Audio Video News

Pioneer just announced two exciting new products for Japan: two Blu-ray Disc recorders, both with built-in HDDs. The BDR-WD900 has a 1 TB drive and the BDR-WD700 has a 500GB hard drive. Prices aren't available yet.

Want more info?

These HDD/BD recorders, with two digital tuners can simultaneously record two HD programs using MPEG-4 AVC/H.264. This compression scheme gives the 1GB drive up to 450 hours of HD content and 220 hours on the BDR-WD700, both with 5.1 surround capability. They support Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio. It should be noted that these are designed for the Japanese market, so the tuners won't work stateside.

BonusView yes, BD-Live no. There is a mode that will automatically select the optimum recording rate based on the program length when copying HD programs to the BD recorder.

The players feature KURO LINK to interface seamlessly with Pioneer's KURO displays.

Hopefully, an American release is coming. -Leslie Shapiro

Pioneer Press Release