HDTV Television

Toshiba has announced its new Vardia RD-A301 HD DVD and hard disc recorder. The new HD DVD recorder planned to launch it in Japan in mid-December. It represents a powerful device because it can record high def video to regular DVDs as well as transcode high def MPEG2 broadcasts on the fly to MPEG4. The MPEG4 video format features also the quality that it takes up less space and this way people will be able to store even more on an HD DVD disc or on the device??™s own built-in 300 GB hard disk drive.

The increase in recording capacity through this process of transcoding appears to be quite fantastic, as the hard disk drive??™s capacity jumps from 39 hours to no less than 159 hours for terrestrial digital TV.

The process of recording HD video to the tradition DVD disc has become possible only recently, thanks to the HD Rec, which represents a recently standardized format from the DVD Forum. The HD Rec makes it possible for the users to store up to 2 hours of transcoded high definition video on a tradition 4.7 GB DVD-R disc. This way, people are able to enjoy the high def quality and also to save money by using DVD discs, not the still expensive HD DVDs.

Toshiba??™s new recorder will be available in Japan only and it will cost about $875.