Terabyte DVD Recorder Available Next Month

It doesn't come easy writes "Japan's Hitachi Ltd. on Wednesday unveiled the world's first hard disk drive/DVD recorder that can store one terabyte of data, or enough to record about 128 hours of high-definition digital broadcasting."

Comments

"1 TB

[VeganBob]

...should be enough for anyone." - Robert M. Baldwin

Re:"1 TB

[Crixus]

It definitely should be enough for anyone.

I use my 6 hour VHS recorder to record the one or two shows per week that I bother to watch (when I have the time) and that's plenty.

If it isn't enough space (or time) for the user, then I suspect it's because the user is lazy and spoiled.

Re:"1 TB

[Council]

"1 TB
...should be enough for anyone." - Robert M. Baldwin

Just for the sake of someone finally saying this and being right:

10^10^10 bytes should be enough for anyone.

Anyone care to argue?

Re:"1 TB

[jekk]

How are you grouping that?

(10^10)^10

or

10^(10^10)

?

Re:"1 TB

[maxwell demon]

Just tried ...

#include <iostream>
#include <ostream>
 
int main()
{
  std::cout << (10^10^10) << " bytes should be enough for anyone.\n";
}

Sorry, 10 bytes are not enough for me!

SCNR

Re:"1 TB

[Anonymous Coward]

The first. You always do the operations in order from left to right.

Though, the second would be pretty hefty too.

Re:"1 TB

[PingPongBoy]

"bother to watch"

Isn't entertainment so troublesome? I mean, we could have such fulfilling lives if civilization wasn't being constantly rammed down our throats.

Re:"1 TB

[1u3hr]

Isn't entertainment so troublesome? I mean, we could have such fulfilling lives if civilization wasn't being constantly rammed down our throats.

Civilisation? I thought we were talking about television.

Re:"1 TB

[evanism]

dont know about you but I only need 640 k.

Re:"1 TB

[PingPongBoy]

Let me introduce y'all to a newfangled style of mathematics called ultrafinitism where infinity is just not cool. The first Skewes' number is e^(e^(e^79)). It kind of gives you an idea of how much storage you need to process certain quantities of things.

Re:"1 TB

[karnal]

I built a Sagetv box recently, and let me tell you - even if you only "tape" a few shows a week, a PVR is a godsend.

I can pause live tv now. I can look for shows by name, not just by index markers (that incidentally take 30 seconds or so to cue on tape - if you're lucky...) I can record more than one show at a time, since I have 2 tuners (family guy and criminal intent are on at the same time).

I stuck with a VCR for quite some time, but now, I can watch what I want, when I want. I can even burn the shows to DVD, or play them in another room on another PC. It does indeed change how you watch TV, even if you don't watch it more than once a week.

Re:"1 TB

[mwilli]

VHS?? What is this mysterious device you speak of. I just use my trusty DVD recorder and an RW disc.

Re:"1 TB

[cloudmaster]

So, that time machine you built in the 80's worked, and dropped you off in modern 2005? Computers are faster now, and cars get better mileage. Also, many people have Internet access, and PVRs are commonplace. :)

Yes, I love my PVR too.

Re:"1 TB

[stretch0611]

10^10^10 bytes should be enough for anyone.
Anyone care to argue?

You obviously don't know about the size of my p0rn collection.

If I get 2, I should have enough for backing up my entire p0rn collection and the 0.5MB of important documents I have.

Re:"1 TB

[Amouth]

i love

"One terabyte is equal to 1 trillion bytes of data. One gigabyte equals 1 billion bytes."

i am so glad they cleared that up - someone might have been confused

Re:"1 TB

[timeOday]

So, that time machine you built in the 80's worked, and dropped you off in modern 2005? Computers are faster now, and cars get better mileage.

Surprisingly, average passenger vehicle fuel efficiency has actually dropped below what was average in the 1980s.

Re:"1 TB

[vspazv]

I'm already at 1.2TB in my computer...

Maybe 1 PB?

Re:"1 TB

[cloudmaster]

I said cars, not "passenger vehicles". Trucks are not cars, and it's the increase in people using trucks (yes, SUVs are trucks, but I'd let minivans slide as cars) in place of cars which has led to the decrease in overall mileage. Both trucks and cars do better now than back then, but there's a higher percentage of trucks on the road now, pulling the overall average down despite their improvements within their class.

There's a rant somewhere about the staggering number of people who think that they need a truck, failing totally to realize that 4wd does no good in the hands of an inexperienced driver on ice when all four tires are slipping anyway. I'll try to contain thet rant, though, in the hopes that those idiots will be around next time I move, and that I can convince them to use their truck as intended at least once... :)

Re:"1 TB

[MasterOfMagic]

1 Terabyte? Now that's just crazy talk!

Re:"1 TB

[dgatwood]

My data collection at home (lots of audio, video, but lots of other stuff, too) currently occupies over 2 TB. I have... maybe 3 TB of storage lying around in total. The concept of 1TB being enough for anybody is about as silly as using gmail for your hard drive....

Re:"1 TB

[Council]

10^(10^10), sorry.

Re:"1 TB

[burndive]

Actually, this is exaclty the case.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terabyte states that Terabyte may in practice refer to either 10^12 or 2^40 bytes

See also this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_prefix

Because of the dual meanings, a second class of byte measurement names was devised for the base-2 system, which uses the iB suffix, so "terabyte" technically means TB, but many people say that and mean TiB.

Re:"1 TB

[shobadobs]

No, it's the second.

No sane mathematician actually writes chained exponents when meaning the first way,((a^b)^c), because when actually writing superscripts, you either end up with a doubly-superscripted number or it looks like (a^(bc)). And ((a^b)^c) is actually equal to (a^(bc)), which is the convenient way of writing it. (To convince yourself of this, when have you ever seen written (e^(-1/2)^x^x) with progressive superscripts? Or (((e^(-1/2))^x)^x)? That famous expression is always written as (e^(-1/2*x^2)).

Thus, whenever a^b^c^...^n is seen in the wild, it gets interpreted as (a^(b^(c^(...^n)))). For it would only be used when that is the desired meaning.

Re:"1 TB

[shobadobs]

Of course, whenever dealing with vague notation or semi-vague notation such as this, it will be explicitly clarified how the notation should be interpreted. You'll sometimes see it explicitly pointed out that z^z^z^z^z means z^(z^(z^(z^z))). But nobody ever explicitly mentions that z^z^z^z^z is used to mean ((((z^z)^z)^z)^z), because, well, they'd just write z^(z^4).

Re:"1 TB

[chrome]

I had a good chuckle when a friend spotted these:

http://www.stopurban4x4s.org.uk/shop.htm#parking

Re:"1 TB

[jekk]

I thought as much (despite the fact that the other is the more standard interpretation). In that case I suspect you're probably right. There are probably fewer than 10^100 bits available in the universe [http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0530.html%5 D, so we'd *better* be able to do with less than your number.

Re:"1 TB

[some guy I know]

e^(e^(e^79))

Hah!
You call that a number?
Pass that baby through the Ackermann function.
Now that's a number!

Re:"1 TB

[TeleoMan]

Speaking of moving: RWD vehicles do *much* better in snow and ice than FWD vehicles...right? Like the time I got stuck in a *minor* snowfall whilst moving into the ISU dorms in my father's S10...surprisingly I had no trouble the previous years w/a FWD Nissan Sentra.

End rant....game, set and match.

And it costs...

[VFVTHUNTER]

...230,000 yen, ~= $2100. For $2100, I can build my own damn recorder.

Re:And it costs...

[NickCatal]

I got one for about $15 bucks back in Elementary School. Probably have it somewhere around the house.

Re:And it costs...

[axialtilt]

1 million dollars....mwhahaha

Re:And it costs...

[welshwaterloo]

For $2100, I can build my own damn recorder.

*sigh* Yes. We know. We know that for that price, many ./'s could roll their own, but we don't have to hear that every darn time. Because every darn time that means some sucker like me has to point out that they're not marketing the product to you. They're marketing to money-rich, time-poor folks who don't want to build their own, they want to splash down the cash for something that just *works*.

It's like saying: £1.20 for eggs! For that money I could raise my own chickens & save a few ££s.. £5 for cigarettes! For that money I can grow my own tobacco!
I really could go on all day here..

Re:And it costs...

[VFVTHUNTER]

And your point is?

Rolling (er...growing) your own eggs and tobacco requires quite a bit of time, plus you have to feed the chicken (or maintain the tobacco), so you don't get a lot of return on investment. With a budget of $2100, 30 minutes on zipzoomfly, and 3 hours for assembly once fedex shows up, one can build a box with infinitely more capabilites than what they're offering here, and without any DRM.

Further, what are you going to do when your black box that "just works" "just breaks?" Buy another one at $2100? I'll just replace the broken component and be on my way.

Beginning to see my point now? And if you don't like reading what us "/.'s" have to say, why waste time posting?

Re:And it costs...

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget that it's X USD (or yen or whatever) in parts, then you have to put it all together... which will take quite a lot of time if you haven't done it before... and if you've done it before it'll still take a lot of time since you're experimenting with casings etc... then add you spending time experimenting with the software... adjusting... upgrading... finding bugs... killing bugs... reinstalling the software...

Even at 5-10 USD an hour you might get up way beyond what it costs to buy a working product.

Re:And it costs...

