Hitachi's Terabyte DVD Recorder

lposeidon writes "Hitachi has a terabyte DVD recorder. Looks like its an oversized TIVO box with 2 500GB harddrives, all for the low, low price of $1180" It's also fully high def capable.

Comments

It's also fully high DUPE capable...

[TripMaster Monkey]

Story is a dupe...original story can be found here.

Re:It's also fully high DUPE capable...

[stretch0611]

Instead of linking to articles, maybe we should just link to prior slashdot posts...

Re:It's also fully high DUPE capable...

[hackstraw]

Again, it took me about 20 seconds to type:

site:slashdot.org hitachi (dvd or dvr)

into google and the first hit was the duplicate article.

There is no excuse to keep doing this shit!

I'm glad that over 99% of the reason I come to slashdot is because of people like me and not the "editors". I wish it was easy to simply migrate the community to another site, but that is much easier said than done.

Not only is the story a dupe...

[rindeee]

...but many people will have to reply in "dupe" pointing out that it is NOT a "Terabyte DVD recorder". It is a terabyte DVR with a normal DVD recorder built in to the case.

Re:Not only is the story a dupe...

[Shard013]

I think they mean it records DVD's. Either way its stupid, why would you label it as a tool that can only record DVD's when it can record so much more?

Re:Not only is the story a dupe...

[dustinbarbour]

And the terabyte model will cost over $2000 while the 160 GB model will cost about $1180. http://news.com.com/2061-10801_3-5843380.html

WOW thats cheap!

[HG Slashdot]

all for the low, low price of $1180
WOW thats really really cheap... I am running now to the store to buy one... Maybe I will meet Bill Gates at the store also looking to buy one, this is the happiest day of my life.

Ahh ... time shifting...

[oneiros27]

It's like someone recorded the article, and is playing it back for us to flame a second time!

The terabyte version is not $1180...

[prattle]

Looks like its an oversized TIVO box with 2 500GB harddrives, all for the low, low price of $1180

The terabyte version is not $1180; it is nearly double that.

From TFA:

The recorders will go on sale in Japan from next month. They are expected to retail from about 130,000 yen ($1,180) for the cheapest model to 230,000 yen for the one-terabyte recorder, which stores data on two 500 gigabyte hard disk drives.

Re:The terabyte version is not $1180...

[IAmTheDave]

Whatever it costs, is the interface better than the HD Rent-a-DVR from Comcast? Cause man, is that thing trash.

Re:The terabyte version is not $1180...

[cbreaker]

It might be - but you won't get some of the other benefits. I have Cox but the boxes are all basically the same. It's not nearly as nice as a TiVo but I *can* record two high-def channels and watch a recording - all at the same time.

The interface is kinda slow and clunky, and it's only got 150GB storage. But the ability to watch something on one channel and record on another shouldn't be underestimated!

Maybe with CableCards, moving forward, we'll be able to ditch the cable companies boxes and use our own, like the good old days. But it's not good enough yet - and a lot of that is because the cable company either doesn't support cablecard, or if they do they don't put all their channels on them.

Re:The terabyte version is not $1180...

[Gondola]

Agreed. It's unfortunate that there are so few HD channels, because I just don't watch low def anymore. Seriously.

Even with maybe a dozen HD channels, there are times I've had conflicts in my recordings.. with the ability to record two streams at once. That means there were three shows I would have potentially wanted to record at the same time.

"Fortunately," programs on cable networks usually get repeated ad nauseum, so I just scan forward a day or less to find another airing of the same show I couldn't record.

The Time Warner box isn't bad, if you just want to use the grid interface. For browsing by title, it's painfully slow because there's no virtual keyboard *and* half the stuff isn't indexed in the listings by title for some reason.

For someone with even half a life, having to scan through a paper TV Guide to choose my programs, and set them up to record manually... fugedaboutit. I'd rather not watch any TV than go through all that BS.

I do miss my "bloop" sound effects from the TiVo though.

Re:The terabyte version is not $1180...

[cbreaker]

You Comcast guys don't know what you've got =) I have the Cox High Def package, and it has SEVEN channels. ABC, NBC, INHD1, INHD2, Disc, Sho1, HBO1. That's all. I mean, they look great (especially INHD2 when there's a game on NESN on it) and they all do full 1080i except for the SD stuff on NBC/ABC and some older HD Discovery stuff (720p.)

