Blu Ray Recorders in the US?

General consensus is they won't. Everyone (read: mainstream consumers) are enamored with TiVo and cable/sat DVRs, which handle the timeshifting needs for Joe Six Pack. If DVD recorders never truly took off, they probably won't bother to give us Blu-Ray recorders.

If you want one, move to Japan.

Don't hold your breath. A limited number of BD/HDD recorders have been developed for Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Japan- but it stops there. These mfrs were so totally burned and bankrupted trying to market DVD recording in North America, they will never attempt another recordable disc format here ever again. The thing you need to remember about BluRay is its essentially nothing more than DVD on steroids. More disc capacity and High Definition do nothing whatsoever to address the many reasons American consumers loathe disc recording. Look up the threads here regarding "why no more DVD/HDD recorders" if you want to get really depressed by details. If for no other reason, our atrocious inconsistent ATSC time signals completely neuter any timeshifting abilities in existing DVD recorders, BluRay recorders would have the same issues.

Aside from this, BluRay is already "dying" even though its still on its way to becoming popular: no format succeeds without Hollywood, and Hollywood is so disgusted with Sony, Toshiba and the entire HiDef disc fiasco that they've collectively written BD off already. All studio resources are currently being thrown into a universal memory card format being developed in cooperation with the major chip vendors in Asia. The studios are fixated on the youth market, but the youth market has its head up its ass and refuses to be bothered with any format not instantly playable on their phones, iPods or PSPs. Discs are out: don't be fooled by the millions still being sold, Hollywood wants to jump ahead of current usage patterns and market a format that can be instantly moved from device to device without ripping. The studios are racing to get behind this idea before the "download model" completely destroys their profitable "packaged media" business. BD players will be around for quite awhile yet, but there isn't going to be any serious development or mass marketing of BD recorders.

I was at Sears today and noticed they didn't display a Panasonic DVDR anymore, in it's place was a combo.........BR player and............VCR
Talk about a odd mix It made me laugh anyway.

I ditto what Citibear and Tupla said. Except I'll add that it seems most North Americans have allowed themselves to be completely fleeced by the corps and tricked into paying by the minute for garbage and no longer know when they are being ripped off. If they did, we would see unrelenting demand for such things forcing them to come to market.
In other words, I guess the people of Europe and all the other places are more willing to put a tiny bit more effort in to have the ability to record or something, I don't know.
I look at BR and wonder what is so great about it? Ok, so you can stuff more data on a BR disc providing for more audio options to the 7.1 area, but what is wrong with 5.1, which is the max of a DVD appearantly? As for PQ BR stinks in my opinion from what I have seen. Everything looks animated, not that there is anything wrong with animation, but I don't want animation or cartoons when I am trying to watch say a Bond movie or a concert! Perhaps I have seen too many BR played on poorly set up TVs, I don't know.
Besides, who wants to pay $30 to $40 for a single BR disc? Not me! On top of that paying $300+ for a one trick pony like a BR Player. For $300 I want something that will record, upconvert, preserve and play anything. Besides, I can get a box set of DVDs for $40 or less which are just as good, if not better than BR in my eyes.
I'm glad BR is on its way out, I was saying that since it was introduced.
The thing I fear though is that could mean that DVDs are going away as well. If the only thing left is "vapor-content" (Universal memory card, DVRs, etc) then choice of content will plummet to just the 10 most popular shows and movies = no variety, no choices. I for one like concert DVDs from my favorite artists, a good movie once in a while and documentaries. How would one get any of those things with this memory stick stuff or whatever?

What's amazing is that will probably outsell all the others.

Why would that happen? It's just moving from one storage medium to another. The situation you're describing didn't happen in the move from VHS to DVD, so why should it happen when it moves from DVD to the Internet or memory cards?

Whether it's stored on a disc in your home or on a server in France, it shouldn't make any difference. If enough are wiling to pay for it, then it'll be there.

