Panasonic announces Blu-ray recorder with massive 2TB drive, ETA september

Panasonic is to launch a Blu-ray recorder with a 2TB hard drive. The Diga-branded DMR-BW970 leads a fleet of six new recorders into the Japanese market, and is scheduled to debut in September.

The deck’s monster drive equates to 320hours of MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 video recorded at 12.9Mbps. It will be joined by models distinguished by diminishing drive sizes: the DMR-BW870 (1TB), the DMR-BW770 (500GB), and DMR-BW570, DMR-BR570 and DMR-BR670V models each with 230GB. The latter features an integrated VHS deck, for users who wish to archive old recording to discs. The Japanese AV scene has long been a stronghold for TV archivers, with millions of users still storing recordings on VHS tapes.

All the new BD recorders support hi-rez audio codec decoding and feature the latest iteration of the brand’s UniPhier video processing chipset. In addition to recording on BD-RE and BD-R media, they will also write to DVD-RAM, DVD-R, DVD-R DL and DVD-RW discs. The decks are expected to make their public debut at the upcoming CEATEC technology show.