Are There Blu-ray Disc Recorders?

Question: Are There Blu-ray Disc Recorders?

NOTICE: HD-DVD is now officially discontinued. However, information on HD-DVD, and its comparison to Blu-ray, is still contained in this article for historical purposes, as well as the fact that there are still many HD-DVD player owners, and HD-DVD players and discs will continue to be sold and traded on the secondary market for some time.

Answer: Both Blu-ray and HD-DVD technology support high definition video recording, but there are no current plans to market Blu-ray Disc recorders in the U.S market (HD-DVD has been discontinued). Some of factors contributing to this state of affairs includes the increasing popularity from TIVO and Cable/Satellite DVRs in the U.S., which may affect the competitive success of high definition disc-based recorders, such as Blu-ray or HD-DVD. In addition, copy-rotection concerns and potential piracy have the movie studios "paranoid" about mainstream consumers having the ability to record high definition video content.

However, if you desire high definition video recording on disc now, you can buy Blu-ray Writers to install in your PC, and Sony has also begun to introduce a Laptop and Desktop PC with Blu-ray recording capability.

The two types of Blu-ray Recording formats are:

BD-R: A record-once only format disc, similar in concept as a DVD-R, DVD+R, or CD-R disc.

BD-RE: A re-writable format disc that can be erased, edited, and re-used multiple times, similar in concept to DVD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD-RAM, or CD-RW disc.

HD-DVD had been selling HD-DVD recorders in the Japanese market. However, since HD-DVD is now being discontinued worldwide (as of February 19, 2008), there are no plans for HD-DVD recorders to be available any longer. The only units available are the ones that have already been produced.

For historical reference, the format disc for HD-DVD recorders is HD-DVD R (single layer) and HD-DVD R-DL (Dual Layer), which are record-once format discs, similar to BD-R.

Also, most, if not all, Blu-ray and HD-DVD recorders released so far in Japan also record in one or more of the current standard DVD recording formats, such as DVD-R/-RW or DVD+R/+RW.

One important point to remember is that Blu-ray or HD-DVD disc you make yourself can only be played on that format's player or recorder.

Information about further availability and capabilities of Blu-ray Disc recorders will added to this page as it becomes available.

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