Sharp to offer Blu-ray recorder with 1-terabyte HDD

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070926/tc_nm/sharp_blu_ray_dc

In Japan only, of course. Cost is about $2600. Capable of recording 127 hours of high-definition programs.

"...[Sharp] said on Wednesday it has no specific plans at the moment for overseas launch of these products."

At least they're not categorically ruling it out. But I sure wouldn't pay $2600 for one. Knock off the first digit and then I'll be tempted!

A pity we won't see it here, but that that price, they would sell very few. I guess there are places that value their television much more then we do in the USA. For $2600, the person would have to value the quality of their TV a LOT! The blank disks are probably not in the $0.30 range either.

What makes something like this sell in Japan is that there is no rental model. The cablecos have made HD timeshifting too cheap here to introduce a $2,600 HD DVD recorder.

And add on top of this the new TivoHD priced at $299 + subscription. The USA is a tough market for $2,600 units.

What makes something like this sell in Japan is that there is no rental model.

Do you mean no DVD rental modal, or no digital/PPV rental model?

The predecessor to the Panasonic DMR-HS2 cost several thousand dollars around 2001, when it was first HDD DVD recorder Panasonic sold in the US. I am not sure about the price, but it could have been over $3,000. So, $2,600 is not that much now for a top of the 1 TB Blu-ray recorder. After all, a few people paid over $500 for an iPod cell phone not that long ago.

The problem is there is now an unofficial digital Prohibition Act in force in the United States, with HDD DVD recorders from the major Japanese manufacturers blocked from the US market. The Philips 3575 unit that is for sale in the US now has a 3-5 week shipping delay from Amazon.com, indicating some sort of problem. I got mine three days after my order date from Amazon three weeks ago.

Meanwhile, Best Buy and Circuit City are having problems coming up with new electronic goods to attract customers. Blu-ray DVD players are a bust so far. HD-DVD players are not faring much better. Halo 3, a video game, is doing great, but once the players buy this game, they can spend all their free time on it for weeks, without buying more stuff like new DVD movie releases. At least with an HDD DVD recorder, users buy blank DVDRs and upgrade to better technology. That ain’t happening in the US, where cheaply made DVD recorders are souring the retail market.

I have never bought the conspiracy theory.

One reason is because I have looked far and wide for any evidence to support this. Add to this the fact that there are plenty of products that address this already on the market - OTA HD PVRs with burners for example. But they appeal to a very small niche market. This niche market is not attractive to the suppliers of the mass market. Which is what the Japanese suppliers are. I believe it is market driven.

This post pretty much sums it up:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=11740611&postcount=7

When you look at the cost of the machine (which is a cheap rental here in the USA) for HD DVR time shifting features then add the cost of consumables (HD discs) it becomes out of reach. $100 - $175 ain't going to cut it.

What conspiracy theory? The facts are there, in the space of three weeks in March 2007, almost all high quality HDD DVD recorders vanished from the US market. Explaining away the situation by claiming Japanese companies like Pioneer lost billions in the electronics market ignores the salient fact that Japanese companies are willing to lose tons of money up front to maintain market share in a competitive environment. When the microprocessor chip makers were duking it out in the late 90s, Toshiba lost over $2 billion to stay in the market and Micron, a U.S. company, shut down its chip "fab" plant in Idaho rather than continuing to take losses.

When my Epson R220 printer stopped working this July, I couldn't buy a replacement because Epson had pulled the R220 off the market because generic ink cartridges were available for it. Epson replaced it, a model about a year old, with the R260, a noisier, bigger printer that goes through ink like water and takes longer to print on printable DVDRs. But for a while, there were no generic ink cartridges on the market for the R260. Now, R220s sell on e-Bay for $150, twice what a new R260 goes for on Amazon. Maybe there is a conspiracy there too that I did not notice.

Using the lame conspiracy card to belittle postings about the dismal HDD DVD recorder situation in the US does not cut it.

The Philips 3575 unit that is for sale in the US now has a 3-5 week shipping delay from Amazon.com, indicating some sort of problem. I got mine three days after my order date from Amazon three weeks ago.



In your mind, based on the way you look at things, what type of a problem does this indicate? Please be a bit clearer.

I have always read where the Japanese take their TV more seriously. Where Laserdisc was a niche product in the U.S., it was standard for the discerning Japanese. The Japanese LDs themselves where considered superior quality in video transfer. The Japanese were also early adopters of HD television broadcasts, Sony minidisc machines and at least supported Beta more than U.S. users. New products are normally launched in Japan first, then the U.S. and then Europe and I don't think it is because the companies are located in Japan. They know the Japanese will buy these products. The average American does not care as much about quality as they do price so therefore we are "modeled" as a "mass market" and as such get cheaply built junk. I would gladly pay more for something that actually worked as promised out of the box and lasted for a while.

In your mind, based on the way you look at things, what type of a problem does this indicate? Please be a bit clearer.

For whatever reason, the Philips is no longer available for now. Maybe the interruption has something to do with the shortcomings the Philips has, shortcomings extensively reported here. Philips may be making modifications to the units so it does not have as many returns from dissatisfied customers.

And now you are playing the psychological card, trying to be clever. My original posting was pretty clear, no mention of any conspiracy theory. You are one strange dude.

Well. If you want one you can order from Walmart and have it tomorrow if you are willing to pay the freight. Circuit City too. At least as of this morning.

I unfortunately do not have the gift necessary to come up with what you did for the out of stock issue at Amazon.

Nothing wrong with being creative though.

For whatever reason, the Philips is no longer available for now. Maybe the interruption has something to do with the shortcomings the Philips has, shortcomings extensively reported here. Philips may be making modifications to the units so it does not have as many returns from dissatisfied customers.

And now you are playing the psychological card, trying to be clever. My original posting was pretty clear, no mention of any conspiracy theory. You are one strange dude.

I have seen the Philips recorder at Walmart recently, so I don't think your argument holds much weight.

The Philips DVDR3575H 160G HDD DVD Recorder w/ ATSC tuner is now back in stock at Amazon at its regular selling price of $290, with free two day shipping.

I have always read where the Japanese take their TV more seriously.


Take a stroll over to the HD forums and you'll find that a hard core group of Americans also take it seriously :)

Does anyone have any insight on the Japanese TV market? What I'm asking is whether Japan has mulitple providers that all use different systems.

In the US, we basically have D*, E*, Comcast, Verizon, TimeWarner, and some other smaller cable companies. All of these systems are different from each other. If a company wants to develop a PVR, they will have to choose which provider to support. Do you support D*, E* or cable/fiber/QAM? Then, do you want to support Comcast's VOD or Verizon's VOD. What about some MSO's going to SDV?

Do they have this situation in Japan? Or do they have a set standard that all of the providers follow, allowing CE manufacturers to design DVRs that can work for everyone?

ft