Comcast has so many more channels. My friend lives a mile away in Mass, and when he gets his new TV he'll have something like 21 channels of HD to use including FOX and CBS, which I don't get at all.

But at least the Cox stuff is really 1920x1080i though, unlike some of the satellite providers that'll do 1280x1080 and scale it to save bandwidth.

If only *any* of these companies had SciFi HD..

Re:The terabyte version is not $1180...

[Gondola]

SciFi HD is the holy grail. They don't know the opportunity they're missing out on. Just like TiVo standalone HD.

Telephone game, anyone?

[Overzeetop]

Geez, it's like that stupid game you played in grade school where a whispered phrase went around the room, and was almost totally different by the time it had gone through 15-20 people.

The article subtitle meat is "...the world's first hard disk drive/DVD recorder that can store one terabyte of data..."

Is there really that little space in /. titles that you can't add "HDD"? "Terabyte HDD / DVD recorder combo box." There, now that wasn't so hard.

As for the dupe, does it count if the first post on it was vaporware?

Good thing it has TWO hard drives.

[bigtallmofo]

You can store the first Slashdot story on the first drive, and the second Slashdot story on the second drive.

I, for one,

[inkdesign]

welcome our new misleading title overlords..

Re:I, for one,

[Anonymous Coward]

So you're saying that the title is misleading?

I'll speak on behalf of Tivo

[Manchot]

Tivo's a brand name. This device is made by Hitachi, so it's not a Tivo. Hence, you should just call it an oversized DVR.

Re:I'll speak on behalf of Tivo

[Anonymous Coward]

oversized AND overpriced.

You can buy a terabyte of storage (4x250 gig hds in a raid0 array) for $600, and they want $2500? (the $1300 is for a half-terabyte)

For the same price, set up a linux box as an 12-drive (extra controller cards are cheap enough) 3-terabyte network storage unit, and store all sorts of stuff on it, not just movies.

It might even be big enough to hold the average slashdotters' pr0n collection.

Re:I'll speak on behalf of Tivo

[Anonymous Coward]

Good idea! Don't forget to include instructions for configuring a suitable computer to act as your DVR, buying the necessary input card/hardware, buying and installing a DVD-R if you don't have one already, installing and configuring MythTV or BeyondTV or whatever, making sure your graphics card either puts out suitable video or you install a secondary card for that, and then be sure to put it all in a box that will fit nicely with your home entertainment rack.

Or, pay a little more for the convenience of having it all done for you and wrapped up in a nice package with a warranty. I do get your point, though, but for what this does, there's a lot of extraneous time and effort to build something simliar.

Re:I'll speak on behalf of Tivo

[hazzey]

Tivo's a brand name. This device is made by Hitachi, so it's not a Tivo. Hence, you should just call it an oversized DVR.

Many people know how big a Tivo is. Not many people know how big a DVR is. Why? Because this device is a DVR, so it is exactly as big as a DVR.

Finally!

[Nuclear Elephant]

Now I can download the entire Internet like I've always wanted to.

Re:Finally!

[Nuclear Elephant]

Well, actually, it wouldn't fit. The Internet is at least 10 terabytes

So 10 discs as opposed to how many if I used floppies?

Re:Finally!

[Thalagyrt]

I'd read that article you linked again, it says something more along the lines of 7500 terabytes.

Re:Finally!

[Pharmboy]

So 10 discs as opposed to how many if I used floppies?

Around 714,000 floppies using very rough math. (some bigger nerd will now offer an anal retentive correction, surely down to the fraction of the floppies needed, followed by a debate over formatting methods, followed by a MAC vs. PC debate, until someone calls someone a Nazi, at which time, the debate is officially over.)

That is about the same number of floppies AOL used to send out each day back in the 90s, or about the total amount of AOL disks I personally received in the 1990s.

If it takes you 3 minutes to copy to each disk, it will take you 35700 hours, or 1487 days to complete (assuming no pee breaks), which is about as long as it would take a manned flight to Mars, and back, with plenty of time to drive around and explore inbetween. Or the equivelent of 28.5 dog years.