Maybe it's just my fear of corporate control or majority rule or something. The price will probably be prohibitive though. (Then again, even VCRs were super high priced when they first came to market and look at DVD players now days, one can be had for $60 quality not withstanding). It's just that I don't see BR players or discs prices coming down either.

There's nothing inherent in online streaming or memory cards that would increase what the corporations already control. Don't be a worry wart. Just remember the consumer is in control, not the corporations. The only downside is... the consumer is in control. (That's why we don't have Blu-Ray recorders.)


Blu-Ray will come down in price. Nothing about the technology says it will stay high. It already has dropped a lot. You can get a player for under $200, and it keeps going down. Two years ago, the cheapest player was the lowest PS3 at like $400.

Now, online streaming and other memory types could kill Blu-Ray off. It all depends on what the majority of consumers want at any given time. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it drives AVSers batty.

While that is a possibility, I think the trend is to be releasing "everything in the vault" on DVD, and I don't expect that to change if there is money to be made. If they can make the content completely protected and still accessable, then everything will be commercially available. The trend will not be for less available content, but more. Everything from "Space Above and Beyond," "Dragnet" and "MY MOTHER THE CAR," are all available on DVD. If these can make money, then the trend for more and more exotic content will continue, until the technology for on-line availability is worked out making personally owned media obsolete.

Church AV Guy has a good point. The ultimate boon for the consumer is for him to sit in his Laz-E-Boy and get whatever movie or TV show he wants right that second coming over the net. In full HD, of course.

The eventual move to memory cards will be a boon to those of us who want the more obscure content: one of the benefits studios dearly prize in memory cards is the ability for stores to have cheap solid-state kiosks or vending machines that can download anything you want onto your own "blank" cards (for a studio fee, of course). Warner is already doing a variation on this with their "burn to order" DVD website, which other studios will emulate by the end of this year. They initially wanted to install "burning stations" in stores like Wal*Mart, but the time factor of burning coupled with complicated mechanicals and necessity for an employee brighter than a 15 watt refrigerator bulb killed that idea.

The superstores are VERY interested in a memory card kiosk, though, because it can be made self-service and idiot-proof. Apple is about to launch some sort of wireless kiosk that iPhone/iPod owners can use to download paid content, but they're the only ones keen on that: most content owners are leery of wireless or download-to-your-computer solutions. The memory card is viewed as the final iteration of packaged media, a bridge technology to keep the dollars flowing another 5 years until somebody, somewhere can figure out how to actually turn a profit from downloaded delivery. In the meantime pre-recorded cards would pick up lost sales from DVD and BD, and the kiosks would get the retail sector on board as it will drive their sales of blank media. Whether Hollywood, Toshiba and the other chip makers can get this off the ground fast enough is anyones guess. Although, after the disaster that resulted from the studios trying a "hands off" approach to the Sony/Toshiba disc war, they're muscling back in again: with a vengeance. They will not permit the next video format to be developed via another idiotic pissing contest between egotistical Japanese corporations.

Seriously, did Sony and Toshiba really think anything good would come of that? Effing morons: if they had combined forces, as was done for DVD, HDTV disc recorders would have been available two years ago before the consumer tide turned forever against disc recording. Even if we still ended up stuck with the same limited half-assed end-of-life models we have now, a high def version of the Panasonic EZ-48 or Magnavox H2160 would have been a hell of a lot more interesting.

There was a serious effort to combine the best of BD and HD and at the last second I think Sony bailed out but one of them did and pooched the whole deal.
HD-DVD players were final spec from the get go and were cheaper and so were the movies. The minute Toshiba gave up the great deals on HD movies from the BD side died and the HD stuff was mostly sent back to be shredded after a very short blow out by CC and BB.
Unfortunately cheaper is relative as I thought paying 500 for a HD-DVD player was about as stupid as paying 1000 for a Sony Blu ray player, plus 30 bucks a movie for a while...
Sony had deeper pockets this time and is still getting even for Betamax.

