Asked the same question about 6 months ago, but, any progress on U.S. getting a standalone HD recorder, such as blu-ray? What are the chances of importing something that will work here? Even something that could record in h.264 would be great because you can make HD on DVD disks, which would be great until blu-ray disks come down.

No progress. Standalone Blu-ray recorder products still run $1200-$1800 overseas. Consumers in North America won't pay half that, so the cost of the technology must fall significantly before we'll see it in the states. Products sold overseas don't have compatible tuners.

Many on this forum burn to Blu-ray today, but it requires a computer with a $200 Blu-ray recorder. To acquire content to burn to disk, you: (a) record local channels with a PC, (b) record local channels and cable channels with a TivoHD and then download them to your PC, or (c) capture component output from another box using the Hauppauge HD PVR.

Products sold overseas don't have compatible tuners.
S. Korea has Blu-ray recorders with ATSC tuners. Are they not compatible with ATSC in the US?

Even if the recorder's tuner is not compatible, some recorders have other inputs such as Firewire, which might work in the US.

S. Korea has Blu-ray recorders with ATSC tuners. Are they not compatible with ATSC in the US?

Even if the recorder's tuner is not compatible, some recorders have other inputs such as Firewire, which might work in the US.


There are no stand alone Blu-ray recorders in S. Korea. If there are post a link. Some Japanese recorders have firewire and can be used in US no problem.

At this point, you can use TiVo HD DVR, a cable HD DVR w/Firewire, an OTA capture device/card to your computer (as w/AutumnWave's OnAir GT), or via the Hauppauge HD DVR (which captures off any hi-def device via component) to your computer.

Once the captured files are on your computer, there are a # of ways to play them back: stream to TiVo HD or a networked media device (http://www.networkedmediatank.com/index.php) like the Popcorn Hour A110. Or, you can burn the files to DVD media as AVCHD or to Blu-ray media. Freeware tools like multiAVCHD (http://multiavchd.deanbg.com/) make it fairly easy.

Even if Blu-ray recorders show up in the U.S., I probably wouldn't buy them, unless they were under $500. Because about the only thing you'd likely be allowed to record would be OTA and your hi-def camcorder footage.

There are no stand alone Blu-ray recorders in S. Korea. If there are post a link.
The LG BH-6900 (http://images.blu-ray.com/recorders/lg.jpg) was made there.

Some Japanese recorders have firewire and can be used in US no problem.

Yeah, maybe if you have something to feed them with; of course, considering many cable providers conveniently ignore the mandates about IEEE-1394, and most OTA ATSC receivers (or at least the ones I'm aware of) don't have IEEE-1394 ports, at this point, that might be a slight problem.