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

Similar to other products

[ruiner13]

I saw pioneer (i think) had a similar unit. It had a 40GB hard drive though. I'm not sure what this unit does, but the one that I saw, once you burn a recording onto DVD, it deletes it off the HD. I find that kind of annoying, but I guess they had to do that to compromise with the movie companies (only allow one copy at a time, and don't allow mass burns of the same program). I hope this one does not have tha behavior.

Piss Off Hollywood?

[FortKnox]

I don't know. Think about this. PVR's piss off hollywood because you FF through commercials. But, even though you WILL FF through commercials on this also, the commercials will be permantntly burned into a DVD. What sales company doesn't like the idea of permanent commercials on a DVD?

Sony is a Tivo licensee

[shadowj]

So is this thing based on Tivo technology, or is it something else entirely? And if it's something else, what does that say about Sony's relationship with Tivo and Tivo's future?

I own two Tivo boxes, and wouldn't give them up for anything. Unless I see something better, of course...

Re:Reading about them is such a tease

[cxreg]

You can do pretty well with a linux box and myth tv, although its not quite as feature-complete as tivo. A nice solution though :)