This Japanese electronics company will launch the first device capable of recording information in the new generation DVD format on July 14. Another notable feature is that this product will integrate a 1 TB hard drive, sufficient to store 130 hours of HD content.
The Toshiba RD-A1 is also equipped with digital terrestrial, satellite, and analog (NTSC) TV tuners. The device allows recording on single-layer HD DVD-R discs (15 GB) and dual-layer discs (30 GB) but will encode in MPEG 2 format, rather than MPEG 4 AVC or VC1, which are still used for HD DVD standards. Even so, with MPEG 2, a 15 GB HD DVD-R disc can still store 2 hours of high-resolution content.
 |
Toshiba introduced the world’s first HD DVD recorder in Tokyo on June 22. Photo: AP |
 |
The RD-A1 is designed with numerous ports to support audio and video connections. Photo: Reg Hardware |
This new product can also read all CD-R/RW discs, one-time recordable DVDs, and rewritable DVDs, but can only record on DVD-R/RW/RAM formats.
Toshiba has announced that the retail price of the RD-A1 will be quite high, approximately $3,467. It also weighs up to 15.2 kg and has dimensions of 45.7 x 40.8 x 15.9 cm. The Japanese corporation hopes to sell 100,000 units by the end of this year.
The HD DVD players have been available in Japan since March and in the U.S. since April, but the RD-A1 is the first version capable of recording discs using Toshiba’s blue laser technology. Meanwhile, Sony announced yesterday that it has distributed Blu-ray-supported products to retailers in the U.S. and officially launched them on the market starting June 25.
