figures out what you're doing, and turns off too. On a couple of occasions, I've been watching on the TV, found something in the EPG, pressed Record, and the TV passed the command on to the recorder. How cool is that? Trouble is, it's not doing it any more so I've messed up a setting somewhere. You can enter your name and address to deter theft; you can change it if you move. It's protected by a PIN which is separate from the Parental Lock PIN. It won't be cleared by a factory reset, so you must remember it. It's a good idea; I wish they had it on the TV, which is more expensive. I still had a few unwatched recordings on the Hummie; I whipped out its hard drive, connected it to my computer, lifted them off and on to a USB stick. Plugged it into the Pannie and it played them straight away; I had the option of copying them onto the hard drive, which I didn't have to, but did. You can do the same with your digital photos, and any videos on your computer too. (And I kept the old hard drive, formatted it for Windows and now I've got extra storage.) It doesn't seem to like SD cards though; YMMV. The Pannie is a bit ponderous in responding to the remote; you press a button, it seems to say, "Are you sure, sir?", then does it. It's only a second or so, but it's noticeable. I can live with it, though. The Hummie was far more responsive, but I figure you use a video recorder far less now that you have catch-up, so I'm not finding it a problem at all. In the same vein, the Pannie is somewhat less intuitive than the old machine; you need more button-presses to do anything, but once you get used to it it's really not an issue. One good thing; the EPG takes a second or two to load, but it does load; a full eight days where the Hummie gave you three days if you were lucky. Important on a recorder. Mind you, they did go and spoil it by not having a search function; a serious omission in my view. Like on the TV, to scroll up and down in the EPG it's the Up/Down arrow; to scroll up and down a page at a time, you long-press the Up/Down arrow. Not in the manual, that one. The Page Up/Down button only serves to change channel in Catch-up view. I've also installed the app on my phone; it worked straight away and I can record something when I'm out. I can also watch TV (or recordings) when I'm out; that'd use a lot of data though. But it does mean, using WiFi, I can (virtually) take the TV to bed. Or (ahem) anywhere else in the house. So, to sum up: Things I like: 1. Small and neat. 2. Uses a standard mains lead. Small things can mean a lot. 3. The price is right. About the going rate for a good quality, entry-level machine. 4. TV anywhere, with the phone app. 5. Integrates well with the TV. Especially a Panasonic. 6. EPG fully populates. Almost instantly. 7. Plays your digital videos and photos. Things I don't like: 1. A little slow to respond to the remote. Only a second or two though. 2. Can't access a USB device while it's recording. 3. No EPG search. 4. No clock on the front. I don't miss it, but you might. 5. Frankly, Panasonic's app market isn't the best. All the catch-up apps are there, and Amazon, Netflix, Britbox and so on. A few games for the kids, and a couple of nice "moving wallpaper" apps, but not much else unless you like Bulgarian or Mongolian TV. Overall though, a great little machine and I'm pleased with it. Great for all the stuff that's not on catch-up.

Time for another reasonable review on this product. I have read some of the previous negative reviews on this product and if I'm honest. These reviews are a bit harsh and seem to be centred around the fact that the product was not released with Freeview play functionality. This functionality has now been enabled by a software update, which was released on 1st December, which is exactly when Panasonic said the software would be released This product is a very capable DTV recorder and also has access to Amazon instant video and Netflix. These can be accessed by the net button on the remote. Netflix can also be accessed by the dedicated Netflix button. There are quite a few other apps available as well. I have recorded two programs at once on more than one occasion and have not ran into problems One thing to note the scroll back catch up in the EPG only works for the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 at the moment due to the fact that demand five isn't currently available on the box. Although, according to Panasonic demand five is coming shortly. Given the fact that the freeview play update was released exactly when they said was going to be I'm inclined to believe them about demand five, as well. The scroll back catch up in the EPG works perfectly. The freeview play catch up apps are accessed using the freeview play button on the remote. I also read comments that the remote is difficult to understand that to be honest I don't think it is. I've seen far worse examples and if you've had Panasonic kit before you might not even need to read the instructions. I would have given this product five stars had it been released with freeview play from the get go. It also gets four stars because demand five isn't available yet, making the catch up facilities slightly limited. The other slight negative is that the EPG can be a little slow sometimes, but not overly so

