Compressed recordings can then be dubbed to disc – provided the broadcaster is agreeable. All of the BBC's HD content is currently flagged Copy Once. This means that after you've captured it on your hard drive, you can copy it only once to BD media. The status of the original recording is revealed in a graphical flag which counts down from one to zero. Broadcasters have the ability to further restrict usage with a Copy Never flag. Obviously you won't find out about that until you've recorded the programme in question.

However, while the BBC has moved its HD broadcasts to Copy Once (with a promise of Copy Free this Summer), ITV is less generous. It soon became clear after using the Panasonic recorder that ITV is currently flagging its limited HD transmissions as Copy Never – even dusty back-catalogue movies. So with these you can record on the HDD but not archive to disc. This situation needs to be resolved if consumers are to have any faith in the technology – Panasonic assures us that it will.

Naturally, the BS850 will also write to DVD media (RAM, -R/DL, -RW, +R, +R/DL, +RW). It can also play (and copy to disc) JPEGs and movies from SD card, as well as MP3s. Panasonic's deck also packs an in-built Gracenote database for 350,000 albums, which can be updated via the net connection. The recorder had no problem recognising Dragonforce's Ultra Beatdown and prompted for it to be copied to the HDD; likewise it could read or copy an Avenged Sevenfold MP3 track from USB.

Versatile unit

To help evaluate the BS850, Panasonic loaned me a DMC-TZ7 digital camera. Not only does this silver snapper grab incredible 10MP images, it can also record in AVCHD Lite. To be honest, I didn't expect much, but I was astounded by the video performance of what is ostensibly a compact camera.

The Lite iteration means that AVCHD recordings are in the less processor-intensive 720p mode, yet I'd still rate the images it captures as super – certainly worth dubbing to disc and archiving in a compressed form on Blu-ray. The card can be taken from the camera and played back immediately in the BS850.

While it's possible to dub AVCHD to DVD, it will only do it in SD format – an artificial restriction mandated by Panasonic. I find this shackle a bit irritating, but I can see commercially why it was done. The recorder will also read and play DivX files from disc and USB.

As a Blu-ray player, the BS850 is analogous to the BD60; images are pin-sharp while noise (still a problem to my mind with some BD discs) is acceptably low; video processing comes via the latest iteration of Panasonic's UniPhier chipset. The player can bitstream both DTS-HD MA and Dolby TrueHD
out over HDMI, so its credentials as a home cinema source are solid.

The unit utilises Panasonic's trademark disc recorder GUI, which hasn't significantly changed for years. It's square and formulaic, and strikes me as somewhat dated. More importantly, it looks decidedly standard-definition. For a product like this, surely a jazzed-up hi-def display would be more appropriate?

BD loading times are better than the worst BD offenders out there, but not as fast as they could be. If you try and load a BD Live disc and don't have an internet connection, the player dithers, unable to work out why it can't connect to the internet, so best to hook it up while you can.

Hard to value

The BS850 comes to market at about the same price as Panasonic's first ever DVD recorder, but it offers a quantum leap in performance. It's difficult to peg in terms of value, but if you want the best hi-def recorder in town, you wouldn't expect it to come cheap. The question many buyers will ask is: how long before the price falls to something easier to digest? I suspect the answer is some time.

It's unlikely the price of Freesat Blu-ray recorders will mimic DVD recorders. The number of Freesat licensees remains limited and that means there's no downward pressure from competing Chinese vendors. What's more, Panasonic has a development lead of at least a year on its competitors. On the plus side, I'm told that when these recorders launch in June, a number of special fi nancing deals will be available.

Overall I'd rate the BS850 as an amazing bit of kit. Panasonic has launched a number of BD recorders globally (in Japan, France, and Australia, ), but none are an exact match of this model. It's unique and more than a little brilliant.

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