Sharp Corporation announced today that they will soon release two new Aquos Blu-ray recorders with BDXL support, along with a triple-layer 100GB capacity disc.
The BDXL format, developed by Pioneer, is new to the Blu-ray market, and allows for multi-layer recording for larger capacity discs. The Aquos players will be the first in the world to support BDXL recording and playback.
In addition to supporting their triple-layer Blu-ray discs, the new Sharp recorders have the technology to record quad-layer 128GB capacity discs. Though quad-layer discs are not yet available, this is a good sign that they are coming soon. Until today, Blu-ray recording capacity was limited to 50GB on dual-layer discs.
This cutting-edge Blu-ray technology doesn’t come cheap. The BD-HDW700, featuring a 2TB internal hard drive will retail for $3500 USD. If that’s a bit too pricey for you, the 1TB BD-HDW70 will be a bit more affordable at $2300. The VR-100BR1 100GB BDXL discs, which have the capacity to record approximately 12 hours of HD terrestrial television programming, will be priced at $58. The new high-capacity discs do not have re-write capability yet, but are reported to be currently in development.
Japan will be the first county to receive the advanced Aquos Blu-ray recorders and discs, which will begin shipping on July 30th. Complete specs for both models are available at Sharp-world.com.
While the technology advances surrounding these new products are definitely impressive, they will likely not be of interest to the mainstream market until prices are a lot lower. These particular recorders might not even show up in other markets, as set top recorders are a much more popular product in Japan than other parts of the world.