If you put them end to end, that is a buttload of disks. Almost a buttload and a half, making it just about 3/4 of a shitload.

Ok, the story is a dupe, thus NOTHING is offtopic, right? Might as well calculate truly useful things with the space CmdrTaco has provided here...

Re:Finally!

[lotrtrotk]

"(some bigger nerd will now offer an anal retentive correction, surely down to the fraction of the floppies needed, followed by a debate over formatting methods, followed by a MAC vs. PC debate, until someone calls someone a Nazi, at which time, the debate is officially over.)"

Hitler is a Nazi!! .... there, now the Debate is over ;)

Re:Finally!

[macraig]

Nope... for that you'd need a couple Buffalo TeraStations.

Temporal TIVO

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm waiting for a temporal TIVO so I can watch shows before I record them.

RTFA?

[NewStarRising]

Anyone who has been visiting /. frequently knows that no-one reads the articles.
Now we can dispense with readng the summary.
And knowing the title to be misleading and innaccurate, we can dispense with tat, too.
Soon we will have a page full of nicely formatted filler text and a forum of flamewars regarding how the filler text supports/unfairly dismisses thier favourite OS/application/background colour.

Or, in Bizaarro World, the editors might do thier job. Submitters may read their own articles/submissions.

Not that we care. We don't read them anyway.

My OS can beaet up your OS.
My OS was in the army.

Misleading

[brokenarmsgordon]

Calling it a "terrabyte DVD recorder" is intentionally misleading. It is obviously meant to imply that it records terrabyte-sized DVDs. Good job, guys.

Re: Misleading

[HTH NE1]

Terrabyte? My god, the disks must be the size of a planet!

Terabyte TiVo exists

[Nonesuch]

TiVo originally charged around $1K for a 250GB HD DVR, so the price is right.

netdude built a 1.6TB (usable) TiVo unit, but doesn't say what it cost.

I'd complain about this being a dupe but...

[mshmgi]

... but then I'd be repeating myself ... again.

I'll Settle For....

[Bullfish]

A 250 meg drive and decent content. Really this smacks to me of one of those 100 CD jukeboxes. Nice to impress your friends for 35 seconds, but after that...

Not all bytes are created equal.

[Anonymous Coward]

From the article:
One terabyte is equal to 1 trillion bytes of data.
One gigabyte equals 1 billion bytes.

Uhh isn't is .
1 Terabyte (TB) = 1,099,511,627,776 Bytes
1 Gigabyte (GB) = 1,073,741,824 Bytes

Why do they have to do this.. other than to try and rip us off?

Re:Not all bytes are created equal.

[Poromenos1]

Nothing... other than to try and rip us off.

Re:Not all bytes are created equal.

[HTH NE1]

Get with the times. The metric meanings as applied to units of bits and bytes have been officially adopted and tbe binary meanings are now tera-binary-bytes, tebibytes, or TiB and giga-binary-bytes, gibibytes, or GiB. (Similarly for MiB and KiB, and up the scale too.)

Google gibibytes to find out more, both for the official words and people still complaining about it (i.e. get both sides). Frankly, adopting kilo- because 1024 is close to 1000 was a bad idea from the start, and that choice is why there is a difference of nearly 0.1 TB between 1 TB and 1 TiB.

Re:Not all bytes are created equal.

[Anonymous Coward]

Screw ISO. Real men use binary, and the day I start quoting RAM in "gibibytes" is the day I start wearing a floppy hat and move to France.

Re:Not all bytes are created equal.

[Anonymous Coward]

Meanwhile, Sean Combs has announced that units of storage shall in future be known as Kiddybytes, Middybytes, Giddybytes and Tiddybytes.

There has been no comment from the Snoop Standardization Society on how this will comport with their "shizzybytes" standard.

Re:Not all bytes are created equal.

[narkalepse]

Actually, the metric prefix can still be used for both. If you want to be specific you use GiB.

Re:Not all bytes are created equal.

