Hitachi Unveils World's First Terabyte DVD Recorder

[echarcha]

August 24, 2005
Hitachi Unveils World's First Terabyte DVD Recorder

By REUTERS
Filed at 4:06 a.m. ET

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's Hitachi Ltd. (/redirect/marketwatch/redirect.ctx?MW=http://custom.marketwatch.com/custom/nyt-com/html-companyprofile.asp&symb=HIT) (6501.T) on Wednesday unveiled the world's first hard disk drive/DVD recorder that can store one terabyte of data, or enough to record about 128 hours of high-definition digital broadcasting.

Hitachi, Japan's largest electronics conglomerate, is still a relatively small player in the DVD recorder market, trailing industry leaders Matsushita Industrial Co. Ltd. (6752.T), Sony Corp. (6758.T) and Toshiba Corp. (/redirect/marketwatch/redirect.ctx?MW=http://custom.marketwatch.com/custom/nyt-com/html-companyprofile.asp&symb=TOSBF) (6502.T).

But it hopes its new line-up, which also includes models able to store 160 gigabytes, 250 gigabytes and 500 gigabytes of data, will help boost its market share and turn its loss-making DVD recorder business profitable in October-March, the second half of the business year.

``We entered the market last year and have only been able to grab about 3 percent of the market. It's been hard to earn a decent return on investment with such (low) volumes,'' Norio Ogimoto, general manager of Hitachi's storage media group, told a news conference.

``But we plan on being profitable with these new models given the volumes and prices we expect to see from them,'' he said.

Hitachi said the new models would be the first on the market able to simultaneously record two high-definition programs, and it hopes this will be a key selling point given the spread of terrestrial digital broadcasting in Japan.

The recorders will go on sale in Japan from next month. They are expected to retail from about 130,000 yen for the cheapest model to 230,000 yen for the one-terabyte recorder, which stores data on two 500 gigabyte hard disk drives.

One terabyte is equal to 1 trillion bytes of data. One gigabyte equals 1 billion bytes.

Hitachi said it did not have concrete plans for launching the products in overseas markets, explaining that consumers in Europe and the United States were not as keen on high-end recorders.

Japan accounts for more than half of the global DVD recorder market. DVD recorders have been slow to take off in other markets such as the United States, where TV set-top boxes with hard drives, such as those made by TiVo Inc. (/redirect/marketwatch/redirect.ctx?MW=http://custom.marketwatch.com/custom/nyt-com/html-companyprofile.asp&symb=TIVO) (TIVO.O), are popular.

MM Research Institute predicts that Japan's DVD recorder market will grow 26 percent to 5.6 million units in the current financial year to next March, up from 4.43 million in 2004/05.

Matsushita was the top seller of DVD recorders in Japan in 2004/05, controlling 27 percent of the market. Sony was next at 20.6 percent, Toshiba at 15.6 percent, and Sharp Corp.came in fourth with a 10.2 percent share.

Hitachi said it was aiming to grab 35 percent of the Japanese market for high-definition DVD recorders in the second half of this business year. High-definition recorders currently make up about 15 percent of the overall market, but that percentage is expected to grow strongly over the next several years.

Shares of Hitachi closed down 0.87 percent at 681 yen, underperforming the benchmark Nikkei average (.N225), which gained 0.24 percent on the day.


http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/technology/tech-japan-hitachi.html?pagewanted=print

[Cooldude]

Great news.

Apple has similar plans for a video-capable version of its iPod music player: The "Eye"-Pod



Waiting for "Eye"-Pod (http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/08/wo/wo_080505hellweg.asp?p=1)

As the days of summer heat up, they're sizzling in more ways than one. For the last couple of weeks, there's been a hot topic among media-watchers: Will Apple announce a video-capable version of its iPod music player?