[smithcl8]

It's not what "us /.'s" have to say, it's what of of you have to say.

$2100 is a freakin' drop in the bucket for any company in the world. In a few years, it will be cheap enough for everyone to buy at Circuit City, but until then, companies can shed these nickels for something this big.

/.'s like you live in a world of pathetically cheap computer geeks....the rest of us live in the real world.

Re:And it costs...

[Mister Impressive]

And these people with little time are somehow going to get the time to watch a terabyte of video? While you're certainly right in Toshiba aiming at the rich, aiming at the demographic with little time probably isn't something Toshiba is doing with this particular product...

Re:And it costs...

[VFVTHUNTER]

In a few years, it will be cheap enough for everyone to buy at Circuit City, but until then, companies can shed these nickels for something this big.

The device in question is being marketed to consumers. So this $2100 behemoth is already being sold to consumers, most likely at the Japanese version of Circuit City. Contrast that to the couple of hundred people spend on Tivo's.

You know, some people like to read the articles before posting about them.

But then again, you are wiser than me. You apparently get your employer to pay for your home electronics equipment, and even more impressive, you can divine my social and financial status from reading a few sentences that I have written.

Re:And it costs...

[clickety6]

It's like saying: £1.20 for eggs! For that money I could raise my own chickens & save a few ££s.. £5 for cigarettes! For that money I can grow my own tobacco!

yeah, it's like telling a hooker - "$100 for sex for that money I could... errr... errr... OK, here's the 100 bucks"

Re:And it costs...

[welshwaterloo]

erm.. With respect, you're reiterating your point. If you'd like an argument I'd happily oblige, but let me merely reiterate what I was trying to say:

We know. We know many of us can build it cheaper, better, faster ourselves. It's therefore redundant to tell us all.

Re:And it costs...

[lcsjk]

For $2100, I can build my own damn recorder.

Build your own

It don't work.

You say "Damn Recorder!"

Re:And it costs...

[RMH101]

So 3 1/2 hours later, you'll have a 1TB device that your mother could use? I doubt it somehow.

Re:And it costs...

[kabocox]

*sigh* Yes. We know. We know that for that price, many ./'s could roll their own, but we don't have to hear that every darn time. Because every darn time that means some sucker like me has to point out that they're not marketing the product to you. They're marketing to money-rich, time-poor folks who don't want to build their own, they want to splash down the cash for something that just *works*.

Reminds me of my car problems. I had a hose, and some other things that needed to be replaced. I have a brother-in-law that usually does that. He says the price of each of the pieces is $15-$25. Then usually something like 50-60 in labor. He would save that 50-60 in labor. For me, I'd much rather pay the money to some one else to fix it.

Here is an interesting question how many /.ers build and maintain their own cars and homes from scratch? What about installing/repairing stoves, dish washers, washing machines, dryers, refrigators, and A/C? I know the basics of lots of stuff, but I'd much rather pay a slight premium for someone else to do most household and car repairs.

Re:And it costs...

[VFVTHUNTER]

Hardly conclusive, since my mother can't use the standard DVD player I got her for Christmas a few years ago:

Her: "Can you come by tonight?"

Me: "Sure. Why?"

Her: "I got the Ladder 49 DVD last week, and I want you to play it for me"

Me: "sigh"


So I think a TIVO is really out of the question for her. If you want further proof, consider that while I was there, I showed her that when she's sending email in OE, and she wants to start a new line after she types Dear Name, all she has to do is hit enter.

It's a sad, silly story, but you *did* ask.

Re:And it costs...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really - if an egg cost 5p, and all you had to do is put it in a carton, then you have a computer analogy.

No one is suggesting that they are going into their toolshed and creating a 1tb drive out of spare parts from the lawn mower - they are saying the major components of a 1tb drive are cheap and readily available, and only need to be assembled - not manufactured - there is a difference.

but, as you said, ./ is a crowd of people who build their own systems - but noone here has a chip fab in their basement, do they?

Re:And it costs...

[VFVTHUNTER]

Ya know, I was just gonna not respond back to you because I see what you're saying...but my comment is already at -1, it's a slow work day, and in addition to the fact that I just don't care, I'm really disapponited at the level of stupidity here on /. lately, so here goes:

You responded to my post to call me out on the fact that I was reiterating what I was saying. You followed that by first telling me that you were going to reiterate, and then reiterating, your point. WTF?

Re:And it costs...

[Anonymous Coward]

> yeah, it's like telling a hooker

T-Shirt wisdom 101:
"most of my money I spent on booze and women, the rest I just wasted."

Re:And it costs...

[thc69]

Here is an interesting question how many /.ers build and maintain their own cars and homes from scratch? What about installing/repairing stoves, dish washers, washing machines, dryers, refrigators, and A/C? I know the basics of lots of stuff, but I'd much rather pay a slight premium for someone else to do most household and car repairs.

My family is in the construction business, but with my marriage coming up shortly, and the price/lack of availability of land, I chose to buy a home and get instant gratification. I will build my own garage, from scratch, although I will call a concrete company for the slab. If equipment rental is cheaper than a professional excavator, or if it's not much more, I'd enjoy doing the digging myself.

I'm neither equipped for nor capable of building my own car. I do much of my own maintenance, though.

Appliances, I repair when I can, and if I fail, I call somebody to do it. Now that I'm paying for the house, I haven't got the money to pay somebody to do stuff.

I am going to build a trailer for my little boat, just to get down my little road a short way, out of a salvaged metal-pipe childrens' swing set and some bicycle parts. It won't be highway worthy, but I'll make the effort to get the boat into my truckbed if I have to go far.

I've also salvaged a 26" snowthrower lawn-tractor-attachment, for which I will fabricate a way to mount and power it on my tractor (which I maintain and repair myself).

Your way works for you, and my way works for me -- neither could be described as "better" or "worse" unless you speak of an individual, or maybe even a whole demographic group.

As for a recorder, I don't record much -- and when I do, my old VCR does the job just fine. I just can't imagine what any healthy person would do with a whole terabyte of tv...but I guess some people really enjoy that much of what's on.

Re:And it costs...

[drsquare]

Have you ever thought that some people don't know anything about putting together DVD recorders or computers?

And THREE HOURS assembly? For a technical person who really knows what they're doing? If it takes you that long, how long would it take for someone who's never put anything like that together before?
And would it work?

You haven't thought this through at all.

Re:And it costs...

[Anonymous Coward]

"*sigh* Yes. We know. We know that for that price, many ./'s could roll their own, but we don't have to hear that every darn time."

No, but let's be sure to yell "DUPE!" everytime there's a story remotely similar to something somebody read two minutes earlier on a different news-site.

Re:And it costs...

[a1ok]

Especially since Toshiba isn't doing *anything* with this particular product ... except maybe coming up with a competing product (as this one is by Hitachi).

I do think that people who can afford this might buy it and record lots of shows, which they end up never watching due to lack of time. Just because people buy expensive toys doesn't mean they always use them :)

Re:And it costs...

[Anonymous Coward]

I know rich people with busy lives who would pay a couple grand for a cool useful fun piece of technology without much thought to whether they'd actually have time to thouroughly use it. Some things are status symbols to them, and they would convince themselves they would use it. Or they would use -- just because they are busy, doesn't mean they don't have any free time -- but it's free time they'd rather spend in front of the TV (usually a bigscreen or a projector) rather than using it to build their own devices, assuming they even knew how.
Basically, the same (upper middle class or beyond) people who buy $2000 big screen TVS or $2000 video projectors for their own home theaters and/or tons of cash on stereo equipment, tops-of-the-line-laptops, or the like would plop down the money for this recorder.

Re:And it costs...

[shokk]

Who gives a $#!+ about HD watching video?!? I need this for my backups right now! Well, to backup all my low quality pR0n videos. Now *there* are hours and hours of run.

Re:And it costs...

[shokk]

errr....fun

Re:And it costs...

[VFVTHUNTER]

Do me a favor: look in the upper right hand corner of this page.

See that? "News for Nerds." That pretty much rules out "people don't know anything about putting together DVD recorders or computers"

That's the entire point here. With the exception of fantastically rich people who want to piss their money away, people who actually need a 1TB recorder will most likely possess the skill set to build one of their own.

Only more cheaply. So I really don't see a lot of these being sold (which was the point of my original post).

Re:And it costs...

[ccharles]

£5 for cigarettes! For that money I can grow my own tobacco!

Or you could just buy a bottle of toilet bowl cleaner or something and drink it.

Bad Karma, here I come!

Re:And it costs...

[wasted time]

I'm sorry, but could you repeat that last part, for clairity?

Re:And it costs...

[wasted time]

um, would that be your right or mine?

Re:And it costs...

[PingPongBoy]

$2100 is just not even close to the total cost of ownership. Disks will not come cheap. If you don't want these expensive platters to become frisbees you need to buy a big UPS to keep your system running all the way through.

Now, if multiple sessions are not supported well, you have to accumulate large amounts of data before writing one disk. This means lots of hard disk space and lots of time assembling data as well as a pretty good scheme to structure the data so that it can be searched because there will be so much.

Once you burn a disk, you have to dedicate a computer to that task for quite some time. Afterwards, just to be sure, you have to verify the recording for errors.

Then you have to hope that your disks are forwards compatible with future drives because as far as I've heard no standard has been established for such a disk.

Re:And it costs...

[VFVTHUNTER]

Nice, in-depth analysis. Oh, by the way, you're retarded.

