Recording from Panasonic smart TV

Very much so. Our, not yet 10 years old, Panasonic plasma TV, is on the verge of having to be scrapped. Simply because Panasonic haven't bothered with any updates to the firmware and a lot of the "smart" things that used to work now don't or have been withdrawn from the portal.

It's only the "smart" stuff that has "broken" it. That includes the EPG not having more than about the next 24hrs in it, if you're lucky. And it not being able to cope with the change of coding for half a dozen or so BBC HD channels.

The former is a apparently a very common main board issue, replacement main boards are hard to come by and may also fail in the same way. The BBC HD issue is also thought to be hardware (how badly a given set is affected depends on set to LNB cable length and/or signal strength) but are Panasonic doing anything about it, either as a firmware tweak or recomened hardware alterations? No, they just say it's borked...

The actual picture quality of DSAT, Blu-ray, etc is still excellent and from that point of view there is no reason to scrap it. The work around has been to buy a Humax PVR to replace the Panasonic Blu-ray/PVR that also has the BBC HD issue but otherwise is also perfectly functional.

I suspect this may be because at least one of the following is true:

The memory capacity of the stick was less than 160GB[*]. They didn't allow the TV to format it in dedicated Panasonic TV mode.

(possibly both)

I can see no mention of this restriction in the user manual but it is displayed on their website in very small print here:

I reckon if you gave it a 256GB memory stick it would be OK. (mine is older and takes an sD).

It is smart in the sense that it connects to the internet. I have gone off Panasonic a lot since they started badging inferior products. This shows up if you take an old Panasonic controller round a TV shop.

I'm confused here. I got BT TV along with fibre to the cabinet not long after it started, and the BT (Humax) PVR has Scart and HDMI.

If it doesn't, ask BT for a new one.

Have you tried it? I wanted one for my Toppy which is scart only, but still works. None of the three different ones I tried and sent back worked with that. No matter what the scart output was set to - RGB, S-Video or Composite. And the converter said it would work with any.

Has it got FreeView playback? That is perhaps the easiest way to watch a prog you've missed - if it applies to the channel.

I looked into that a little while ago, and IIRC a proper conversion SCART to HDMI needed an active box, and a simple cable wasn't sufficient, despite claims to the contrary and resulting complaints from the purchasers.

It was the TV that didn't have a SCART socket, and the Indian food gentleman didn't have the where-with-all to connect it via either composite or HDMI. I said in my first post that I connected it via Composite, but I may actually have used the HDMI, I don't remember. I shall pop in to them today or tomorrow and give them the bad news about recording, and suggest they go back to using the BT Youview box and re-learn how to use it. After all, they were able to use it before with the previous telly.

I've found the instructions for enabling the BT box remote to turn the TV on and off, which should reduce the number of remotes to one (assuming it works OK, as Pannys have this Viera system which seems to be a bastardised CEC thing and may not work with the BT remote). But whether they'll master the fact that they've then got to change the remote from controlling the BT box to controlling the TV and then back again, only time will tell. She might, but I doubt that he will...

At the risk of hijacking the thread, what else can you do with the Firestick? I confess not to be that familiar with all the various 'gadgets' around these days to stream TV etc - I have a Synology NAS with media server and some Android players (plus a similar system in the Motorhome) which allow me to view some things.

Well it'll have to be active to do the analog (SCART) to HDMI (digital) conversion. Then the converter needs to be able to tell the telly which modes it supports so the two can agree on the "best" one to use.

Power on/off via CEC should be one of the common things of each makers own "brand" of CEC that "just works".

Shouldn't have to switch the mode of the remote. With everything in standby, power up the BT box and the TV should switch on, if it doesn't try pressing the button to bring up the EPG or other menu on the BT box, ie force it to want to display somthing.

The gotcha is that power down might require the TV to be put into standby to then have the TV tell the BT box to power down. Powering down the BT box might not power down the TV. Let thinks think for a minute before coming to the conclusion nothing is going to happen.

We use one in a TV in a room with no access to aerials or satellite feed but does have wi-fi. You can pick up all terrestrial channels, iplayers, youtube etc fro free as well as Amazon content if you care to pay them.

Mike

All these were active running from a 5 volt supply. The Toppy works fine into the TV scart - but since it is little used wanted to move it where there is only HDMI.

A PVR is far more convenient than recording from the TV. Not only in that you can watch anything you fancy on the TV while recording. Also, the HDMI lead can allow the TV to power up with the PVR being switched on. Don't think you can do that with components - and not sure they will switch aspect ratio etc too.

My SIL, who is in charge of all things TV, uses their Humax PVR for everything. TV remote not usually needed. Although I'd not describe the Humax software as ideal.

On my Panny TV, if on a line input, and you switch off the PVR etc so a blank screen, it powers down automatically after a few minutes. And tells you it has done this when you next switch on.

Hmm...that would be nice but... went round this morning, reconnected the BT Youview box via the HDMI sockets and got that all working OK, but couldn't get the BT remote to control the TV, despite following the instructions on p.26 of the manual

So I left them still having to use two remotes, one for the TV for volume/mute/on-off, and the other for the BT box, channels, recording, playback etc.

I anticipate a phone-call later today or tomorrow :-(

I assume that when setting up the remote to control the TV, in this case using the Panasonic code 3846, an instruction set specific to Panasonic TV's is picked up within the remote, rather than anything happening to the TV itself. I ask because I did the same thing here a while ago with my Humax HDR-Fox T2 PVR, setting the remote to control the TV, the Hi-Fi (I use the that to play the TV sound) and the DVD player, and all are working OK, but there's a long list of codes for controlling a Panny, none of which are the same as the code given for the BT remote, above.

According to Panasonic's website that model requires a 160GB or larger disk attached or it won't work. I can't find that in the manual, but it is in a footnote on the UK Panasonic website for that model.

Mine takes sD but is a bit tetchy about which makes, speeds and sizes it will accept. Some larger ones it baulks at formatting or formats and then declares them not to be usable when you try to record.

The largest memory stick I had was 128GB. It didn't like it. The HDD I used, that it took ok, formatted and saved stuff to was something like

But that doesn't get around the point in the e-manual that says you can't change channels when recording: pp.200 and 126 here

One nice "unintended consequence" of the Smart TV is the easy supply of endless child TV on BBC iPlayer when the (small) grandchildren visit.

I went to Samsung when the Pany TV died at five years, I reckon they have taken over as the default go-to make.