CEATEC Conference Showcases Gadgets in Japan - DVD recorders, but not for us
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The battle between HD-DVD and Blu-ray continued on the conference floor. Toshiba, Sony, and Panasonic, just to name a few, had next-generation DVD players and recorders on display using one technology or the other. Before you get your hopes up, though, consider this: no Japanese electronics maker plans to sell high-definition recorders in the United States.
No, I’m not making this up. I know, it seems amazing, but they actually have pretty valid reasons when you think about it. “In Japan, 80 to 90 percent of the demand for DVD players is for player-recorders,” observed Keisuke Ohmori, group manager of the international media relations group at Toshiba. “In the U.S.A., you record on TiVo.” It’s hard to argue with that.
It’s also hard to argue with the fact that the player-recorders will be priced high even for gadget mavens. Panasonic showed off its BW 200 and BW 100 Blu-ray recorders, which would set you back $2,500 and $2,200 respectively if you could buy them over here (not including the cost of importing them). Sony’s comparable product sells in the same range.
Toshiba’s player-recorder beats both of them out at a whopping 398,000 yen ($3,375). But you get what you pay for, and in this case, that money pays for a one terabyte hard drive. The more expensive of Panasonic’s two units features a hard drive only half as large. Considering how much video space high-definition TV takes up, size really does matter. How much of a space hog is it? Well, I’m sure you’ve heard about the dual-layer Blu-ray discs, capable of holding 50 GB. That translates to only six hours of high-definition video. Well, I suppose I have to admit that’s progress. I could only fit about two hours of normal resolution video on a VCR tape (though if I was willing to sacrifice some quality, I could fit eight hours in super-extended play mode).
Not all of the news in this department was bad, though. Hitachi, for example, is looking at coming out with a player that would be compatible with both Blu-ray and HD-DVD discs. That is a few years away, however. “We are concentrating on Blu-ray. After it becomes established, we will study an HD-DVD/Blu-ray player,” explained Hiroto Yamauchi, general manager of storage products marketing at Hitachi.
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