All of the UK Blu-ray recorders have hard disc PVRs in them as well - driven by the Freesat+ PVR standard (8 day EPG, Series Record, Broadcaster triggered record start/stop to cope with over-runs or re-schedules etc.) with two satellite tuners in them.

There is no encryption on the UK Freesat satellite system - though the Freesat HD signals do carry some copy protection flags (BBC HD is Copy Once - allowing just a single BD to be made of any show from the PVR recording)

We don't have any non-PVR based BD recorders on sale in the UK. I don't know if the Panasonics can record directly to BD or if you have to record via the hard drive first.

Who knows if they will sell. There are non-BD Freesat+ HD PVRs with dual tuners on sale for a LOT less.

Here here.

Hmm, no thanks. I'd rather purchase the DVD, it's less expensive and one doesn't have to worry about things going wrong unless one gets a bad DVD and that is rare.

Just another reason Europe is better off then North America. At least you nice folks get to try something before it's shot down. I envy Europe. Actually, I always have because I've made friends over there.

The UK is in a class of its own, even compared to the rest of Europe. There is a ton of content being sent over DVT-B and FreeSat because the UK tv-tax supports it, making it "ipso-facto" a standardized system and mostly unprotected. The "FreeView" type of guide-timer system is far better supported than the lame privately-owned TVGOS system in North America (which is managed about as well as one of our auto companies). This uniformity makes the operation and appeal of independent recorders much more attractive than the systems here, which were killed dead by proprietary PVRs which offer the easy functionality of the UK systems- thats why they're successful. A TiVO or cable/satellite PVR works more-or-less just like a Panasonic, Pioneer or Sony DVD/HDD recorder does in the UK, minus the DVD burning.

I don't think we're going to see "bargain" BD recorders without hard drives. DVD recorders without hard drives are hopelessly crude and limited in functionality compared to even a VHS vcr, I can't see anyone wanting what amounts to a hi-def DVD recorder thats equally crippled. BD recording is bound to be such a niche market that few consumers will be looking to shave $50 by losing the HDD feature.

One curious point that intrigues a lot of American members is the specific regions where BD recorders are marketed. At first glance it seems odd that Australia and New Zealand would get such "favored" standing. But a number of Europeans have remarked it makes perfect sense demographically: Europe has (or had) the disposable income, but small living spaces lead to smaller TVs and somewhat less interest in HDTV recording. Ditto Asia: its kind of a draw between being able to afford BD recording and actually having a need for it (compensated by the Asian fascination with toys regardless of need). New Zealand and Australia would be more like North America: big spaces conducive to big TV screens priming the market (mfrs hope) for an HDTV recorder.

Just some thoughts:

1) A lot of people just don't record. Even when VCRs were popular I know people that used them only for playing rental tapes & never recorded with them. And never even set the clock.

2) A lot of people don't care about quality. The general consensus is that Beta was better than VHS. But VHS had the 6 hr recording speed which was a strong selling point for those that recorded. Laserdiscs never really caught on despite the superior picture compared to Beta or VHS. But the discs required a bit more TLC in using. And whatever happened to Super Audio CD or DVD-Audio?

3) People like convenience. Hence the popularity of CDs and DVDs. Now it seems everyone has an iPod or MP3 player. They are willing to give up quality for compressed audio and the convenience having a large portable song library.

The forum members are not typical of the mass majority of people who shop at BestBuy or Walmart. Unfortunately manufacturers are not going to make a lot of money on our niche group, and therefore are not going to offer some products that we want.

Amen Citibear.

I may be wrong, but I also hear that the programmes on tely on the UK don't have as much commercial interuptions (not like the U.S. anyway). I think most of the commercials comes between the shows over there?

Exactly! Personally, I prefer noncompressed music thanks. I wouldn't give you a quid for a warehouse full of new ipods. Give me CDs & DVDs (I know DVD's are compressed, but considered "old school" these days).
I usually take MP3s if that's what is only available per situation and try to remaster them by converting them back to .wav format at least and then cleaning up the sound.

I would. Then I'd sell 'em.

