Toshiba Vardia records high def on DVD

Toshiba is launching its new Vardia recorder in Japan this week for pre-orders, and will start shipping the product in December.

The Vardia RD-A301, which will cost around ¥99,000 (£420), records broadcast HD TV onto a standard DVD-R, which is significantly cheaper than an HD DVD or Blu-ray disk.

It can achieve this through the use of a transcoder which converts high-definition MPEG-2 broadcasts to the more efficient MPEG-4 format which takes up less space on the disk.

The recorder uses the recently standardised HD Rec format from the DVD Forum, which allows up to 2 hours of transcoded high-def video to be stored on a 4.7G-byte DVD-R disc.

The recorder will record both high definition and standard definition broadcasts to a single disk and will also record to its built-in 300GB hard drive, which can store up to 159 hours of HD TV.

The Vardia RD-A301 also features dual HD tuners for recording simultaneous high-def broadcasts and can transfer digital VHS recordings via a FireWire connection.

The disks can only be played back on the RD-A301, as it is currently the only machine compatible with HD Rec.

To support the launch, anyone who buys the RD-A301 will be offered a copy of the “Transformers” movie, five blank HD DVD-R and DVD-R discs, and a “Transformers” action figure.