It's a 1TB HDD system with a *regular* DVD burner (whether it's DVD9 or single layer remains to be seen). DL or not, it should burn DVD5, with disks at a cost of approximately $0.33 USD.

The fact that 1TB does not translate to a convenient number of disks is precisely one of the many reasons why building your own box is a better solution - you can get a proggie like DVD shrink to compress the media for you.

Blu-ray would be better: 50GB per disk, 20 discs to fully replicate the HDD's. I hear Toshi or Sony^H^H^H^H Satan is working on a 100GB BD Disc, which would make it 10 discs. But given that DL discs are still around $6 while DVD5 are 1/20th that, it might actually be a while before BD discs are affordable. And oh, they'll actually have to start selling BD systems regularly, too.

Re:And it costs...

[AK Marc]

See that? "News for Nerds." That pretty much rules out "people don't know anything about putting together DVD recorders or computers"

But it doesn't say "news for petty insecure nerds." This is a cool toy. It is being mass marketed. That is news for nerds. Whether you can or can not build your own for less is irrelevant to the fact that someone is finally marketing it. If you can build your own for less than half the price and just as usable, then you are a complete moron. You should be out there building them and selling them, and you'd be a millionaire soon. Instead, you are either too lazy or too incompetent to be able to make a business out of it, so you just boast about how easy it would be for you to do it, not that you ever have or will do it.

Re:And it costs...

[kabocox]

I just can't imagine what any healthy person would do with a whole terabyte of tv...but I guess some people really enjoy that much of what's on.

Well, all that plays on my TV is DVDs and video games. It would be neat to order several seasons of shows that I've never seen preloaded on a Terabyte HD. Who am I kidding? They'd want to charge you $30-$50 dollars per season per show for that price cable/sat. is cheaper. It would take a long time for me to catch up though. I don't think it would be worth it.

Re:And it costs...

[IdleTime]

*sigh*

I don't care about building my own PVR, it's not in my gate of interest. A prebuilt device like this is very much of interest to me and I have no problems shelling out $2100 for such a gadget to go with my $8000 HD plasma TV and my $1500 Home theater system.

Some of us are more interested in making money than to fiddle around with an old PC and some crappy software that may or may not work after you have spendt 200+ hours debugging shitty OSS code. No thanks! $2100 is more than worth it to me.

Re:And it costs...

[VFVTHUNTER]

Of course you are absolutely right. For as we all know, it is totally unacceptable to observe that something is not particularly valuable unless you make a competing, more valuable product. And you have to make a million dollars, too. In fact, unless you've made a million dollars, you shouldn't even be allowed to post about it.

Thank you, Captain Random Requirement, for reminding me of my obligation.

Re:And it costs...

[FoodSlayer]

you never know... this is slashdot after all

Re:And it costs...

[AK Marc]

Thank you, Captain Random Requirement, for reminding me of my obligation.

And thank you, Mr. Armchair Quarterback, for telling us all how you would do it better and cheaper than a successful business, but yet you can't manage to save enough to move out of your mother's basement.

Re:And it costs...

[badboy_tw2002]

There are millions of Tivo users out there. They know how to use a TIVO, they depend on it, they love it. Now they want to move to HD. NOW. These people are early adopters (they probably have a laser disk stuffed in the back closet somewhere). They will buy it and tuck it next to that $4000 stereo. Why? Because they want an HD Tivo with over 100 hours of storage. That's value to them, and if they're not so blessed with time or knowledge to roll their own, I'd say its a lot of value.

Re:And it costs...

[f0rt0r]

That makes no sense. You automatically assume the only motivation to do anything is money. I disagree, strongly. Just take a project such as MythTV, mplayer, etc which can take video feeds and store them to hard drive, and I am barely scatching the surface. The 1TB part of the device is nothing new either, just use the same method you used for a smaller amount of storage and store it on a larger storage device/array.

As far as marketing something and making it popular, sure, that is only a step above building the device in your
basement if you goal was to make it readily available in a pre-packaged format. If that wasn't your goal, then it isn't.

So, in the end, the 'story' of this device is not any new technology, but rather the popularization of something that was already possible ( and cheaply so ), but not widely known.

Re:And it costs...

[Ravenrage]

true but i'm sure you have some geek friend that you could pay set it up...dude you could spead the wealth and make some poor geek happy and then they would bitch on slashdot about this kinda crap..... sig IdleTime (561841)"If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!"deal but you meet mine first /sig

Now...

[Musteval]

We just need to get some high-definition digital broadcasting that's worth watching.

Re:Now...

[b3x]

Obviously your local cable company doesnt have the YES network in HD

in hi-def, the mushroom cloud forming over the mound during the 5th inning last night was something to behold

Ain't exactly a "1Tbyte dvd recorder", is it?

[ducklord]

...if it writes 1TByte in the HDs, and not on the DVDs. It's a usual TIVO-style device, with 1Tbyte of HD storage and a dvd-writer. Nothing to see here... Move along...

Re:Ain't exactly a "1Tbyte dvd recorder", is it?

[mwvdlee]

Just what I was thinking.

Take an average DVD recorder, add more harddisk space and this is what you get.

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if you could do just that on many DVD recorders, since 500GB harddisks are readily available.

Re:Ain't exactly a "1Tbyte dvd recorder", is it?

[KingSkippus]

Not only does it not write 1TB to a DVD recorder, it doesn't even write it to a hard drive:

They are expected to retail from about 130,000 yen for the cheapest model to 230,000 yen for the one-terabyte recorder, which stores data on two 500 gigabyte hard disk drives.

So what are we talking about here, two hard drives plus a standard DVD recorder all integrated into one unit for a little over US$2,000!? Jesus, I think I'd rather just buy two hard drives and a DVD recorder (dual-layer, of course) for less than US$800.

Sure, I'd need a slightly bigger case, but to save an extra $1,200, I think I can live with that.

Re:Ain't exactly a "1Tbyte dvd recorder", is it?

[madprof]

Assuming that you meant to say it doesn't even write to ONE hard drive (as opposed to any hard drive at all!) well, what did you expect? It makes a lot more sense to record on two 500GB drives given they're going to be way cheaper and the performance difference will be unnoticeable.

The fact that you could build one for $1200 is moot. If you wanted this functionality you'd have built a quiet PC to do this. This unit is aimed at those who don't have the time or inclination to do such a thing, and as it is a top-end product in its class its being sold at a premium price. It works for products people want.

Re:Ain't exactly a "1Tbyte dvd recorder", is it?

[iso]

It's actually worse than that. They bill this as a way to store "HD" broadcasts. That means 720p or 1080i/p broadcats. That's great, but if you actually burn these to DVD you're stuck with the maximum DVD resolution of 480p!

Why would anybody buy this for "HD" content when they can't take the HD content off of the device without downscaling it out of HD? Now if this came with a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD burner, it would make sense. Guaranteed they'll have a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD model of this out within 6-8 months.

Re:Ain't exactly a "1Tbyte dvd recorder", is it?

[Petersson]

if you actually burn these to DVD you're stuck with the maximum DVD resolution of 480p!

or 576p in PAL, actually. However if average DVB broadcast can be 4MBps, I could store about 1700 hours of video into that beast. Is that enough? Maybe all Star Trek and Stargate episodes could fit in...

Oh happy me.

Re:Ain't exactly a "1Tbyte dvd recorder", is it?

[angle_slam]

Why would anybody buy this for "HD" content

Here's a guess--to record HD content onto their DVR. Since the box will be hooked up to their HD player, why would they want to record to media anyway?

Re:Ain't exactly a "1Tbyte dvd recorder", is it?

[Malenfant]

Here's a guess--to record HD content onto their DVR. Since the box will be hooked up to their HD player, why would they want to record to media anyway?

Because even the terabyte one will eventually run out of space. Also hard drives all eventually crash.

Re:Ain't exactly a "1Tbyte dvd recorder", is it?

[Malenfant]

Now if this came with a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD burner, it would make sense. Guaranteed they'll have a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD model of this out within 6-8 months.

An HDTV resolution mpeg-4 encoder would make something like this very appealing even without the hd-dvd recorder. It would be really nice to have both the MPEG-4 option for standard DVDs and at least one of the new high-capacity formats.

Meh

[MacroRex]

It's an ordinary DVD recorder with a largish amount of disk in it.

And here I was thinking that it can write a terabyte to a optical disk. Oh well...

Re:Meh

[Cat_Byte]

Bah I couldn't get the article to pull up and was thinking the same thing. With a headline like "Hardware: Terabyte DVD Recorder Available Next Month" you would think it was the optical disk they were talking about. 1TB isn't that uncommon. I even have half of that in my microATX case running MythTV.

Re:Meh

[sonoluminescence]

"We entered the market last year and have only been able to grab about 3 percent of the market."

Now with our over-priced 'two hard disks and a standard DVD recorder' we confidently predict that we will hold at least 2.5 percent by next year.

Re:Meh

[rbarreira]

And here I was thinking that it can write a terabyte to a optical disk. Oh well...

I know your UID is smaller than mine but... You're new here, aren't you?

Wow!

[Knossos]

Just imagine the amount of por.... Er... Integral office backups you could store...

Re:Wow!

[welshwaterloo]

Good job you stopped yourself before you let slip about your secret stash of porky the pig erotic fan fiction...

Re:Wow!