While thats true, as a long-ago video store owner I can tell you there were other reasons along with those, which when you roll them altogether also apply to todays "independent DVD recorder vs proprietary PVR" smackdown. One of the biggest, most damaging strikes against the Betamax was that Sony just could not build one that didn't break down once a month until Beta was already "dead", later in the 1980s. I can't tell you how many grizzled old service guys retired on the sudden windfall of Sony Betamax repair fees. Over many years, and thousands of customers, that was a big topic of discussion: Beta would have sold more, and retained its installed base longer, if only Sony had figured out how not to make crappy mechanicals. It was like a bizarre curse: the Betamax was beautifully built of high-grade parts, but the damn things could not function well for more than a few weeks at a time.

THAT, combined with the growing trend toward video rental stores on every streetcorner, which were mostly started by random twits with $5,000 to invest "in the latest scam", is what did Beta in. By 1982 rental stores were everywhere, run by the housewives of teamsters who were NOT at all keen on the idea of stocking two formats. The final nail was that pre-recorded Hollywood Beta tape quality totally sucked compared to home-recorded Beta tapes, or even pre-recorded VHS. Five years after introducing the hottest home electronics gadget of the century, Sony was completely marginalized, mostly traceable back to that first, incredibly stupid decision to base the Beta format on 60 minute tapes (when the number one thing people wanted to record was the then-popular "movie of the week" theatrical films: do movies run 60 mins in Japan?).

Anyway a lot of this in different degrees also applies to DVD recorders and BD: early ones were obscenely expensive but had burners that wore out within a year. Later ones had other defects that made them hard to use, then blank media quality went into the toilet causing way too many coasters, then Sony and Toshiba started the irrational incompatible war over a followup disc, leaving retailers totally screwed. Fast forward to BluRays "win", and Sony is repeating the Beta mess all over again: ridiculously complicated player hardware that the consumer needs to keep "upgrading" and Hollywood pre-recs that often don't look a helluva lot better than plain DVDs at half the price. Deja-friggin-vu. Maybe our great-grandchildren will finally get this right.

As someone else said (the reply is wrongly quoted so I'm replying to the original), BD players are under $200 already. It was on the HD & Home Theatre podcast that it was mentioned. $150 IIRC. I believe it *didn't* do BD Live, however.

Hell, the first DVD player I had (still have) is a sony S330 or something like that.. basically the first "low priced" one.. and it was $300.

BluRay discs are already showing up in Fry's ads for under $20.. a few WAY under (yeah, bad movies).. But I'm still amazed at how quickly the prices have dropped. The movies out this week seem to OFTEN be under $20.

If I could make BluRay DVDs (easily) have folders and such, I'd want one. That is, something slightly, but not hugely, more complex than the existing DVD recorder (XS32) I already have. Then I could easily use it to keep batches of similar recordings.

Yep - and AIUI soon the whole of Europe will have stricter advertising restrictions.

Most UK half hour shows on commercial terrestrial channels only have a single centre-break. So if you have a schedule with two half-hour shows you will get a break at the top of the hour, approx quarter past, half past, and quarter to the hour.

When US shows are shown on these outlets we often see the junctions where the US airing would have an ad break edited together.

Pay TV channels are a bit different at the moment (though the EU rules may change those) with many shows having more ad breaks than I mentioned.

However there is also a restriction on the minutes per hour you can air ads - which means that US series usually run in shorter slots in the UK than they do in Europe.

And, of course, shows on the BBC don't have ad breaks at all. A BBC half hour show is 28-29 minutes long and un-interrupted.

Yep - and the broadcast topology is also very different in the UK. The main EPGs (Freeview, Freesat, Sky etc.) are all supported at the network level, and are taken seriously by many (if not most) broadcasters - and are tied closely to the network playout systems. The significantly reduced level of regional variations in the UK means that the EPGs can be managed by the broadcasters themselves at the network level.

