LG, Toshiba to unveil blue laser recorders
- — 08 January, 2004 07:35
LG Electronics Inc. and Toshiba Corp. are both planning to use the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) to unveil high-definition video recorders that use next-generation blue laser technology, the companies said Wednesday.
LG Electronics will show its LG-XBG420, a high-definition video recorder that supports both Blu-ray removable media and has a built-in 200G-byte hard-disk drive, the Seoul-based company said Wednesday.
The player sports an IEEE1394 interface and a DVI (Digital Video Interface) connector that supports Intel Corp.'s HDCP (high-bandwidth digital content protection) system for copy-protection of content on the DVI bus. There are also built-in tuners for both conventional NTSC and high-definition ATSC broadcasts, said LG.
It's expected on the U.S. market during the third quarter of this year and is likely to be priced at under US$3,000, said John Taylor, a spokesman for LG's North American unit.
This is about the same price that Sony Corp.'s BDZ-S77 Blu-ray recorder sells for in Japan. At present, the Sony recorder is the only commercial Blu-ray recorder. The company has yet to announce any plans to sell the recorder outside of Japan.
Both LG and Sony belong to the nine-company group developing Blu-ray. The other companies are Hitachi Ltd., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd. (Panasonic), Philips Electronics NV, Pioneer Electronics Corp., Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Sharp Corp. and Thomson Multimedia SA.
Toshiba Corp. said it will show a prototype video recorder based around High Definition/High Density DVD (HD-DVD). The format is a competitor to Blu-ray and is being developed by Toshiba and NEC Corp. under the DVD Forum. It is expected to be adopted by the DVD standards group as the official successor to current generation DVD discs although whether it or Blu-ray or another as-yet-unannounced format ultimately wins over consumers is yet to be seen.
Toshiba's device uses a recently developed optical pick-up that houses both the red laser required for current DVD discs and the blue-laser required for HD-DVD discs and a common lens to allow compatibility with both formats. Also included in the prototype is a new LSI (large scale integrated circuit) chip that combines a servo controller, data signal processor and ATAPI interface together.
Commercial launch plans for the recorder have not been announced by Toshiba and the company is unlikely to make any predictions until at least version 1.0 of the format is finalized, said Midori Suzuki, a spokeswoman for Toshiba in Tokyo. Engineers are currently working on preparations for the first version of the HD-DVD format having already finalized version 0.9 of the system.
The company will also hold off on launching a product until it decides a market exists for such a device.
With high-definition broadcasting still in its early days and recorder prices hovering around the US$3,000 point, such machines are still regarded as niche products. But this year's CES is expected to see the launch of a wider range of compatible televisions and other products.
LG will also announce a hard-disk drive digital video recorder that can record high-definition broadcasts. The LST-3410A has a 120G-byte storage capacity, which is enough for around 12.5 hours of HDTV programming according to LG, and also has IEEE1394 and DVI/HDCP interfaces.