[hobbesx]

Good job you stopped yourself before you let slip about your secret stash of porky the pig erotic fan fiction...

And just think! Now, I'... er.. he'll only need seventeen disks for backup!

Re:Wow!

[failedlogic]

I don't think that was all folks!

Media

[kevin_conaway]

What is the price of media for these things?

The article pointed out that the US market seems more interested in DVRs, than DVD Recorders and I agree with that assessment. Most of the TV I record is throw-away stuff that I want to watch for a couple times and then delete.

Re:Media

[WTBF]

What is the price of media for these things?

It takes normal DVD's - and so not that much, since you can get a pack of 25 for £5 in the UK (single layer), and it is probably cheaper elsewhere.

Re:Media

[smooth wombat]

since you can get a pack of 25 for £5 in the UK (single layer)

For the record, that price equates to ~$9.01796 US*

*I put US in there to differentiate between the US and Canadian dollars. Not that anyone would be confused into thinking I meant Canadian dollars but you never know. Then again there are Australian, New Zealand, Bahamian, Bahranian, Barbados, Bermudian, Hong Kong, Singaporian and Taiwanese dollars so one has to be sure that everyone is on the same page when doing conversions. Unlike the time that NASA and its contractors used different forms of measurements and lost a satellite.

Now where were we? Oh yeah - the important thing was I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn't have white onions because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones...

dam thats a lot of space for all your pr0n

[Anonymous Coward]

128 hrs of watching your porn movies its gonna do something to ya!

Re:dam thats a lot of space for all your pr0n

[Musteval]

Arouse you? (Well, hopefully.)

Re:dam thats a lot of space for all your pr0n

[Jarnis]

128 hours of *HDTV* p0rn. A lot more in normal def :)

Re:dam thats a lot of space for all your pr0n

[Anonymous Coward]

RealNetworks was founded by ex-Microsoft executive Rob Glaser in 1993. Explains a lot, doesn't it?

And SpaceShipOne was financed by ex-Microsoft executive (and Founder) Paul Allen. Explains a lot, doesn't it?

Man, the amount of juvenile pap on Slashdot these days...

So not a new DVD format as I first thought

[upside]

...just a hifi component with a large HD/HDs and a DVD writer.

calrification

[justforaday]

The DVDs are still 4.7GB capacity. The hard disk space in the device equals 1TB (2 x 500GB).

Re:calrification

[dmacleod808]

Would they not include a dual layer drive? Do they even make single layer anymore? mmmm calrification.

Re:calrification

[justforaday]

Yeah yeah, typo in the subject line (if only I'd made the 'r' a 'c')...As for the dual layer drive, yes, it probably is. I still don't know anybody who's ever bought a piece of dual layer media though...

Re:calrification

[Anonymous Coward]

irony: spelling "clarification" as "calrification"

Re:calrification

[dmacleod808]

When i can get a 25c Dual Layer Disc, then i will burn one... Whaver they are at like 10 dollars for 3, is recockulous.

Re:calrification

[Feztaa]

Well, I'm glad we got that calrified.

RTFA...

[unsupported]

RTFA!

"...which stores data on two 500 gigabyte hard disk drives..."

It isn't a terrabyte DVD, it's a terrabyte of HDD storage.

-Un

Re:RTFA...

[b4k4_teh_1337]

All the previous posts seem to indicate that everyone has RTFA already, so I don't know why you need to tell them this.

That is of course, unless your talking to the writer of the article, then I would agree with you. This /. entry could have been written a little clearer

Re:RTFA...

[Spy der Mann]

It isn't a terrabyte DVD,

Congratulations! You just gave me the chance to invent a new acronym:

RTFD(ictionary)!

Yen to dollars

[TripMaster Monkey]

From TFA:

The recorders will go on sale in Japan from next month. They are expected to retail from about 130,000 yen (approx. 1,181 USD) for the cheapest model to 230,000 yen (approx. 2,090 USD) for the one-terabyte recorder, which stores data on two 500 gigabyte hard disk drives.

What's so special ...

[Ihlosi]

.. about being able to connect three hard drives (or maybe four) to a computer ?

Re:What's so special ...

[databyss]

What's even less special is that it's only 2 hard drives.

Re:What's so special ...

[superpulpsicle]

Since PCs only have so many IDE/SATA buses, you want to squeeze into as little number of drives as possible. Really I miss the days of SCSI and 10+ devices daisy chain.

Re:What's so special ...

[vspazv]

Some newer retail motherboards have upto 8 SATA connectors in addition to the 2 (sometimes 4) standard IDE connectors. You can also add even more connectors using expansion cards. The only real problem for desktop expansion is cooling.

Re:What's so special ...

[temojen]

4 SATA on the motherboard, 8 SATA channels per PCI card, 4 PCI cards == 36 HDD, each on it's own channel. Power connectors, PCI bus speed, and money are the bottleneck here, not SATA channels.

On the topic of the blurb, I thought they were introducing a 1TB HDD, which made me excited as it would drive down the price of large HDDs (I'm starting a photography business). As it's a TiVo like device that uses two HDDs, they're taking more HDDs out of the market, which will drive up storage prices.

/. editors should really try to determine if the blurb actually sumarizes what's in the article, not just makes something up before posting it.

Re:What's so special ...

[croddy]

In that case, your complaint is with the New York Times.

...or did you RTFA?

Misleading?

[Nik13]

It almost sounded like the drive can write 1TB to DVD-like media. Nope, it's just some Tivo-like box with two 500GB HDs and a normal burner.

Nothing to see here...

Copyright charges

[jurt1235]

Overhere there is an extra charge in a law which charges a price per MB or per hour of recording. Just in case you make a copy of something (I think that legalizes my copying, I already paid for it, didn't I??). Anyway the charge for 1TB could become interesting. The charge for a GB device would have become Euro 2.50 (Luckily it bounced, now we only pay for CDs (~Euro 0.20) and DVDs (Euro ~0.50 depending on the type of DVD). But 2.5 per GB, hum, Euro 1700 for the device, Euro 2500 for the dutch RIAA....

Re:Copyright charges

[stubear]

"I think that legalizes my copying, I already paid for it, didn't I??"

Legalizes? No. does it help you sleep better at night? Well, as long as you don't wet your bed, I guess this may help. What you paid for is the loss accrued by freeloaders of the system. people who think all digital content should be free. Thank them next time you meet one. I suggest a good swift kick in the balls, or should they not have any balls, an uppercut to the chin and kick them in the chest and/or stomach repeatedly when they are on the ground.

By the way, when you buy a CD, DVD, or other media you are purchasing the physical storage medium and paying for the cost to bring the media to market; marketing, distribution, replication, etc. What you are not paying for is the full rights to copy, distribute, make derivatives, or any of the other exclusive rights granted copyright holders.

Re:Copyright charges

[jurt1235]

I myself am not a freeloader, but I feel since there is this kind of undirected law, that I should become one. I am paying for the freeloaders. I would be much more in agreement with stichting Brein (name of RIAA in the netherlands) if this charge would not be there, and if they would just go after the freeloaders.

I use the CD/DVD burner to make backups of my own data and of some programs (Mainly opensource, but all with correct licences). The latter is pretty useless anyway since you can always download it again.

Re:Copyright charges

[CheechWizz]

The 2.50 charge per GB is only for mp3 players atm, iirc stichting brein hasnt put that charge on dvd recorders, media center pc's and similar equipment.

Re:Copyright charges

[jurt1235]

And the Euro 2.5 charge did not go through, did it?
It is already weird enough that the goverment is involved in collecting fees for a branche organisation.

Re:Copyright charges

[Itchy Rich]

By the way, when you buy a CD, DVD, or other media you are purchasing the physical storage medium and paying for the cost to bring the media to market; marketing, distribution, replication, etc. What you are not paying for is the full rights to copy, distribute, make derivatives, or any of the other exclusive rights granted copyright holders.

He's not talking about having paid for the rights via the original cost of the CD (which does allow for some copying rights via the "fair use" clause in US copyright law), but to the copyright tax he paid when buying the recordable media. He pays the content producers a tax/fee when he buys blank media. Whether you agree with it or not, the argument is that by charging a fee for the media, they are legitimising the act of copying.

Re:Copyright charges

[cronus42]

Hey there, Mr. I happen to be one of those freeloaders. I wouldn't suggest doing any of those unpleasant things you mentioned. It's just not the civilized sort of thing to do. The industry loses nothing from my copying of their precious data, because I would not have purchased that data anyhow.

Oh, and By the way, violently abusing women is likely to get you killed. But then again, maybe petty "justice" is worth more than your life?

-Cronus

Re:Copyright charges

[Infamous Tim]

The industry loses nothing from my copying of their precious data, because I would not have purchased that data anyhow.

That is probably among the silliest arguments I have ever heard to justify a person's downloading illegal media. If you don't have the permission of the copyright owner, you don't get the privilege of listening to it. Period. End of story. This is the basic idea behind a copyright.
In the case of this media, the copyright holder demands that you pay them a fee in exchange for the media's use. Saying that you wouldn't have bought it to begin with justifies nothing. You legally have no right or privilege to listen to the music or watch the videos that you have not paid the copyright holder for. The only exceptions to this rule are at the sole discretion of the copyright holder, whether you like it or not.