The Freeview transmitters were only ever operated by two companies (in the UK broadcasters have outsourced their transmitters) which are now merged - and a uniform distribution infrastructure was embedded in the original transmitter planning for OTA digital in the UK (with each transmitter having a dedicated data inserter)

You're also right that because of the popularity of analogue OTA in the UK (because of reasonable content and transmission quality) and then the increased choice (with watchable content) on the new channels introduced when digital TV launched - the UK does have a very different infrastructure.

In many countries the digital TV system was just a simulcast of analogue stations with a few channels already available on existing satellite/cable systems (sometimes as pay-TV) added. In the UK the BBC, ITV, C4 and Five have all launched new channels, with significant amounts of new content or decent imports to schedule on them.


Also - Aus has had MPEG2 HD via DVB-T for around 10 years - so is a mature OTA HD market where HD broadcasts are not scrambled. New Zealand has recently launched an H264 OTA DVB-T system (and a sister satellite system) In both NZ and Aus - OTA is a popular system for TV viewing.

The two markets make sense for BD recorders as they are both un-encrypted HD sources AIUI - so there is a requirement to record them.

In Europe most HD is encrypted and on satellite or cable (and not easy to record) - with OTA HD only recently launching in France and Sweden in H264 via DVB-T.

The UK is launching HD OTA via DVB-T2 later this year - but there is no formal service yet (just tests) and DVB-T2 silicon is only just beginning to be produced. However the UK is relatively unusual in having HD FTA content on a satellite platform - hence the Blu-ray recorders in the UK aren't OTA but satellite based.

I wasn't talking about right now. In the very near future, DVDs will go away (everything does, eventually) and you will have to deal with getting everything over the Net. Unless you just stick with what you have right now until the end of your (or your equipment's) life.

Blu-Ray recorders in the US?
Never.
Who needs them?

Strong words, but the issue is not Blu-Ray recording at all but rather HD/5.1 recording. One hour of broadcast (OTA) HD/5.1 fits very comfortably on a single, inexpensive DVD+DL (inexpensive, relative to BD-R). After clipping out the commercials, many many "1hr" HD/5.1 broadcast episodes will trim down enough to fit comfortably on a single DVD-R. Basically all Blu-Ray players sold today support playback of AVCHD DVD's so playback is not a PC-only thing. Anybody with a networked TiVo HD can do this now.

If there were any kind of a US market for HD recording to removable media, beyond a handful of enthusiasts, it is certainly within the realm of currently inexpensive technology to produce a DVD recorder that records in HD/5.1 and burns HD/5.1 output to single or dual-layer media. A 160 GB HDD holds 21 hr of broadcast HD so you don't even need to invoke a massive HDD to drive up costs.

The nonsense about the media companys' conspiracy to prevent HD recording is just that -- nonsense. As I said, anybody with a TiVo HD can do this, and a whole lot more, NOW. Perhaps it's just the case that TiVo has satisfied what market there is for it.

But it's easier to gripe about a conspiracy than it is about the market finding its own level.

This subject has been argued to death, and whole books have been written on it, but...



I was always told that one of the big Beta problems was that Sony refused to license it. I guess, what, they assumed that no one was going to come up with a competitive product, if they couldn't have Beta, so Sony would have 100% of the market with every other manufacturer grumbling how Sony wouldn't license Beta? When I went to an electronics store, there were twelve manufacturers lines of VHS recorders, and three Beta machines. That kind of competition is hard to overcome. If they had licensed Beta, VHS would never have seen the light of day.

Also, the longer recording time allowed people to tape sports without having to swap tapes. Unattended recording was the whole idea for these things, and getting only half a game was unthinkable.

Beta had at least a year start before VHS came out (my numbers might be off here, but I remember the first Beta in 1975, and VHS in 1976). It was a bit of a joke that you could tell the affluence of a neighborhood by looking at the video rental stores. Since Beta machines were first, and very expensive, only people with large discretionary budgets could afford them. Once someone bought into a format, they stuck with it. Affluent neighborhoods had video rental stores stocked with Beta tapes. Places with mostly VHS tapes were less so. People who were buying houses were aware of this kind of thing.