Toshiba today announced two high-end additions to its VARDIA
recorders (DVR) that add the capabilities of HD
DVD recordable drives to a wide range of functions.
The new DVR introduce the ability to record two digital
HD television programs simultaneously, and also integrate Toshiba's new "VARDIA engine", which supports significant enhancements to ease of use and
performance, including faster drawing of the graphic user interface (GUI) and improved HD DVD disc operation. The HD DVD VARDIA RD-A600 and HD DVD VARDIA RD-A300 will be rolled out in the Japanese market from the end of June.
The 600-gigabyte (GB) RD-A600 can record about 78 hours of digital HD broadcasts (approx.17Mbps in TS mode) to its hard drive in HD picture quality, while 300GB RD-A300 can record about 39 hours. Both integrate an HD DVD recordable drive that can directly record HD television programs to an HD DVD-R disc or transfer HD images stored in HDD to an HD DVD-R disc. Like standard DVR, the new recorders allow users to build libraries of their favorite content, but add the ability to do so in high definition detail, by storing HD content to HD DVD-R discs.
The new VARDIA DVR also supports playback of HD DVD, DVD and music CDs. An integrated 1080p compatible up-scaler from Anchor Bay
Technologies, Inc., can up-convert standard definition DVD to an output resolution of 1080p.
The integrated HD DVD recordable drive supports recording of HD television programs to HD DVD-R discs and playback of HD DVD content
software. A dual-layer 30GB HD DVD-R DL disc can store nearly 4 hours of digital terrestrial broadcasts. This can be extended to as much as 4.5 hours, depending on the channel, by eliminating subordinate information from data broadcasts. The supported sound is Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD 5.1ch and L-PCM 5.1ch. Surround sound can be decoded and output in L-PCM through HDMI output.