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Sony to drop DVD recorders in favour of Blu-ray
Posted on 13/09/07 23:48 by Seán Byrne
As many consumers finally migrate from VCRs to DVD recorders for recording their programmers, Sony already thinks Blu-ray is mature enough to do away with DVD recorders. This comes as Sony has just announced that it plans ditching DVD recorders in favour of Blu-ray recorders in Japan. Sony made this announcement at the same time it unveiled four new Blu-ray disc recorders.
Going by this PC world story, Sony's upcoming Blu-ray recorders consist of the BDZ-X90 targeted at home cinema use due to its HDMI 1.3 signal support, the BDZ-L70 targeted at HD camcorder and Sony Handycam owners and the BDZ-T50/T70 recorders targeted at consumers wanting to record HD, but without the extra features. All four recorders feature a 4x Blu-ray disc drive for fast HDD to disc transfer.
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That's hilarious. Sony once again shoots itself in the foot. They have raised this to an art form.quite, they haven't even sorted out their Blu Ray players yet.
Amazing. Talk about pulling one's chain. As far as I or anyone else can tell, Blu-ray's no certainty to win the hi-def format war so who'd bother to buy a Blu-ray recorder if it may go the way of the dodo.
Maybe they could help some of their earlier, early adopter customers out, by adding a Betamax tape drive to the unit as well, for archiving those tapes to Bluray disc. 
Hi Phil 
Cant wait for a Blu-ray / MD / MemoryStick / Betamax combo recorder. 
You guys are really funny. Always on the offensive against Sony. Maybe if you bothered to read the original article you'd find:
"The move to replace DVD isn't perhaps as much of a gamble as it might seem. The DVD recorder market is very competitive and it's becoming increasingly difficult for companies to make money in the sector."
Yeah, Sony is really stupid. They are making zilch out of DVD so, yeah, let's stick with DVD. Yeah, makes sense. 
In case you didn't knew already, there's cheap Chinese recorders all over the place at very low prices. Major brands are unable to take a profit. As always, the solution is to move to a new market. That's what Sony is doing.
It should also be noted that, for the time being, this move is just for the Japanese market. One ought to think that they know their domestic market better than the wise guys commenting here, right? 
"Sony already thinks Blu-ray is mature enough to do away with DVD recorders". Haha.
Oh wait. Sony is actually serious. Let me laugh even harder.
Hahahahahahahaha!By
Discman009 (guest),
Friday 14 September 2007 17:03
@ johnzap:
The CD player market, if there still is one, makes no money--so let's see, Sony created a SACD to replace that and boy was that a screaming success!
Sony will forever scramble to look for the next walkman and unless the 1980's come back-it won't happen.
By
mmmmna (guest),
Friday 14 September 2007 17:44
Sony ALWAYS bets that its own ideas are BETTER than whatever the consumer wants.
Consider these: Paystation Portable (owners love it, but it is a closed market; not universal), Minidisc personal music players (They knew flash was coming - they were already developing Memory Sticks), Memory Sticks ('me too! me too!), etc., all the way back to BetaMax.
The ever-so-wise consumer seems to always choose something other than what Sony puts forth, and it seems we consumers can see the problem in the 'Sony rules' idiom.
It is great that Sony can innovate, but if their innovations are only to lock in consumers despite a lower consumer value, then, quite simply, Sony deserves third place - it works hard for it!
Sounds about right, a Sony device that supports only Sony's format. Even if BR fails they can still market BR recorder as their option for a HD recorder, like mini discs were their option for MP3 players at one point, Memory sticks were their answer for digital cameras... UMD movies..
All propietary and BR might easily end up becoming the same.
This message was edited at: 14-09-2007 18:19
This message was edited at: 14-09-2007 18:19
If they're under $200 Canadian (yeah, riiiight), maybe people will buy them.
People usually go for cheap over quality. With HDCP, the only thing to record will be SD & home movies. For SD, I'd go with a cheap HDD recorder & for Hi-Def home movies, I'd go with a computer so I could edit them.
@johnzap
the only reason sony is loosing money on dvd recorders is because consumers have smartened up and read reviews before bying anything over $100. and they find some really good makes, its just sony isnt among them no more or wants much higher premium. Besides, as noted they tend to lock up stuff, like if you remember they were in the last wagon to support divx in their players, same with mp3. Dont get me wrong, I like sony and even bot some of their rebadged drives in the past, just for the label, but everyones got a patience.By
Gonads (guest),
Friday 14 September 2007 21:45
PVR all the way baby.
More demented and wishful thinking by Sony. Will they ever learn ? Forcing your proprietary technology down consumers throats will not work, especially if said company has engaged in some very questionable actions against consumers (Re: The Root Kit fiasco).
In any case, most people are buying hard drive based DVD recorders and using them as PVRs. This is still a growing market given that twin HD tuner DVD recorders are only now starting to emerge. Sony are just plain ignorant, pig headed and greedy not to realise the potential of this market. But I guess, if you've sunk a fortune in Blu-ray then you'd want to flog it as much as possible - before it dies a miserable death.
This message was edited at: 15-09-2007 02:03
This message was edited at: 15-09-2007 02:03
I guess sonys DVD recorders wasn't selling to well, so why not dump them.
Plenty of others procuding DVD burner. This is good news for blu-ray supporter etc, then we might get good burners for this format.
If this format survies or becomes the new standard, that is a different story.
Here we go again... Guys, drop the Blu-Ray is a proprietary format! Exactly what do you mean here? I see lots and lots of rival manufacturers launching Blu-Ray products. What does proprietary mean on this context?
Remember that Sony's Betamax was a very different story. They tried to be the only ones selling that format. It obviously didn't work, they tried to correct it but it was already too late. They are not doing the same mistake with Blu-Ray, quite the contrary.
One could argue that HD-DVD is the proprietary format here, knowing that very few companies release HD-DVD hardware. Top news
Written by Michael Barkoviak
Written by Michael Barkoviak
Written by Seán Byrne
Written by Michael Barkoviak
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