Since what’s hot in Japan today is HD recording and since some of you may’ve missed our review on the beast last July, here’s another look at the Toshiba RD-A1.
It’s the first video recorder to support recording and playback of content in the HD DVD format and the world’s first digital hard disk recorder. This 15-kilo monster can record and store up to 130 hours of high-definition (HD) broadcasts on its high capacity hard disk (a 1TB disk ) and record up to 230 minutes of HD content to a single HD DVD disc.
The RD-A1 records to both HD DVD-R single-layer (15GB) and dual-layer (30GB) discs with support for DVD-RAM/R/RW/R-DL formats to boot. The video processing is magnificently performed by the ABT chip.
It came out in Japan last July but still no sign of the monster in the States or Europe as yet.
Click here for a presentation of the HD-DVD player Toshiba HD-E1 in video