The Big Surprise

Category: Review on Panasonic DMR-XW450 DVD Recorder

Posted by: 2-Jul

Strengths: You Tube and Picasa viewing, good recording time

Weaknesses: Price tag, complex remote, no wireless connectivity

The first thing you will notice about the Panasonic DMR-XW450 is that it has a simple, flat box design with a drop-down panel in the front with AV and USB/FireWire inputs. In the front panel, the power on/off and eject buttons are rather inexpertly placed. With the H.264 format recording, it provides a mind-boggling recording time between 110 and 885 hours on its 500 GB hard drive. It is also compatible with disc format such as a CD-R, a CD-RW for playback and all the formats of single layer DVDs. The remote control is very complex and hides too many of the recorder’s functions.

In this Panasonic DMR-XW450 DVD recorder, you cannot transfer the recorded movies from the hard drive to a SD card or USB. You can enjoy YouTube videos and Google Picasa web albums through an Ethernet port, but you need to bear with the slow access. Also it does not support wireless internet connectivity which is not at all handy.

The Panasonic DMR-XW450 DVD recorder is expensive, but you can’t ignore the fact that it has some brilliant features. New users may initially find it really hard to cope with all the confusing features of the Panasonic DMR-XW450. On the whole, it is a smashing model from Panasonic!