The main reason for purchasing this was to record programmes to watch back at later time. It has been excellent for this purpose. You can set it up to record single programmes or whole series and it does this brilliantly and without any hassle at all. If the broadcast time of the programme changes it adjusts it's timing accordingly. It can also record 2 programmes at the same time which has often proved handy. Another useful feature is that when watching back a programme containing adverts one or two clicks on the "skip to next chapter" button takes you straight to the next part of the programme (it's amazing how much time this can save). We now record almost everything we want to watch on this and then watch it back later when convenient. I have used it on occasion for catch up TV on Freeview Play and iPlayer and it has worked well for this also. I wouldn't want to be without this machine now as it has made catching all programmes we want to watch simple - whatever ungodly or inconvenient hour they might be on.

This little box has breathed new life into an older LCD TV that had no Smart functionality. There has been a visible improvement in image quality compared to a previous HD decoder and with a bit of TV colour and contrast tweaking looks great. It's a breeze to set up: have all connections in place before initial switch on and it runs through its installation procedures with minimal input. The Smart functions give you access to Amazon, Netflix, YouTube, BBC, ITV, C4 and Demand 5 as well as other apps and a web browser. The box will record two channels while you watch a 3rd although one idiosyncracy is that it will switch channel to one being recorded at the start. No big deal. The guide is nippy enough too. All in all this is a great alternative to forking out for a new TV if you want Smart functionality and not looking for HDR or 4K.

If you are looking for a recorder and do not want to watch DVDs or listen CDs this is just the job. Nice and compact and does not take up much room. Good recorder and very easy to set up and is well worth the money. Good quality playback.

Compared to our old virgin tv box the panasonic box is quite slow. Remote control is not particularly well laid out and it is not intuitive as I would have liked. Bigest problem by far which I think could be solved easily is there is no page down function within the tv guide. Meaning you have to scroll one by one. Picture quality is good and the box is easy to setup. Connect to youtube netflix very well which is great. Slight delay with live pause to activation. I haven't tried the recording function yet so watch this space. Allows media to be plugged in such as a USB key or harddrive which is very useful. Box is ok and as far as I can see there is not much else around which can compete with a sky or virgin box on speed and quality of use. But it is free ! with no subscription which is why I bought it !! Panasonic please do a firmware update and add the function to page down !!

UPDATE. Freeview Play now available, BBC ITV & Channel 4. Also as this is not a bluray player there is no cinavia water mark system so this will play almost any downloaded content. Having read two damning reviews of this recorder I will endeavor to submit a balanced review. Much is made of this being marketed a freeview play box without freeview play. Yes that's true but I knew that before I bought it, the Panasonic website informs me a firmware update will be available soon. Quality of construction and appearance: It's a black box that sits under the TV. It weighs nothing because there's nothing inside, a circuit board and a hard drive is pretty much all it needs. If it feels cheap then I won't touch it, there's no need to and the remote feels sturdy enough. On screen graphics are what I expected, they're easy to read but if you're moving from Sky HD or even Humax Freetime then you won't be bowled over. Other reviewers refer to slow scrolling through the tv guide pages, it is on the slow side but not cripplingly so. It's a good recorder with two HD tuners and pause live TV all present and correct. It's a good player with support for usb pen-drives or portable usb hard drives. Most popular photo, video and music file types are supported including .mkv and AVCHD. A Sky+ box blows all these devices into the weeds but you already knew that, your just fed-up with paying subscriptions. A good box, just not great but firmware updates could change everything. I'm keeping mine.

Excellent product, user friendly.