Sharp adding HD DVRs to Aquos line
By Kevin C. Tofel 
posted Sep 29th 2005 8:29AM
posted Sep 29th 2005 8:29AM
Oh
how I hate watching HDTV in real time. I don't mean watching HD itself;
I love that! I just don't have a way to time-shift my HD programming
until I get my new Dish 921. That's why I'm thrilled to see that Sharp
is adding four new HDTV recorders. These are slated for the Japanese
market, so I won't cancel my 921 order just yet, however.Two models have a single tuner, while two models have dual digital tuners. The two-tuner models, the DV-ARW12 and DV-ARW15 feature a high speed recording and processing procedure that allow recording of two HD shows simultaneously on the single hard drive. Drive sizes range from 160 GB to 500 GB, so these should get anywhere from 14 to 40 hours of high-def content. No word on pricing just yet; how do we get these over here?
Doesn't Comcast already offer a HD DVR with dual tuners? I believe the box is made by Motorola. Granted you're stuck with paying them a monthly fee, but I've heard it works great -- records two HD channels simultaneously.
Same with DirecTV - they use a Hughes "HR-10 250" that allows for recording simultaneous HD channels. It's been available for some time, too - most of 05, if I remember.
I have the Comcast DVR, 2 actually, and it works damn well. If you have a comcast digital cable box, it's basically exactly the same, same interface, and recording HD programming is nooo problem.
Yeah, the HR-10-250 tivo has been out MOST of '04 actually, so we are in a about the 18th month of usage. No real updates since then, some SW updates.
product continues to run and amaze me. I will hate to let it go in '06 when Directv moves to mpeg4 encoding and axes tivo. :-(