Toshiba pushes the DVR/DVD-R storage capacity further

All very nice, but for now, for most (computer) people, the bottom line is, they/we need a single-sided, single-or-double layer 9 gig recordable dvd that is compatible with most legacy dvd-video players. It isn't likely ever going to happen; the specs don't currently allow it. Forget the 9-gig 'flippers'; they don't mean squat. I bet we go blue-laser before the above ever takes place. -- Mike --

160Gb HDD???? Then fuck DVD all together, and just leave the harddisk recorder. 208 hours, that's some 130 movies. I agree with Mike (A-Klingon), we need dual layer disks, but even with dual layer disks if you filled 208 hours, would you bother to copy all of it to disk? Or even to sift through it to copy part of it? It would take you a while.

For my part, I would want to get the movies *off* the HDD and onto dvd blanks so that I could play back the movies anywhere - my place, your place, my friends' places..... without having to drag the expensive toy mentioned above, all over the place. Sure, it'd be nice to have the HDD full of neat dvds for when I get lazy and don't want to burn a disc right away, but if/whenever DVD+RWs (the only type of dvd my current 1st-generation burner will accept) become reasonably priced, I'd want the dvd-disc version. But only if I could get *one full* movie per dvd blank. (No disc swapping). This 160-gig HDD recorder is too damned expensive anyway. I work for a living. <gg> -- Mike --

You will always be better of ripping a DVD movie from from a hired DVD then recording from TV unless you have HDTV cable and they don't put a stupid logo on the picture. Anyway ( I don't know the price) but assume the player costs $2000, you can buy 60+ DVDs or hire 2000+ (of course not all at once) rip them, re-encode if needed and burn them. Anyway its your call, the last one seems the best option.

Folks.. Just because it says 208 hours does not mean you get 208 hours of good quality video. I don't know anyone who uses the basic recording quality. It horrible. If you were to record video and push it to a DVD, you would get less than 1/6 of that. That's about 35 hours of great quality video. That's a lot of movies, but you'd be surpised how fast it will fill up. There are going to be things that you'd want to offload to DVD. I can't wait until Pioneer releases their Tivo/DVD-R combo unit. It should tie in nicely to the other TiVo's at my house and I can transfer video to this unit and burn. There are always movies on or shows that I'd like to see. I live with a few roommates and we all watch different shows. So, we never actually get unlimited programs that we like. Now, I can archive those shows or movies that I just haven't had time to watch. The Pioneer unit will be between $500 and $1500 depending on how much storage is you'd want. And, I'm 100% behind A_Klingon. Blue laser will be around before we get any more capacity out of the existing discs. Flipping discs is pathetic.

Hi kninbob. Now, I can archive those shows or movies that I just haven't had time to watch. Funny thing, that's just what I said some years ago too, after I poured through the owner's manual of my new Sony VHS vcr, and learned the intricate details of setting up the timer for recording shows. (5 shows-per-week (Mon-Fri) for tv-sitcoms and game shows; 1 show-per-week (every Saturday) - new episiode of Star Trek; misc movies; the odd PBS show.....) I wound up with an unexpectedly LARGE collection of unwatched video tapes that I never really did find the time to actually go through, and the more I left my VHS machine's timer active, the more shows accumulated making the problem even worse. <gg> I can just imagine piling up 35-50 hour blu-laser discs in the same fashion! (More convenient than vhs, for sure, but the same problem would remain). Blu-laser, nonetheless, I predict is going to turn all our heads around when the drives and discs become reasonable in price, the key word here being "reasonable". Neither is going to happen any time soon, so ENJOY those new low-priced blank DVDs you see on the market now. -- Mike --

HD DVD will not be 160GB for some time. current estimations are around the 100GB by sony in 5 years or so.