In short, you have no excuse for being a freeloader other than you don't feel like paying. Your words indicate that you are trying to justify your criminality in a way that won't irreperably harm your conscience. Admit it, you are a common criminal, and you are deserving of "petty justice" under your nation's laws.

Re:Copyright charges

[cronus42]

I'm not attempting to justify anything. Simply stating a truth. If a person who downloads a song, would, in actuality, not have purchased that song anyhow, then nothing is lost. There was never an opportunity, so there is no cost. The industry simply refuses to update it's obviously obsolete methods.

Between 18 and 35 million people (somewhere around there depending on what survey you believe) use the internet to share copyrighted material. This is not an insignificant number. Crime is relative to culture, and it's quite obvious that culture does not believe this to be wrong (at least a few tens of millions of them).

At this point in our economic development, certain forces in our society have found an interesting method for massing unrealistic quantities of money through market control, media, and lobbying. The people will be heard one way or another. Perhaps not through representation, But through economics. It certainly wouldn't be the first time.

Some day we will sort this "intellectual properties" mess out. Let's just hope it doesn't end up with EULA's on our breakfast cereal.

It still makes sense

[Anonymous Coward]

We all know that you could make your own box with it for much cheaper, but in general, the real top of the line models for consumer electronics still sell well, simply for being top of the line. That, and it may push the other companies to boost their hard disk sizes. So why all the negativity here?

Extra competition is good...

Release?

[Anonymous Coward]

We've been hearing about all of these crazy storage solutions for at least 10 years, "holograms" and storage in 3cm cubed space, all this crap and none of it has ever seen the light of day. I'll believe it when I see it (or whenever they become viable solutions!)

In other news...

[b06r011]

Sony are announcing a 2TB DVD recorder, using a 4 500GB HDD's in a rack, a DVD player, a connection lead and a roll of duck tape.

we also have unconfirmed reports of someone reading an article on the news site slashdot before writing a comment about it... these reports remain unconfirmed...

Re:In other news...

[Jeff DeMaagd]

and a roll of duck tape.

Where do I find this? At a hunter's supply store?

Re:In other news...

[Wontsomebodypleaseth]

now i can watch every show in exsintanmnce and die happy unless they bruing back futurmama

Re:In other news...

[b06r011]

Where do I find this? At a hunter's supply store?

yup - made with the most pure extract of duck, it works particularly well with Hoi-Sin glue... :-)

Joking aside, the reason I call it Duck tape is because I used to work in a DIY (hardware) store where they sold this stuff and I never got out of the habit.

It has been known as Duck Tape elsewhere too.

Re:In other news...

[swelke]

There was once a substance called "duct tape". Over the years, that original great invention has migrated within the public consciousness. Today, nobody remembers what that word "duct" means or how it's spelled. Therefore, the Great Grey Tape has been rechristened after a noisy waterfowl. Go to the hardware store and look sometime. Half of it _does_ involve the word "duck".

Re:In other news...

[drxenos]

Duct tape was originally called duck tape. Duck, being the material it was made out of.

But what do you record?

[ChrisF79]

I have a DVR that my cable company provided me with and I can't imagine it has much space on it at all but I still can't come close to filling the thing up. I would guess that if I went on vacation and let it do its thing for a week, it would be somewhere around 20% full. When I received the device, I went through and put all of my favorite shows in the queue and I'm constantly adding other shows to try out but there really just aren't that many programs/movies out there that I want to record. Now, that's just my own experience but what about the rest of you? Are any of you routinely running out of space and thinking, "If I only had a 1TB DVR, this would be so much better." Even with the HD content taking up more space, when I only have about 10 HD channels, it is impossible for me to fill up my DVR.

Re:But what do you record?

[GrumpyOldMan]

It all depends on how you use your DVR. The problem that I have with space comes when I try to get an entire season, so I can watch it in-order all at once.

For example, I heard really good things about Numb3rs a few weeks after it started. I hate coming into the middle of a show, so I set my MythTV box to record it in HD and decided to wait until I had all the episodes before I started watching. Each episode consumes 6.5GB at the bitrate our local CBS station uses. Even with only 13 episodes, this is taking up roughly 84.5GB of space on my 160GB drive.

It would be much more cost effective for me to add a few more drives to my existing $850 setup than to by a $2000 DVR.

Re:But what do you record?

[PurplePhase]

Short answer: Yup.
Addendum: It would be even better if it had multiple tuners built in, like another 7-tuner Japanese model pointed out a couple months ago.

Longer answer: My SO and I are casual TV watchers, and as far as watching TV it goes in cycles - some weeks we like it/are excited to watch, and other weeks we may see only a couple shows. But the TV stations don't care about us, so we time-shift what we like including a lot of reruns (I just got her hooked on Gilmore Girls, and STTNG is hopefully about to reach the series finale soon). Also waiting for a couple series to start up again and getting a couple movies from movie channels (some have been sitting there for a couple months). And I don't want to spring the ungodly amounts to buy the series so I keep some old ST:DS9 shows around, and we have some favorite John Stewarts,...

So even though I upped our 40GB TiVO to 2x160GB (less than 300GB useable because of their BIOS, I believe), we still max out - but we have a lot of things marked "Delete as needed" so only early on when we didn't delete anything did we actually have TiVO say "Can not record - space full".

The most annoying thing is that there isn't anything saying how much space is left on the machine - you have to force it to complain about no space. Worst part of the user interface - besides it forgetting the special setting at every software upgrade :p

Actually, the 2 most annoying things are:
1) Even on best quality, there are now hick-ups in the recording of maybe a second where it goes black and the sound fritzes - but only on the recording, it looks fine if you watch it real-time.
2) If the channel doesn't come in (our Digital Cable seems to have dropped all local channels!!) TiVO starts skipping randomly up or down channels until it hits a signal, and then still keeps the original channel's information! So we've gotten a half-hour of shopping-channel labelled "Family Guy", or university speakers on death and dying labelled "Fox News at 9".

Ugh. Even with the purchased solution, things aren't all rosy.

8-PP

Re:But what do you record?

[PW2]

I have over 5 terrabytes of purchased DVDs that I'd like to get on HD because some of the DVDs are known for disintegrating in less than 5 years (original Alien collection) and to be able to search for and instantly play the selected DVD (a hobby project of mine). I am hoping that in 10 years or less, retail stores will sell me cheap terrabytes. I know that cable provided "on-demand" would be cheaper, but building this is just fun.

Re:But what do you record?

[Eightyford]

I agree, it is nice to feel that you own the media and not merely rent it. It's going to be crazy in ten years when you can probably buy all movies ever made preloaded on a pirated hard-drive. I can already get a shitload and a half of ebooks on a dvd.

No Registration

[lbmouse]

Reuters version

128h of pr0n

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure if humankind is ready for 128h of porn on one disk. (not thinking about compression here yet!)

On other news; lube and media sales are skyrocketting, productiveness rates are way off. P2P networks overloaded but most arrested; there proved to be enough time to easily tracking pirates down trying to swap 1TB files. Economical crisis ahead?

Here comes the math (Thanks google)

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

According to http://nedron.net/fom_server/cache/62.html
HDTV is approx. 19.3 megabit/sec
Google sez:
1TB / 19.2 megabit / second in hours = 121.362963 hours

Which is actually not nearly as much of a marketing lie as I expected.

Re:Here comes the math (Thanks google)

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, this is if the drive is one Tera*BYTE* (you know, the 1024 thing). If it's one million megabytes it's even less.

Re:Here comes the math (Thanks google)

[Dare nMc]

google sez
((1 terabyte) / 1 024) / 1 024 = 1 megabyte

since it is 2 500 MB drives, I think it is actualy
google sez
1 megabyte * 1 000 * 1 000 = 976.5625 gigabytes
google sez
(976.5625 gigabytes) / (19.2 (megabit / second)) = 115.740741 hours

Re:Here comes the math (Thanks google)

[zygote]

COMPLETELY OFFTOPIC: Okay, I know about Google as a calculator. But, looking at your equation, I though "Hmm, wonder if that is what you actually enter?" Probably not, how does google know to convert TB to megabit per second in hours. The poster did a couple rounds of google calc and formatted the result.

NO! Copy and paste "1TB / 19.2 megabit / second in hours" into Google and it computes.

Wow. Time to crawl back under my rock at the bottom of a well...

Re:Here comes the math (Thanks google)

[HTL2001]

yea... remember, when that drive is advertized as (say) 5GB, thats 5,000,000,000 bytes, which converts to ~4.7GB to the computer (or in this case, my MP3 player)

Re:Here comes the math (Thanks google)

[someguysomewhere]

Actually its closer to:

(1 000 000 000 000 Bytes) / (19.2 (megabit / second)) = 110.378972 hours

Remember, their measure of 1Tb is a trillion bytes not 2^40 bytes.

Re:Here comes the math (Thanks google)

[tim_mathews]

But it looks like the marketing math was:

(8 * 2^40) / (19.2 * 10^6) / (60^2) = 127.25 hours.

Which gives you a base-2 terrabyte and a base-10 megabit. Go figure.

Re:Here comes the math (Thanks google)

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

Other random stuff you can do:
3 USD / gallon * radius of the earth / 10 miles per gallon in GBP

G *mass of earth / radius of earth^2

5 gigabytes / 3 megabits / second (good for download ETAs)
or just "the answer to the life the universe and everything".

Pretty much anything you can throw at it it can figure out. Would be really nice if they'd add it to google desktop search so that I wouldn't have to load firefox just to do my math.