Of course such an announcement would be exciting to users of iPods -- those wildly popular music players. But it has ramifications beyond just adding movies to portable entertainment fare: it could give a huge boost to one of the hottest areas in the expanding universe of participatory media: podcasting. "It's absolutely possible to create a video podcast," says new-media enthusiast Derrick Oien, president of the Association of Music Podcasters. And, if Apple came out with a video iPod, "you could see a big boom in video blogging," Oien says.

The rumors of a video iPod gained new momentum on July 18 with a Wall Street Journal article reporting that Apple was in discussions with music labels and other companies to license music videos for its new device. According to the article, Apple claimed it would be announcing the device by September. Then, on August 2, the blog Macrumors pointed out that the trademark for Apple's iPod had been changed on June 18, so that it now read: "portable and handheld digital electronic devices for recording, organizing, transmitting, manipulating, and reviewing text, data, audio, image, and video files".

If Apple does launch a video iPod in the near future (a company spokesperson declined to comment on the trademark change or the possibility of a video iPod), it would arrive into a far different world than did the first audio iPod in 2001. Since then, the concept of participatory media has exploded, most notably in the form of blogs, wikis (user-modifiable websites), and podcasts, in which an individual can create and disseminate his or her own "show" over the Internet. (The term "podcast" is itself derived from the iPod, despite having no connection to it -- a telling tribute to the Apple product.)

And now, in 2005, a small but burgeoning community of videobloggers has emerged, distributing its offerings via RSS ("really simple syndication") feeds -- the same technology used by audio podcasters.

Jay Dedman, one of the leaders in distributing video blogs using RSS, through an application he co-created called FireAnt, says that the beta version of FireAnt has already been downloaded "about 20,000 times," since it was launched in January 2005.

Dedman hosts around 600 videoblogs (awkwardly dubbed "vlogs") on his site, AntisnotTV.com, and says that number would explode if Apple releases a video iPod. "Audio is boring. It's boring to make a radio show," Dedman says. "The reason [videoblogging] is not that hot yet is because we don't have a device to shift the video on to. If Apple does it, it will be pretty big."

On August 9, the online activist group Downhill Battle will launch its "Participatory Culture" player and website, which will make it easier to distribute video and audio content on the Internet. One of its directors, Nicholas Reville, says that a video iPod "can only have a really strong, positive effect...It would bring a level of credibility -- the same thing Apple brought to MP3 players and audio podcasting."

When Apple announced its support for audio podcasting in June and began listing the mostly amateur radio segments within its iTunes Music Store, podcasting saw its biggest boost to date. Just two days after podcasts were made available, more than one million people subscribed.

So what content will drive the adoption of video podcasting: fringe talk shows, progressive commentators, obscure sporting events? If the past is a barometer, it will be another category: pornography. Video podcasting -- essentially short video files discreetly transferred to a device -- seem like a natural for the skin trade. There's already an interest in erotic audio podcasting. A report by Digital Podcast in June found that the most-requested category by listeners to its podcast hub was "Erotica." Ironically, though, fewer erotic podcasts were available on the site than any other category. But that won't last long.

Midwifing a new media such as video podcasts is likely not Apple's motivation in launching a video iPod. After all, the device would command a steep retail premium. Further, with individual music videos reported to be offered for $1.99 each on the iTunes Music Store, according to the Wall Street Journal, Apple could make money through licensed video content sales as well.

Still, the unveiling of a video iPod could be the flashpoint for video podcasting -- adding to the already-strong momentum in what might be the 21st century's most significant technological development thus far: do-it-yourself media.

[echarcha]

Hollywood is fiercely going after anyone who tries to facilitate or manufacture any system - software or hardware - to enable copying DVDs. I wonder how such a device will be received in USA.

To circumvent copying digital TV content, there is a battle going on about the broadcast flag.

Well, in time, Hollywood might have to change the business model where movies can be watched at home, on demand and people are not forced to go to a cinema theatre or wait 2 to 3 months before its released on DVD.

Anyway, its a good achievement by Hitachi. I was already in awr of IBM who puts such a small hard disk with 80 GB plus capacity in laptops. Now we have one more marvel of modern technology. :up: