Sony unveils first Blu-ray recorder

Sony announced that it is to begin sales of the world's first Blu-ray based DVD-recorder next month. The recorder, BDZ-S77, which enables the consumers to record two hours of high-definition 1080i video at 24MBps on a blu-ray recordable disc, retails at around 450,000 yen ($3,800).

The product is aimed at consumers, who wish to record high-definition digital satellite broadcasts at the best possible quality. The release date in Japan is April 10th. So far no date has been given for an international release. It is unlikely that this particular product will ever hit shelves outside of Japan.

The drive is capable of reading Blu-Ray, DVD Video, DVD-R/RW, CD, and CD-R/RW discs. It can record on Blu-Ray discs at bitrates ranging from 4 to 24Mbps, which translates to 2 to 12 hours of recording capacity. There's only support for Blu-Ray recordables -- DVD-R/RWs cannot be written.

Check out the technical specifications at AV-Land.

Source:
News.com

Written by: Jari Ketola @ 3 Mar 2003 11:13

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14 comments

Bladestor

So, can blu-ray disc's be read on a conventional DVD player? It wouldnt think so, but if anyone knows please respond.

3.3.2003 14:09 #1

fedrive

keep an eye out for nanostorage in the form
of 3D volume holographic optical storage
whose capacity will = 20,000 Blu-Rays's.

3.3.2003 14:09 #2

dRD

Bladestor: No, in same manner as DVDs can't be read with CD drive, but CDs can be read with DVD drive -- DVDs will most likely be able to read with Blu-Ray drives.

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3.3.2003 14:22 #3

Ghostdog

So how does this new HD Blu-Ray video compare to regular MPEG2 (refering to DVD�s). I mean, 2 hours seems kind of short considering that the increased storage capacity is the most recognized feature of Blu-Ray.

How much better in quality is this "1080i" when compared to DVD-quality video.

DVD�s already look superb, and there is still space left on a DVD after a full movie.

4.3.2003 08:26 #4

chrono325

They can hold about 2 hours of 1080i, which is the best High Definition out. There is 480p, 480i, 720i, 720p, and 1080i. These all refer to resolutions while the "p" or "i" refers to progressive or interlaced (if you dont know what those mean, im sure you can find out on this site). I read somewhere that Blu-Ray discs will be able to hold around 20 hours of DVD quality video. In my opinion, DVD quality is more than enough for all but really large projectors or plasma screen TVs.

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4.3.2003 10:03 #5

dRD

1080i is 1920x1080 interlaced, so pretty much six times the resolution of DVD-Video (in States/Japan) -- NTSC DVD-Video can be max at 345,600 pixels where 1080i is 2,073,600.

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4.3.2003 14:47 #6

ThinkMatt

DVD video (mpeg2) is really quite old. It may look great, but the resolution on many of our TV's is just plain horrible. I was watching a presentation by Apple that put MPEG technology (DVD's) as new roughly the late 80's early 90's. If we as american's had higher quality TV's, we'd realize just how poor a quality DVD's are compared to today's "top of the line" media formats. Blu-Ray would be nice if we ever get to see it.

Matt Maciag
matt@thinkmatt.com
www.thinkmatt.com

4.3.2003 15:03 #7

dRD

Heh, as I've lived in the U.S. two years ago for a year, I was actually shocked about the mixed feelings in the American TV standards back then -- whereas in Europe they virtually don't sell 4:3 TVs at all anymore (damn, even my mom has 16:9 TV and she's almost 60 :-), in States virtually all the TVs were 4:3, but the screen sizes were much bigger, normally projection TVs (in Europe, standard "very good TV" nowadays is 32" Trinitron CRT 16:9 Sony Wega).

But anyway, MPEG itself is not outdated -- Blu-Ray uses MPEG-2, HDTV is MPEG-2, all digital mastering of TV shows in TV studios is done in MPEG-2, etc. The matter is only pushing the bandwidth and the resolution of the encoded MPEG-2 material higher -- with Blu-Ray/HDTV we can use 1920x1080 and ~25MBps (DVD-Video/DTV 720x480/576 with ~10MBps). Some specs that I've read about "movie quality", suggest that swicthing good olde analog movie cameras to digital ones, maintaining same quality, would require something along lines on 15,000x10,000 (very, very roughly estimated) resolution -- this would allow zooming in, detailed shots, etc out of the existing panoramic shots.

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4.3.2003 15:26 #8

Pio2001

Here in France, there is still 1 16:9 TV for 19 4:3 ones on the shelves in TV stores. All broadcasts are in PAL or Secam, that are 4:3 formats. NTSC is also 4:3.

The resolution of digital theatre movies is roughly 2000x1000 pixels only, for 35 mm films.

Pio2001

6.3.2003 01:58 #9

dRD

All broadcasts in the UK are also in PAL, but they're being broadcasted normally in anamorphic format through digiboxes that can handle the anamorphic selections correctly (for 4:3 TVs you can choose widescreen with borders or pan/scan).

But in the UK and in Finland, my feeling is that they hardly ever sell >20" TVs that are 4:3 anymore.

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6.3.2003 02:04 #10

monzaman

So when are the pc, TV and monitor manufacturers going to catch up with the digital world? It seems to me the first manufacturer to bring a decent hi res TV out will corner a huge new market. I know they have hi-def in the US but apparently it sucks (don't no myself) what everyone wants (in the digi world) is a TV that has the res of a monitor but the size and brightness of a 16:9 TV at an AFFORDABLE PRICE point. When (if?) we get these products all we will then need is SILENT pc's and the TRUE king of home entertainment will oust the great pretender that is broadcast TV.

Or is the reason that they have not released this product out of fear that the dog will start wagging the tail after 60 odd years of the tail wagging the dog!!!!

It all seems pretty pointless have high res pictures if the medium its displayed on (TV) cannot support it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

11.3.2003 03:41 #11

freat

I personally record HD broadcast shows to my computer hard-drive. My HDTV (32" Samsung) runs completely off of the computer. If you have the resolution, you will notice the difference. It is simply amazing what 1080i broadcasts look like.

I have 2 x 120GB drives to handle the massive amount of storage required. HD broadcasts are in 'transport stream' format which is simply MPEG-2 broken into packets of some sort. Currently I've messed around with re-encoding the transport stream files to windows media 9 files with excellent results. I can get 1 hour of video down from 9 GB to about 2 GB using 4000Kbps VBR video, 160Kbps audio (AC3). Thus, I can fit a movie onto a DVD. However, the software decoding of these files requires at MINIMUM a 1.6 - 1.8 GHz processor to playback smoothly. Fortunately for me I run a 2.26 @ 2.5 GHz. ;)

20.3.2003 06:37 #12

awesomejt

Gosh, for a writer that costs nearly $4000 you would think they would throw in the DVD-R/W ability for free. Another technology war on the horizon -- oh, down the rabbit hole we tumble.

My signature sucks.

12.5.2003 05:31 #13

fedrive

US Patented UV/Blue HolographicStorage

http://www.colossalstorage.net

18.5.2003 18:01 #14

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