[KillShill]

actually, you need to get with the times.

we've been using binary for as long as there have been computers.

suddenly the hard drive manufacturers want to inflate the size of their drives to deceive customers; that doesn't mean we have to adopt their nonsensical system.

ram isn't measured in kibbles n' bits, sorry i mean bibbybytes. no operating system or computer program uses dog food notation.

this is just a new way to deceive end users for the benefit of storage manufacturers.

anyone who knows anything about computers, knows that storage is measured in binary and not metric. it has a different meaning in computing technology and has since we've had computers. even now, unix, linux, windows, mac report the binary size for storage, including RAM.

so no, you bought their ridiculous propoganda and marketing but thankfully, not everyone did.

they can keep their fraudulent metric system and stuff it. i hear it's all the rage amongst dogs ages 1-5.

Re:Not all bytes are created equal.

[HTH NE1]

suddenly the hard drive manufacturers want to inflate the size of their drives to deceive customers;

It isn't sudden, sonny. They've been using metric measure of hard drive capacity back when hard drives were still measured in megabytes.

And remember those high-density 1.44 MB 3.5-inch disks? That "MB" is a combination of a metric 1000 and a binary 1024 factor. They're actually 1440 KiB disks.

For a long time the discrepancy between metric and binary maeasure was glossed over by saying it was "unformatted capacity" and that "formatted capacity" was much less. The truth is that the actual space taken up by formatting a drive for a particular filesystem is miniscule compared to the difference between a GB and a GiB. Yet people still quote the "formatted capacity" myth when trying to explain why their new 500 TB drive comes up 50 GB short.

It's just wrong to make people learn one special meaning of kilo- for computer memory and have every other unit in the world using the standard meaning. Or do you think a Liter of water should have a mass of 1024 grams?

It gets worse when you have to consider whether metric or binary measure is intended, especially when people are using them in DSL transfer rates. It's bad enough that people can't keep their bit and byte unit capitalization consistent (b vs. B). Is that megabytes per second or megabits per second? Surely not millibits per second! And is that mega- as in million or mega as in 1,048,576? Or is it 1,024,000? I know of one ISP that said their DSL transfer caps were metric. They wouldn't start charging for overages until the binary threshhold was passed, but the overage charge would be calculated from the amount you were over in metric units.

I too first objected to "kibibytes" as so much kibitzing (and snickered at my own cleverness at that), but the rationale behind it is sound. When I want to be absolutely clear, I will use GiB for binary gigabytes and metric-GB for metric gigabytes.

Besides, when you're talking about hundreds of gigabytes of storage, do you really care that the block size is a power of two anymore?

"Get with the times?" The time you want me to get with is the 20th Century. You should get with the 3rd Millennium.

Re:Not all bytes are created equal.

[KillShill]

well overall consistency is a very good thing but as you've pointed out, we're a long way away.

i personally object to having to use demeaning new standards that non-computer scientists have deemed to be the official nomenclature.

we need more education, not capitulation to confusing new standards, which i still believe is mostly for the benefit of the storage industry.

that would solve the problems which you bring up. people don't know about using small b for bits and capital B for bytes. and yes, it isn't confusing at all to have kilo mega giga etc mean one thing for the computing industry and another for every other field. it can be learned in a few minutes if given the opportunity of education. and quite frankly, the transfer rates of mechanical and optical devices is certainly fine being expressed in bits rather than bytes. again it doesn't take too much time or effort to convert from one unit to another.

progress is good but here it's just being done for the sake of change. take 60 seconds and explain the issue and most people will be just fine and ready to go.

Re:Not all bytes are created equal.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm no. What if I use the metric prefix to mean the metric amount and want to be specific about it? Call it a "metric metric prefix"? Geez.

Slashdot Club

[Viper Daimao]

First rule about Slashdot Club is you do not talk about dupes in Slashdot Club.
Second rule about Slashdot Club is you DO NOT talk about dupes in Slashdot Club.
Thrid rule about Slashdot Club is someone yells Dupe!, points out a dupe, or comments on a dupe, story is over.
Forth rule, two editors to a dupe.
Fifth rule, one dupe at a time users.
Sixth rule, no search, no google.
Seventh rule, stories get duped as long as they have to.
And the eighth and final rule, if this is your first night at Slashdot Club, you have to dupe.

NOT a terabyte DVD Recorder

[PortHaven]

I'm disturbed. After seeing this article twice and just now catching that it is not what it mentions in the title.

This is a crap article....misleading to say the least.

