Sharp Unveils Impressive Line-Up of AQUOS Blu-Ray Digital Recorders

It would seem that Blu-ray Digital Video Recorders are the next hot thing in the field of consumer electronics, as some of the most important names in this field are either prepping or launching such products. Thus, after Sony announced its own brand of Blu-ray enabled video recorders a while back, the people over at Sharp came up with the four new models from the AQUOS line, whose technical specs are impressive to say the least.

The new AQUOS line-up includes no less than 4 different models, namely the BD-HDW20, the BD-HDW15, the BD-AV10 and the BD-AV1. However, the truly impressive models are the first two, which, besides their Blu-ray related capabilities, also offer very large storage capacities.

Thus, the two new models come packed with 1 TB and 500 GB HDDs respectively, which allows users to record quite a large amount of video content (up to 127 hours of HD video). Moreover, the devices will apparently be able to record full-length movies to a disc that will play at the full resolution, as it provides support for writing 50GB dual-layer discs.

Furthermore, the new AQUOS recorders are among the first devices of this type to openly support the Blu-Ray's newer Low-to-High (LTH) blank discs which cost less than normally pricey BD-R or rewritable BD-RE discs. The devices also feature dual digital TV tuners as well as a single analog tuner, thus allowing users to record a show in one format while viewing another, while the twin FireWire ports provide capture from some video cameras.

The new BD-HDW20 will hit the shelves in Japan in December and will retail for around $2,621 in Japan, while the BD-HDW15 will sell for around $1,747. The other models mentioned earlier, namely the BD-AV1 and BD-AV10, feature just a single digital TV tuner and no HDD, as they record directly to single-layer or dual-layer discs and will arrive in the end of October for around $874 and $1,048 respectively.

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