This morning, Panasonic announced two new Blu-ray recorders, the DMR-BW200 and DMR-BR100. Both sport internal hard drives and can write to BD discs at 4x.
The new models support single-layer 25 GB and dual-layer 50 GB BD discs (BD-RE and BD-R). Users can record up to six hours of high-definition programs on a 50 GB BD disc.(1) In addition, the DMR-BW200 and DMR-BR100 come with a built-in HDD with a huge capacity, 500 GB and 200 GB, respectively.
The DMR-BW200 is equipped with a total of seven TV tuners including two tuners each for terrestrial, BS and 110-degree CS digital broadcasts and one analogue TV tuner. That enables users to record two digital TV programs simultaneously on the HDD. Users can also record one program on the HDD while recording one on a BD-RE disc.
Interestingly enough, Panasonic's new recorders can also down convert HD content so that it will fit on a normal DVD. The DMR-BW200 and DMR-BR100 are expected to hit stores in Japan on November 15th for about $2550 and $2050 respectively. More information can be found here.