Whoop-di-doo. Two 500gig hard drives and a a common DVD-burner. Anyone could build a PC with 1gig of storage and a DVD burner.

This is a "1 Terabyte Hard Drive Recorder w/DVD Burner"

What I want is a new bloody medium that will hold 1,000gig so I can burn archives of photos, video, etc. on to a just a few discs.

Re:NOT a terabyte DVD Recorder

[mwilli]

Anyone could build a PC with 1gig of storage and a DVD burner.

No, most people wouldn't know where to find such small drives. You have to raid some pretty old hardware in order to find those 1 gig drives. That won't even hold my pROn collection!

Re:NOT a terabyte DVD Recorder

[tepples]

most people wouldn't know where to find such small drives. You have to raid some pretty old hardware

Want to put video on a 1 GB solid-state medium? Try Froogle: 1 GB CF, or if you just got a PSP, 1 GB memory stick duo. Sure, it's not 1 TB, but at least you can take it with you.

Japan Only

[tji]

From TFA: "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."

I am very happy with my MythTV PVR (well, it could be a bit more stable, but it's still very usable). I have two HD tuners and two analog tuners, so I can record a lot of stuff.

One difficulty of open solutions is that they can't handle encrypted channels (ESPN, Showtime, etc). A commercial DVR, with 'CableCard' support would solve this. -- Of course, you would also give up the commercial removal/skipping, full networked operation, unlimited hardware/software, etc.. I guess I'll stick with MythTV.

Why no modular DVRs?

[swb]

I'm curious why there appear to be no commercial, modular DVRs where you can add storage via USB2/Firewire.

In an ideal world, the entire system would be modular with connectivity via both Ethernet and USB2/Firewire.

I'd have:

Base module -- akin to a Tivo. Includes CPU, storage, tuner and display output. Has Firewire/USB2 ports and Ethernet

Remote module -- Base module with no storage, but ethernet ports, USB2/Firewire, tuner & display. Ideal for bedroom.

Storage modules -- HDD / DVD recording boxes cabled via FW/USB2 to a base or remote module.

Recording scheduling would be distributed dynamically among units based on existing schedules and available storage, and the units could play any program on a connected unit.

For the neophyte, they could sell a "base" module akin to a Tivo's hardware and sophisticates could add additional stuff as they see fit.

Re:Why no modular DVRs?

[Gary]

I can say that the Scientific Atlanta 8300HD has an external SATA port for supposedly expanding the storage capacity of it's DVR. I haven't tried it yet to see if it actually works though.

Re:Why no modular DVRs?

[shawngarringer]

I have, and it works fine for me... The fact that the boxes UI sucks in general though is unavoidable...

People often use brand names

[jd0g85]

Could you please pass me a Kleenex("soft facial tissue")?

I'm out of Q-tips ("cotton-tipped swabs"), can you pick up another box at the store?

Do you have any Chapstick ("moisturizing lip balm")?

Re:People often use brand names

[smackjer]

Instead of Chapstick, I recommend good old Vaseline (petroleum jelly).

You're right...

[game kid]

...but at least it'll be compatible with competitor Hitach's new 500GB drive.

even if....

[joerdie]

The price for this is higher than buying the shows that you would want to record anyway. the artical used the Simpsons as an example, all of the DVD box set will only cost approx $400. Do you realise how long it would take to see any profit from this? (hint: by then better/cheaper stuff will be around)

Fix the title

[nedder]

Hitachi's Terabyte......................DVD Recorder

This is like the Playstation 2 box, manual, dualshock that was selling on ebay for $300 when the PS2 first came out.

Hard drives are not DVDs

[Old Wolf]

How can it be a DVD RECORDER if it is recording onto two HARD DRIVES ?

What is the point of recording 1TB of data onto harddrives if you can only fit 4.7Gb on a DVD?

Sure, you can play it back off the hard drives, but then you have not recorded any DVDs.

Communication: 10/100 Base-T LAN

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd think for the price, they could've included 10/100/1000.....

Not really a dupe

[BobPaul]

Not actually a dupe!

The origional story said "hitachi will do this in a month"

The current story says "hitachi it's, and it costs this much". The story should have had a "previously mentioned" but that doesn't make it a dupe
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