Panasonic Announces New 2TB Blu-ray DVR and More

[Attebery]

http://www.akihabaranews.com/en/news...u-Ray+DVR.html

[Tommy]

I look forward to blu-ray recorders if only to be able to record some sports games to disc in there high def resolution.

[tmsmith]

What is VHS?

[jmayer33]

This is good news. DVD Recorders never really took off in the US, partly due to TiVo and the cable DVR. I myself have never been able to justify the ongoing expense of subscription fees, and so have held onto my DVD recorder. I've been waiting patiently now for a "free" HD solution, and with these new recorders, hopefully we've found one.

[iontyre]

True, I can't believe they never released the Super Bowl between my Giants and the Patriots in hidef! All I have is a 4:3 SD DVD set that is nice, but should have been available in hidef!

[skywalkr2]

VHS, seriously?

[singhcr]

That looks like a good solution!

I don't like "renting" my DVR either. For me the slipstream feature is nice but not worth paying that much for, I use a PC DVR to record my OVA HD programming. If this thing can record HD content from a cable/satellite feed (not sure about this, isn't it encrypted?) I would buy it when the price came down a bit as I'm sure this will run about $1k initially.

[damonous]

Is this really for the US market? -- Or just for Japan? ...Certainly, here in the US, there are going to be problems with effectively using all of that space. Just recently, not a month or so after the Digital Transition, my local TWC sent me a letter that for CableCard users like myself (I have a nice Sony HD-DVR unit, not the cable-co crap) they will soon be converting pretty much everything HD but the major networks into SDV: Switched Digital Video (bye bye Universal HD, MGM HD, TNT HD etc). ....Meaning that a "special box" will be required to feed all the new cable HD signals (but only if I have a Tivo-brand DVR, and only if I pay more money after a year of 'freebie' rental).

So, if TWC is moving to SDV, and they've only worked-out a device for Tivo-brand CableCard devices ....these new Panasonic's are going to be expensive, roomy "1-channel" devices (at best, if they can somehow take an HDMI 'in' from a cable-converter of some sort) or completely unable to get full-HD feeds other than major networks into the devices (at worst). --Which would seem to drastically limit their market.