New Sony PVR/DVR and DVD Recorder

i4u writes "Sony announces in Japan a new digital recorder NDR-XR1 equipped with the 80GB hard drive and a DVD recorder. The unit features a broadband connection to retrieve a programming guide. The system can record up to 90 hours of programming on the 80GB Hard drive. Recorded shows can be directly burned on DVDs with the built-in DVD writer. This is the dream machine! Wonder if it will be available on the US market, This baby is poised to 'piss-off' Hollywood. This would be a nice alternative to the ReplayTV box. The Digital Recorder NDR-XR1 will go on sale April 12th in Japan."

Comments

Split Personality

[Lothar 0]

This baby is poised to 'piss-off' Hollywood.

Or the Sony studio execs down the hall.

Yes, this may actually be "it".

[mbourgon]

This is a noticeable improvement on the 2nd generation of DVD-recorders, along with the Toshiba RD-X3. First generation was a DVD-Recorder. Pure and simple. They're still coming out, should be under $500 this summer. The second generation, which is still coming out, includes a Hard Drive, which IMHO is necessary. While the DVD-RAM can let you edit and the like, it's far from a DVD-R.

I'm using the Panasonic DMR-HS2, which has a 40 gig drive. Very nice, but programming it's a pain - either manually program it or use VCRPlus+ codes. A TiVo-like program guide would be the cat's meow. The catch is that for $1000+, should it come with a "lifetime subscription" ala ReplayTV, or are you going to have to pay each month? This is not a trivial issue - the boards dedicated to these DVD-Recorders mention it frequently.

Three other things:
1) Cable Blaster - if you have a cable box, you have to program your box to change channels, and the DVD-Recorder to record. A Cable Blaster/Cable Mouse (i.e. something to change channels) really is a necessity.
2) CPRM is supported on these things. The television transmission can have a "No Copy" bit set, and these DVD-Recorders will obey. So, for now, MythTV may still be superior.
3) How long before DVD-R drives become cheap enough for them to be included in some kind of Tivo? A big reason for owning these is to make it _easy_ to burn to DVD. Yes, you can use stuff like DVArchive to download to your computer. Then you transcode. Then burn to DVD. This is all one step, and the reason I have one - it's simple. Granted, I'd rather make SVCDs of some of them, rather than a DVD, but I'll cope.

Cost, media, Tivo

[swb]

I can't read Japanese, but their appears to be an MSRP of 145,000 yen on the Sony page. That's ~$1200 at current exchange rates, and far more expensive the similar Panasonic unit which has an MSRP of $999, and generally goes for about $700 on EBay. Shouldn't these kinds of devices be going *down* in price, not up? I realize the Sony unit has some networking features for guide data and so forth, but I can't see those adding $300 worth of value, unless its a total Tivo replacement.

It's also not clear what writable format they're using -- + or - or all of them. I'm mildly biased in favor of the - format because it seems to be the most compatible where I've tried it.

As far as a Tivo replacement, I'm not sure I see that. Tivo is pretty far down the pike in terms of scheduling, selection, conflict avoidance and user interface. I don't think this Sony unit is meant to be that, but instead as a VCR on steriods.

I'm personally waiting for the DVD writer decks to drop in the $300-400 range. I have a Tivo, so I don't need an extra source of guide data. The internal HDD is nice for basic editing (from what I understand of the Panasonic DMR-HS2 unit that has one), but its a big added cost as well. I could live with just the writer. I'd hope they'd drop to sub-$500 this year, perhaps closer to Christmas, but maybe the economy/war/malaise will make us wait even longer.

I'm not surprised - American TV is rubbish

[Mr_Silver]

Okay, I'll admit the title is rather trollish, but I have a point.

I went on holiday for 10 days - in the, granted, limited time I saw telly I couldn't get over the fact that (compared to the UK) advertising is literally rammed down your throat.

Almost everything is sponsored by someone, you have advert breaks with unnerving frequency (often just cutting out in the middle of the tension without any thought to picking a bit where it would make sense) and you even have adverts just after the starting credits and just before the ending credits (I mean, whats the point of sticking some adverts up - only to come back to the credits, and then more adverts??).

Finally, I was watching some ice hockey and even the player stats screen was littered with 3 adverts! Amazing.

So, in short, I'm not really surprised that Tivo took off over there and badly here. Yes, we have adverts - but they're appproximately once every 15 minutes, cut out at appropriate sections of the programme or film and aren't put so close to the beginning or end of items that it annoys the viewers.

BUT, and it's a big but - Sony are very pro-DRM. Their Net-MD line would be great if it wasn't so crippled and last month I went to buy a CD/MP3 player only to find that whilst their top of the range product was very very cool, you couldn't fast forward or rewind through MP3's. I fail to believe that this is due to technical problems - more the fact that they want it to be so slightly inconveniant that you give up using MP3's.