Sony announces 1 TByte DVR

Tokyo - Sony announced its upcoming digital video recorder (DVR) "type X" at a press conference in Tokyo eralier this week. The DVR will offer seven TV tuners as well as 1 TByte storage capacity.

Marketed through its Vaio brand, Sony said that it will demonstrate the type X from may 14 to 16 at the "Do VAIO World 2004" in Odaiba, Japan. According to the company, final specifications of the device which will become available in Q4 in Japan, but the device will integrate seven TV tuners which will allow users to record seven channels at the same time.

A massive capacity of one TByte should provide enough space for one week of recording of seven channels, the company said. According to sources close to Sony, the company will use four 250 GByte harddrives to reach the 1 TeraByte mark. The technical foundation of the type X are components found in a typical PC, which allow the device to wirelessly connect to a keyboard, mouse, a remote controller or a printer.

The device records the Japanese version of DVB-T and is rumored to be HDTV capable. Output is possible to regular TVs and projections TVs as well as flat panel screens using D4 output.

Sony has not talked about worldwide availability, which indicates that we will not see the type X for quite a while outside of Japan. Pricing also has not been revealed yet. But it is no secret that the device will put a significantly bigger dent in your budget than the current top-of-the-line Replay TV’s ($799, 320 GByte) and Tivo’s ($349, 140 GByte).