Pioneer Plans to Launch Blu-ray Recorders
July 08, 2008 | by Geoff Duncan
Pioneer says it plans to work with Sharp to offer Blu-ray recorders in Japan by the end of the year.
Japanese electronics giant Pioneer has said it plans to work with Sharp to offer Blu-ray recorders on the Japanese market by the end of 2008, hoping to latch onto a growing market as consumers move past the so-called "format war" between HD DVD and Blu-ray. Sharp already offers (pricey) Blu-ray recorders, and is a major investor in Pioneer.
According to estimates from the Fuji Chimera Research Institute, the market for Blu-ray recorders in Japan is expected to explode between now and 2012, growing to some 3.6 million units a year.
Pioneer hasn't announced any price ranges, feature sets, or target sales figures for its Blu-ray recorders, nor has it made any indication whether it plans to offer the recorders in overseas markets. In North America, Blu-ray has been slow to take hold outside of the PlayStation 3 video game console, as consumers looking for high-definition content seem relatively happy with upscaling standard DVDs and recording other high-definition content sources to hard drive-based DVRs, game consoles, appliances, or computers.
Post Your Comment...Comments
Kevin on Jul 8th, 2008 at 11:53 AM:
The benefit is that you'll be able to utilize the new Blue-Ray 400gb 16layer disks... where you can backup entire hard drives, a multitude of movies, or entire seasons of tv episodes on one disk. ;P
Just a few uses...
I'm not willing to fork out the money for 1st gen units (nor regular players for that matter), but eventually I'll find it useful enough to throw down some money on 2nd or 3rd gen.
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Jason Howard on Jul 8th, 2008 at 9:49 AM:
With DVRs already popular in the states and elsewhere, who will be willing to really fork out a ton of cash for a Blu-ray recorder? They have hi-def DVRs now, so what is the benefit?