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The days of the videocassette tapes are gone. Digitized media has taken the scene by storm. Riding the gale this time is Toshiba with the world's first DVD-RAM video recorder that features a hard drive.
Christened the RD-2000, this DVD/HDD video recorder will be on sale in Japan on December 22 and expected price is about US$2,500. This new machine has several rumors of hitting our Australian stores around October 2001, approximately the same cost.
The RD-2000 is capable of 33.5 hours worth of video storage, thanks to its 30GB hard-disk drive and 4.7GB DVD-RAM drive. Designed to play DVD-Video discs, DVD-RAM discs, Video CDs and music CDs, the concept device hints at what is to come into our homes a few years from now. Although the cost of this machine is high, it is actually a steal when you compare it to other DVD-RAM recorders that don't come with hard disk drives to start with.
Apart from the ability to play various media, Toshiba's recorder has adjustable recording options for consumers. This allows users to determine the sampling rate, hence balancing the length of recording with the quality of the playback. For those who would rather leave everything to the machine, a simple option lets the recorder take over and after they have chosen which programs to record.
Given the nifty features that this machine packs, we won't be surprised if the model makes its way around the world within a year.
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