Re:Here comes the math (Thanks google)

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you know what their measure is? I'm looking at a manual from a Hitachi disk array and they define a terabyte as 1024^4 bytes.

Re:Here comes the math (Thanks google)

[someguysomewhere]

RTFA its right there.... 8th paragraph: One terabyte is equal to 1 trillion bytes of data. One gigabyte equals 1 billion bytes.

Re:calrification: NO!

[Anonymous Coward]

"The hard disk space in the device equals 1TB"

Not after formatting it doesn't. (Probably using those cheapshit Walmart megabytes too.)

A distinct difference

[Iriel]

As great as this device may or may not be, all the details I've seen surounding it still leave out on crucial piece of infomation:

Point: It will be available next month.

Counter-point: How soon will it be replacing normal DVD recorders at Walmart?

In other words, until it becomes widely marketed and distributed, it could (keyword: could) become just another niche device to die out in another year or so due to overwhelming cost of media.

You are missing the point

[sniperwo1f]

There is a huge money saving benefit to having this, imagine no more heating bills as this baby kicks out enough heat to melt the arctic.

Too bad it'll be illegal to record HD...

[yeremein]

Or maybe our MPAA overlords will let us do it as long as the signal is encrypted with the player's public key.

Re:Too bad it'll be illegal to record HD...

[blastard]

It is not illegal to record HD. I do it all the time with my DVHS. Granted they are almost impossible to acquire, but they work great.

They didn't say

[suso]

how big the DVDs were physically. Its probably one of those new 5 foot in diameter discs that has a fork lift tray and disel powered motor. They didn't say anything about the laser. Sharks?

What about the previous multi tuner recorder ?

[AwaxSlashdot]

I remind of a multituner recorder from Sony(?) posted here in /. able to record up to 7 channels at the sametime for up to 1 week of data per channel. Does anyone remember the name of this baby and the amount of storage it had ?

And its an expensive TB

[crovira]

You can get 1TB of data space for $850USD (depending on latency) they want 2,092.67 USD.

I ain't thrilled...

Battlestar

[willisbueller]

clicky Not a fan?

Plankt time and discrete infinitessimals.

[crovira]

5.391 × 10 -44 seconds is the smallest amount of time. The clock-tick of the universe.

Re:Plankt time and discrete infinitessimals.

[VivianC]

Until you cut that in half.

NOT a DVD Recorder

[avendasora]

The person writing TFA is incorrect. It is a DVR with a DVD player built in.

From TFA: "...for the one-terabyte recorder, which stores data on two 500 gigabyte hard disk drives."

There's a far better write-up over at MacWorld UK.

Re:NOT a DVD Recorder

[avendasora]

DVD player

Okay, I'm wrong. It is a DVD Recorder, but it is a standard DVD+/-R, not HD-DVD or Blu-ray so dvd recordings will be down-sampled to SD.

Re:NOT a DVD Recorder

[Bushcat]

You can record to the HDD and the DVD. It writes to DVD-RAM, DVD-RW and DVD-R, and can read those formats plus DVD+R and DVD+RW. It supports recording modes from "VHS 1/3rd speed" (1700 hours) up to "Broadcast satellite HD mode" (68 hours).

See http://av.hitachi.co.jp/deck/product/dvdh1000w/ind ex.html.

Read story without registration

[blastard]

Here's a link to the reuters story so you don't have to register with the NYT. http://today.reuters.co.uk/News/NewsArticle.aspx?t ype=technologyNews&storyID=2005-08-24T080642Z_01_D IT429146_RTRIDST_0_TECH-JAPAN-HITACHI-DC.XML

Re:Read story without registration

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks!

So how long

[Anonymous Coward]

So how long before we should expect to see a hack that allows more than two drives to be hooked up? I'm not sure 128 hours would cover every episode of Southpark would it?

Say goodbye to tapes!

[eaddict]

Wow. If this is halfway decent and has decent good throughput I can kiss my tape backup at work goodbye!

Re:Say goodbye to tapes!

[Anonymous Coward]

I can kiss my tape backup at work

I don't think I can leave you alone at the server room anymore, Vince.

Another misleading claim:

[DJStealth]

From TFA:

Hitachi said the new models would be the first on the market able to simultaneously record two high-definition programs, and it hopes this will be a key selling point given the spread of terrestrial digital broadcasting in Japan.

I'm not sure if they're talking about the first DVD/HD combo thing that can do this, but my HD-based scientific atlanta box can record 2 HD programs simultaneously, while watching a 3rd prerecorded.

"Duck" tape?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does it work as "Turkey tape" as well? I'd love to get a roll of this for Thanksgiving!

Re:"Duck" tape?

[matzebrei]

Sadly enough, there is a brand of duct tape, complete with a fan club

Buy all the multi-disk sets again

[Red Prince]

Wonder if they'll re-release Lord of the Rings Star Wars Matrix Star Trek Various TV Series This could get expensive . . . for the convenience of 1 disk.

This could probably be easily outdone

[suitepotato]

with a MythTV running on a Beowulf cluster. It would take some work, but a small cadre of geeks who know their way around writing drivers and such would no doubt be able to create a central MythTV for an entire house of users that simultaneously recorded everything that fifteen people wanted on a RAID array. I wouldn't be surprised if someone's actually working on it or done it by now.

Then all we need is a well documented website showing us all how to do it complete with prepackaged ready to boot distro DVD. A home multimedia server without proprietary DRM and a jukebox dual-layer burner and CableCARD in a 19 inch rack cabinet would rock. Until then, I'll make do with my cable company PVR.

Bah! Damn corprate hell.

[dieman]

The problem I have is that we need 5c to be able to easily record off of cable boxes. (or cablecard) Both of those restrict us away from like MythTV and force people to use 'set top boxes'. So yeah, 2 500gb disks and a comptuer may be far less than $2k, but hey, you can't actually record with anything else!

Nothing like fake markets with controlled entry!

Ohmmm....

[Fordiman]

Now that I have my video recorder, which watches tedious television for me so I don't have to, I wonder what would happen if I cross-connected it to my electric monk...

Grow your own

[nurb432]

Just dont grow your own tobacco in the USA with intent to smoke it.

Unless you pay your taxes, the government wont be too kind to you.

You would be srprised...

[adnausium]

I download all my TV shows all in DIVX format, tranfer them to my Xbox and watch them at my leisure. I have two 250GB hdd's in my Xbox of which about 350-400gb is either movies or TV shows (often an entire series). If i was recording all this stuff from a set top box i could see where someone could need more than a Terabyte...especially if it was HD content (which the majority of TV shows I watch are). The thing is I dont have time to watch TV or movies every week, I save them up and watch a bunch all at once when i have a spare weekend or im sick. I literally save stuff for months, I have some stuff on thier right now that I have had since last November. And then what if i want to save some stuff...I have another 250GB on my PC that I use soley as an archive of things i might watch again or want to save incase someone else might want to watch it. give me 2T :)

Re:You would be srprised...

[Xoo]

How did you stuff 2 hard drives into your Xbox? I thought the Xbox could only support one drive?

Re:You would be srprised...

[adnausium]

check out teamxtender.com

Re:You would be srprised...

[Anonymous Coward]

You can easily get 2TB by setting up a fileserver on your network with either an xmbc server or normal samba filesharing to let your xbox stream files straight from your fileserver.

It works very well and you get rid of the hassles of having to uploading things to your xbox - just download it straight onto the fileserver.

But its a Sony...

[Generic Guy]

Sony are announcing a 2TB DVD recorder, using a 4 500GB HDD's in a rack, a DVD player, a connection lead and a roll of duck tape.

But being a Sony, it will have very stylish duct tape.

Bullshit

[AviLazar]

Hitachi said it did not have concrete plans for launching the products in overseas markets, explaining that consumers in Europe and the United States were not as keen on high-end recorders.

WTF are they to say what two ENTIRE continents are interested in? Elitest bastards, no wonder they only have 3% market share - they apparantly have no clue what the largest market share really wants.

Re:Bullshit

[serialdogma]

WTF are they to say what two ENTIRE continents are interested in? Elitest bastards, no wonder they only have 3% market share - they apparantly have no clue what the largest market share really wants.
I think you will find they were talking about three continents, sounds like just want to enslave the world one boxset^Wperson at a time...

Re:Bullshit

[AviLazar]

I think you will find they were talking about three continents, sounds like just want to enslave the world one boxset^Wperson at a time...

You will rue this day for exposing my plan, I was quietly trying to assimilate S. America into N. America. Damn you DAMN YOU!!!!!
Let us go back home Pinky, so we can plan for another day.

more tuners would be good

[tf98]

As well as having lots of space, it'd be good to have lots of tuners as well. Promise.tv sounds good.

From http://www.promise.tv/>:
"Promise.tv takes advantage of digital television technology to automatically record a full seven day's broadcasting across all selected TV channels. This wholesale recording means it is no longer necessary to choose programmes to watch in advance. All programmes transmitted over the last seven days are stored for viewing at any time."

Read... the.. article... slowly...

[Gruneun]

This is not a DVD recorder capable of putting one terabyte of data on a single optical disc. This is a device which can record on a typical DVD disc and also hold one terabyte of data on multiple hard drives.

As I am typing this post from a desktop computer that satifies those exact technical specifications, I feel I must lay claim to the "world's first hard disk drive/DVD recorder that can store one terabyte of data."

