Pioneer launches Blu-ray recorders to Japanese market

True to its word, Pioneer has introduced a pair of Blu-ray recorders in 2008, and the BDR-WD900 (1TB hard drive) and the BDR-WD700 (500GB drive) are due out on Japanese shelves in October. Both models feature H.264 encoding, dual DVB-T ISDB tuners and a "High-definition Just Copy" wizard for optimizing transfers from the hard drive to a Blu-ray disc. The Blu-ray decks are BonusView affairs (no mention of BD-Live, so we assume these are Profile 1.1) with support for Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MA, and Kuro Link-flavored HDMI-CEC for smooth integration with all your other Kuro gear. Also getting top billing is the 0.8s "Quick Startup" feature, which has been kicking around for about a year in Sharp's AQUOS BD-HDW20 and makes us wonder how much original engineering Pioneer's done for its own model.

[Via eMediaLive]

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 16th 2008 4:38AM]

If it is for japanese market, then the tuners must be ISDB tuner. Japan doesn't support DVB format.

[Mitchell Posted Sep 16th 2008 11:19AM]

Something like this will most likely never come to the US. All the DRM around media will prevent your from recording anything digital. unless you want to buy a several hundred dollars for basically a OTA only recorder that has a ATSC tuner.

:(

Mitchell

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 17th 2008 7:26PM]

Could anybody advise when these two new Pioneer HD Blue Ray Recorders will be released and on sale in Australia Market. Also at what price in Australia.