Panasonic details high-def recorder range

DMR-BS850, DMR-BS750 and DMR-XS350

25 February 2009 18:50 GMT / By Chris Hall

Panasonic has indulged us with a little more information on their incoming high-definition Freesat recorders that are due to land in the UK in June 2009.

The first of these models, that we brought you news of yesterday, the DMR-BS850, will feature a 500GB hard disc drive, as well as giving you the Blu-ray disc writer and twin Freesat tuners.

You will also be able to archive your AVCHD files from your camcorder, thanks to an SD card slot, USB and DV connections, meaning you’ll no longer have to dump them on a hard drive.

The player will also be a fully-featured Blu-ray player, so will support BD-Live and BonusView, as well as Panasonic’s new Viera Cast technology, meaning you can access selected online content.

You'll also get smart compression options, so your high-def content can be compressed, meaning you'll get much more onto your recordable media, albeit with loss in quality.

A smaller brother of the DMR-BS850 will be the DMR-BS750, which has the same spec, but with a 250GB hard drive.

If you don’t fancy making the jump to Blu-ray, you could opt for the DMR-XS350, which will allow you to record HD programming to the 250GB hard drive, but only includes a DVD writer.

Prices are yet to be finalised, with rumours putting the BS850 at £1000, but talking to Panasonic representatives it is clear that the current exchange rates are making things overly expensive, and pricing is still to be confirmed.

We'll bring you more when they launch, which should be in June.