Interesting

[Deliveranc3]

Interestingly this seems to be moving towards a system where longterm storage is handled as a single problem, rather than in computer and out of computer storage.
Devices like these becoming popular might mean we see $100 HD/Burners where space considerations are for the manufacturers rather than the consumer.
The end of format wars?
Perhaps if this becomes the standard HD tech we might start seeing RAM drives for popular software, these for long term software and insert disk 265 for long term video pr0graming storage.

"1 TB

[Fuzzball963]

Umm I don't know about you, but I have at least 75 hours of recorded Divx Video on the harddrive at the moment as it is, and thats not even full HDTV quality. Since a terabyte can only hold 128 hours of HDTV, I'd consider it a good start but I'd probably need to see a 2-5-10 TB drive soon otherwise I bet you I could run out of space on the 1 TB model between videos, programs, etc :).

Library of Congree

[Anonymous Coward]

How many libraries of congress can you fit it in? Or, can you fit the entire LOC building in it?? ....and one more...

Less space than a nomad!

(I know its lame- but hey, its /.!!)

CD/DVD's are crap

[fmwap]

Is it just me, or is anyone else sick of these unprotected, vulnerable, piece of shit mediums that we're suppost to hold our data on?

CD's can get scratched horribly with normal use, and it's even worse when you get a disc with more data crammed into it. I remember years ago seeing computers with larger CD-ROMS that took an entire jewel case, with the CD inside...why is it that years later, we're acutally using WORSE technology? I mean put the fucking thing in a case, I'm tired of my CD's getting scratched.

Re:CD/DVD's are crap

[BFaucet]

I may be remembering incorrectly, but didn't most CD-ROM drives come with a couple carriages and you had to put your CD-ROMs into the carriage? Sounds like you're angry at the drive makers for dropping what I thought was a needless step.

I dunno... I use CDs and DVDs very frequently to deliver work to customers. I like being able to keep 100 CDs on a spool instead of keeping a huge rack of them. I also imagine buying a CD carriage along with your media would raise prices too. It all depends on what your needs are.

I also have music CDs that are about 10 years old that still play. So long as you don't toss them around they usually stick around. Just leave them in a case until you need them... then put them right back in the case when you're done. Hold them on the sides to avoid mucking up the bottom. When taking them out of the case press down on the middle piece to avoid bending the disc.

If a disc is too scratched and you don't have a backup (backup your discs when you first obtain them) you can repair them with a repair kit. My DVD rental store does this all the time with good results.

I do agree the option to keep discs in a carriage would be nice, though.

Re:CD/DVD's are crap

[elgatozorbas]

Obviously you have never used floppy disks.

Re:CD/DVD's are crap

[Tolkien]

I second that, *so* many of my CDs are scratched now, it's horrid! At least with audio and VHS tapes, the only thing you had to worry about was the STEREO/VCR/beta eating them or rendering them useless, NOT casual use or forgetfully leaving them to gather DUST!

I mean come on, DUST?! When I wipe my CDs clean with "a soft cloth" I usually end up smudging them or somehow scratching it (don't ask me how, the scratch just appears after I wipe the dust off).

We NEVER had that problem with tapes!!!

I hate marketing! I HATE IT!!! Gone are the days of reliably built, time-enduring media storage devices. Now - if it looks shiny, that's what matters. Smack whoever invented CDs for me, please?!

I'll bet that even 8-track tapes were as sturdy as the later tapes were, but I've never used one.

Re:CD/DVD's are crap

[fmwap]

Agreed, the size would be a problem...but if you're squeezing a terrabyte of data onto a disc, you'd think they could at least make it 1/6th the size, and put it in a small plastic holder, and you'd still get about 166GB's worth of storage...

I mean, I can't think of one other storage medium that holds the data out in the air. Floppy disks, zip disks, tape drives, flash cards, USB drives, hard drives, all of these have some sort of physical protection built around the sensitive part. Yet, the most popular method of storing data doesn't...it just seems like they're a made-to-fail product.

And...why do we keep insisting on using new technology on an old standard? That'd be like using a dial up accelerator.

Re:CD/DVD's are crap

[Anonymous Coward]

A key difference between the two technologies:

Tapes are damaged from abuse, and wear out from repeated use.

Discs are damaged from abuse.

Re:CD/DVD's are crap

[falconx7]

What are you doing to your cd's to get them so scratched up? Even my oldest cd's are in fine condition, you just have to handle them with a bit of care. The only people I know with scratched up discs leave them outside a case or binder all the time stacking them one cd on top of another. Also its better to wipe dust off a cd with a damp cloth, using a dry cloth insures you will scratch it.

I like that cd's don't have some bulky container attached to them. You can store them however you want, if its some cd you want to keep in good condition you can keep it in some nice case. If it's just an alright disc, you can keep it in some binder. The ammount of discs you can store in an easily portable binder is great. I have a 72-disc binder, it's easy to pickup and bring places with me. Now I don't know about you, but the thought of all 72 of those discs being in cartridges seems horrible to me. In cartridges I'd need a big box to lug around all 72 of them.

Re:clarification

[HTH NE1]

I still don't know anybody who's ever bought a piece of dual layer media though...

Well then, I have three. I haven't used them yet though. I'm still working through my earlier bulk purchase of 500 DVD-Rs.

Boy... U.R. Pissing Me Off!

[Anonymous Coward]

....and a roll of duck tape

IT'S DUCT TAPE!!! DUCT. NOT DUCK. DUCT.

A subtle difference...

And I bet you go around saying "it's a tough road to hoe" too.

Concrete, asphalt, gravel or hard packed trail dirt?!!

IT'S ROW ASSHOLE!!! AS IN "TOUGH ROW TO HOE."

See, you hoe rows as in common cultivation practices, NOT ROADS!!!

Ok, so maybe your some inner city punk ass'd wannabe gang banger pimpin your fat ugly stinkin brain dead skank ass'd cesspool of a five dollar girl friend up and down Hampton's streets. Yes, those might be tough roads to ho but once again, it's HO NOT HOE!!!

DUCT TAPE! ... NOT DUCK ...

TOUGH ROW TO HOE ... NOT ROAD!!!

And it should have been written DVR not DVD for Christs sake.

You pricks are losing it.

THATS LOSING .... NOT LOOSING ...

Re:Boy... U.R. Pissing Me Off!

[hcdejong]

IT'S DUCT TAPE!!! DUCT. NOT DUCK. DUCT.


Hey, if it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck...

well then

[Anonymous Coward]

why haven't you built one? Or if you have please give us the plans so we can save some money as well.

Actually, $0

[Anonymous Coward]

You can have sex with a mare or cow for free, and it won't feel all that different than a woman. Save your $100 (or $1000 for a "qualified" hooker).

Re:Actually, $0

[Glooty-Us-Maximus]

Hot dog down a hallway my friend, hot dog down a hallway. I certainly hope you aren't speaking from experience because that would mean you are hung like an elephant.

In the U.S. many roll their own cigarettes.

[hackwrench]

Those I've spoke to say it's much cheaper for some reason...less tax I guess.

Who comes up with this stuff?

[qw(name)]

Another graduate of the Sally Fields School of Mass Marketing Technology!

From the article:

One terabyte is equal to 1 trillion bytes of data. One gigabyte equals 1 billion bytes.

Re:Who comes up with this stuff?

[coffeefrog]

Disk storage has traditionally been expressed in terms of powers of ten, not powers of two. Memory is expressed in powers of two.

Re:Who comes up with this stuff?

[qw(name)]

This was started when hard drives became reasonably price and companies saw that selling to the masses was extremely profitable. I remember buying hard drives that told what their actual byte count was on the box. Seagate, Quantum and Western Digital come to mind.

Unfortunately, these companies handed their technical information over to marketing who must have felt that it was better to dumb-down the information so that people would understand it more easily.

I think the average consumer would be more impressed with "1 GB = 1,073,741,824 bytes" instead of "1 GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes". If the average consumer wants to know why, let them become more educated.

Traditionally, hard drives were only sold to computer savvy people (e.g. IT professional, small business computer shops, etc.).

Re:Who comes up with this stuff?

[coffeefrog]

Actually, the power of ten thing pre-dates the retail market disks. Early IBM disks (the 3330 and the like) for example had capacity that was always expressed in powers of 1000.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibi for the gorey details of the kilo/kibi thing and some comments about disk storage.

Why is this news?

[Nom du Keyboard]

And why is this news? Such recorders have been buildable for a couple years using 3 or 4 hard drives. Is it just because they're the first company to officially sell one?

Pointing out the bad obviously math

[domito]

"One terabyte is equal to 1 trillion bytes of data. One gigabyte equals 1 billion bytes."

When actually:

One Terabyte = 1099511627776 bytes of data
One Gigabyte = 1073741824 bytes of data
One Megabyte = 1048576 bytes of data
One Kilobyte = 1024 bytes of data

So what you have here is a 0.91Tb drive not a 1Tb drive as advertised.

If memory serves this whole 1Mb=1,000,000 bytes thing was started by Maxtor in the 90s to make their drives look bigger than the competition. This kind of math may be easier, but it's still incorrect with respect to HDD storage. Damn you Maxtor!

