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Technology Hardware

Terabyte DVD Recorder Available Next Month 246

Posted by samzenpus from the a-fistful-of-movies dept.
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."
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Terabyte DVD Recorder Available Next Month More

Terabyte DVD Recorder Available Next Month

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  • "1 TB (Score:4, Funny)

    by VeganBob ( 888165 ) <robertmbaldwin@@@gmail...com> on Thursday August 25, 2005 @08:06AM (#13396357) Homepage
    ...should be enough for anyone." - Robert M. Baldwin
    • "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?

  • Now... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Musteval ( 817324 ) on Thursday August 25, 2005 @08:07AM (#13396363)
    We just need to get some high-definition digital broadcasting that's worth watching.

  • Ain't exactly a "1Tbyte dvd recorder", is it? (Score:5, Informative)

    by ducklord ( 770855 ) on Thursday August 25, 2005 @08:08AM (#13396368)
    ...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...
    • 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.

    • 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 [newegg.com] and a DVD recorder [newegg.com] (dual-layer, of course) for les

      • 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 t
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • "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 stil
      • 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.

  • Meh (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MacroRex ( 548024 ) on Thursday August 25, 2005 @08:09AM (#13396374)

    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...

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

      I ain't thrilled...

  • Wow! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Knossos ( 814024 ) <knossos@NoSPAm.gmail.com> on Thursday August 25, 2005 @08:09AM (#13396375)
    Just imagine the amount of por.... Er... Integral office backups you could store...

  • Media (Score:3, Insightful)

    by kevin_conaway ( 585204 ) on Thursday August 25, 2005 @08:09AM (#13396376) Homepage
    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 (Score:3, Informative)

      by WTBF ( 893340 )
      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.
      • 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. Unli

  • dam thats a lot of space for all your pr0n (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    128 hrs of watching your porn movies its gonna do something to ya!
  • ...just a hifi component with a large HD/HDs and a DVD writer.

  • calrification (Score:5, Informative)

    by justforaday ( 560408 ) on Thursday August 25, 2005 @08:12AM (#13396387)
    The DVDs are still 4.7GB capacity. The hard disk space in the device equals 1TB (2 x 500GB).

  • RTFA... (Score:4, Informative)

    by unsupported ( 230678 ) on Thursday August 25, 2005 @08:14AM (#13396394)
    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

  • Yen to dollars (Score:4, Informative)

    by TripMaster Monkey ( 862126 ) * on Thursday August 25, 2005 @08:14AM (#13396398)

    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.

  • Copyright charges (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jurt1235 ( 834677 ) on Thursday August 25, 2005 @08:19AM (#13396419) Homepage
    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....
    • "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 th
      • 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 i

  • It still makes sense (Score:2, Insightful)

    by 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...

  • In other news... (Score:5, Funny)

    by b06r011 ( 763282 ) on Thursday August 25, 2005 @08:29AM (#13396449)
    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...

  • But what do you record? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ChrisF79 ( 829953 ) on Thursday August 25, 2005 @08:39AM (#13396500) Homepage
    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.
    • 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.
      • 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.

  • Here comes the math (Thanks google) (Score:5, Informative)

    by irc.goatse.cx troll ( 593289 ) on Thursday August 25, 2005 @08:48AM (#13396539) Journal
    According to http://nedron.net/fom_server/cache/62.html [nedron.net]
    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.

  • A distinct difference (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Iriel ( 810009 ) on Thursday August 25, 2005 @08:53AM (#13396562) Homepage
    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.

  • They didn't say (Score:3, Funny)

    by suso ( 153703 ) * on Thursday August 25, 2005 @09:10AM (#13396627) Journal
    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?
  • 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 ?

  • Read story without registration (Score:3, Informative)

    by blastard ( 816262 ) on Thursday August 25, 2005 @09:42AM (#13396858)
    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 [reuters.co.uk]
  • 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.
  • 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 D

  • Bah! Damn corprate hell. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by dieman ( 4814 ) on Thursday August 25, 2005 @10:18AM (#13397140) Homepage
    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.... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Fordiman ( 689627 ) * <fordiman@g[ ]l.com ['mai' in gap]> on Thursday August 25, 2005 @10:29AM (#13397222) Homepage Journal
    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...
  • 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
  • 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.
  • 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 pr0gram

  • Who comes up with this stuff? (Score:3, Funny)

    by qw(name) ( 718245 ) on Thursday August 25, 2005 @12:01PM (#13398076) Journal


    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.
  • 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?

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