Domito

Re:Pointing out the bad obviously math

[Whumpsnatz]

I think it's a lost cause. Just accept that they're lying to you, and get on with your life. You'll be one of the diminishing group that know what you're actually getting when you buy a hard drive. Even with this cheap lie, the price of storage has become amazingly low.

Hey, it could be worse. I had an IT director once who said "bytes" when he was really talking about "bits". When I pointed it out, he acted like it was trivia. Hey, it's only an 8x difference, who's gonna notice, right? (promotion? LOL)

Re:Pointing out the bad obviously math

[darth_zeth]

So there are 1000 grams in a Kilogram, and 1000 meters in a Kilometer, and 1000 watts in a kilowatt, but 1024 bytes in a kilobyte?

sorry dude, the computer geeks broke this one. kilo is 10^3, mega is 10^6, and giga is 10^9. We stole the prefixes and slapped them on 2^10, 2^20, 2^30, etc. Any ambiguity is our fault.

Re:Pointing out the bad obviously math

[romulus15]

We're talking kilobytes vs. kibibytes. Kilo is of course, and by definition, 1000, base 10.

Kibibyte = 2^10
Mebibyte = 2^20
Gibibyte = 2^30
Tebibyte = 2^40

But who's going to actually use that terminology? It's like converting the US to the metric system, it just ain't happen folks.

So just know that people are stupid, lazy, or both.

wow...

[AxemRed]

Is it a regular duel-layer DVD that's the size of a laserdisc?

1 TB in optical disk might be possible

[asadodetira]

According to this report: They claim that by using diamond lenses, it will be possible to store 1TB in an optical drive. Will it work? Will they develop it soon? Who knows?

Re:neither.

[lampiaio]

It's neither. It's a terabyte.

Not bad math

[dunc78]

I believe an argument can be made that 1 TB is either 10^9 or 2^40 Bytes. However, what annoys me is when people start using a lower case b for bytes, as in Mb. Mb is megabits and MB is megabytes.

Re:Not bad math

[domito]

Consider me duely chastised for my unfortunate typo :)

Whoop-de-do!

[The_Candyman]

I've had mine now for almost 6 months, granted it takes 4 250GB drives, but I have a DL DVD writer in it. Ans it costs less then $1k!

"Duck tape" is actually a legitimate term

[WidescreenFreak]

IT'S DUCT TAPE!!! DUCT. NOT DUCK. DUCT.

Actually, I thought the same thing until very recently when I was corrected on - ironically enough - Slashdot.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_tape

"Your" in need of calming down. Maybe you should sit down over "their" and rest. ;)

Re:Wow! Are you okay?

[TripMaster Monkey]

OMG! It took you over four hours to respond to my post, when it usually takes you about that number of minutes to hammer out your usual incoherence.

What's wrong...Mom kick you off the computer again?

Great for backing up my digital camcorder tape

[Anonymous Coward]

I always want to back up the digital data from my digital camcorder, now there is a place to put it.
That's great.

Go Ahead, Try Her

[srh2o]

For you she's at least an $1800 an hour hooker.

So when can I pick up drive at Frys for $49.95?

[Anonymous Coward]

Christmas 2006 for $49.95 at Frys?

Infomercial

[lotrtrotk]

... And not only that!

Order in the next 30 minutes and we'll even throw in this meticulously hand crafted fish-filleting knife at no extra charge. That's a 40 dollar value!!!OMFGWTFLOL!!!!1!one!112!@

Re:Infomercial

[karnal]

And a big fuck you to you, kind sir.

Re:Infomercial

[lotrtrotk]

Yikes! Relax buddy. Learn to take a joke. That wasn't even the least bit insulting.

Record 1TB on a DVD? That's awesome!

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't wait to get one

Not according to IEEE, IEC, NIST et al

[Anonymous Coward]

They published "official" definitions in 1998.
They are:
1 kibibyte = 1 KiB = 2^10 bytes
1 kilobyte = 1 KB = 10^3 bytes
1 mibibyte = 1 MiB = 2^20 bytes
1 megabyte = 1 MB = 10^6 bytes
1 gibibyte = 1 GiB = 2^30 bytes
1 gigabyte = 1 GB = 10^9 bytes

Re:1 TB in optical disk might be possible

[vspazv]

Just figure out how to mark and read colors on a disc and it'll increase the data storage capacity by an obscene amount. Since the only limitation for the colors used is the sensitivity of the read/write mechanism you could theoretically have millions of possible values for a single 'bit' of information.

Just think how much less space it would take to store information in base 1,000,000 than in binary or even hex.

What Google calculator can't do

[Anonymous Coward]

It can't convert pressure in PSI to In.HG

huh?

[d34thm0nk3y]

I don't even get the point you are trying to make.

I don't bother to watch the shows I don't like because I don't like them.

I am such a bastard; it is like I am stealing ad revenue from the selfless TV executives.

My recent motherboard purchase...

[Otto]

Asus A8N. 8 SATA drive connections + 4 IDE's = 12 drives possible, without any additional cards (and it has 4 or 5 PCI slots, IIRC). And both of the two sets of 4 SATA connectors can do hardware RAID.

It's getting more than a little ridiculous in terms of the number of drives the things can support these days. The freakin' thing came with a card slot panel to fit on the back of the case, which takes two SATA connectors and a power connector. The idea being that you can attach internal SATA drives to the system without opening the case, presumably for transferring stuff on the go. :D

Fluorescent Multilayer Disc (FMD) is closer to 1TB

[underlord_999]

Back in 2000, Constellation 3D demo'ed a prototype Fluorescent Multilayer Disc (FMD) and drive at COMDEX. The drive had 10 lasers to read this 10-layer(!) disc. The capacity for the demo product was 50 GB of data, with 120 GB planned for the initial consumer release. Yes, this was in 2000 !

Unfortunately, they ran out of money and the stock is now worth about $0.001 per share. But the technology was exciting. 10 times the data transfer rate of a single layer technology at the same bit-density and RPM (or 5x that of a dual layer) since you have 10 layers being read simultaneously.

However, the good news for those of us wanting a high capacity optical drive is that a private company called D-Data acquired the patent portfolio of Constellation 3D (also known as C-DDD) and renamed the FMD as their Digital Multi-layer Disc (DMD).

I'm not affiliated with either company but I was very interested in the technology at the time.

Here are some links for more information:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constellation_3D/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluorescent_Multilaye r_Disc/

(The 2nd Wiki entry states that the production FMD would be roughly 100GB but on the C-DDD website (no longer available) it was presented to be 120GB per disc. Eh, whats a few 10s of gigabytes on a removable medium between friends :) )

http://www.ddatainc.com/

The last link is the D-Data website. I had no idea a company had acquired the C-DDD patent portfolio and was reviving the FMD technology until today, when I was reading this slashdot article and thought of the FMD.

Good news for data junkies everywhere.

127.258 hours - here is how they got it.

[carlmenezes]

1TB = 1024 * 1024 * 1024 * 1024 * 8 bits
19.2MBits = 19.2 x 1e6

1TB/19.2MBits = 458129.844 seconds

In hours, that is : 458129.8449 / 3600
= 127.258

That's how they got it.

However, here are the real numbers:
From Hitachi's page on its 7K500 drive, we have

http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/7k500/7k500. htm

1 GB equals one billion bytes when referring to hard drive capacity;

So, the correct numbers are:
8*1e12/3600
        2222222222.2222222222222222222222
8*1e12/(19.2*1e6)
        416666.66666666666666666666666667
answer/3600
        115.74074074074074074074074074074

115.7 hours.

Then again, we must also take note of some more fine print on hitachi's product support page :

accessible capacity may be less.

So yeah, it is a bit of a stretch...probably more like 110 hours at the end of the day.

Article Error

[markdavis]

"Hitachi said the new models would be the first on the market able to simultaneously record two high-definition programs"

WRONG! the HD-TiVo can record two hi-def programs at the same time, even while playing one back, and has been doing it for over a year now....

Pity It's Japan Only

[shplorb]

About a month ago I went out looking for a HDD recorder with a DVD writer. They exist, but they're for analogue TV only.

There's one that records DVB broadcasts, but it doesn't have a DVD writer and the UI sucks. One redeeming feature is that it has a USB port and you can mod it with your own software plugins.

What I want to know is why no one has a DVB HDD recorder with a DVD writer or ethernet interface on the market? Is it too much to ask for, or is it the tentacles of the 'content industry' that are holding the consumer electronics manufacturers back?

Yeah, I could go roll my own MythTV box, but to tell you the truth I'm so over maintaining computers. (Which is why I bought a Mac and play console games.) I just want the thing to work and not have to bother with upgrading and keeping it patched, etc. It also costs a lot to build a silent system in a nice AV-style case - not that I'm really bothered by the cost of the hardware, it's all my time that I'd piss away building and maintaining the thing that's valuable.

This product seems to be exactly like what I want though! Pity it's Japan only. =[

Article

[zipzap54]

Could somebody post the text of the article. I don't have an account to read it. Thanks

Back-end RAID Server

[zeketp]

Doesn't MythTV function as a client server system? If you are recording and watching all on one box, it is both client and server, but you can run front-end HTPCs to play and record to the back-end server, so just throw together a RAID on your back-end.

Notes:
1. For this to work with multiple front-ends your file server can't be some old box you just threw Linux on.
2. I know this because I have a Mac, and the back-end has not been ported, but the front end has, so you could theoretically use a Mac Mini as the HTPC (without putting Linux on it, unless you just wanted to).