With analogue TV signals dying the death, now's the perfect time to grab a digital set-top box if you didn't already have one. Which means it's also the perfect time for Echostar to launch the HDT-610R, what they're claiming is the world's slimmest PVR.

Also known as the Ultra Slim Box, it measures a slight 14mm thin, despite housing a HDMI connection, twin tuner and 500GB hard drive.

Recording Freeview+ and Freeview+ HD channels, the HDT-610R also offers on-demand services like BBC iPlayer and Box Office 365. The box also offers live TV rewinding and pausing functionality, as well as intelligently seeking out HD versions of shows when available and offering the ability to set shows to record from advertisements.

"Consumers are looking forward to an exciting summer of sport and facing a packed viewing schedule, digital video recording will be one of the key features that viewers will be looking for," stated Freeview MD Ilse Howling. Because everything is linked to the Olympics, right?

Up for pre-order from May 4th, Echostar's Ultra Slim Box will be in shops by the end of May. Pricing is yet to be announced.

Name: DTR-HD500 Freeview+ HD recorder (TVonics)

Type: HD set-top box and recorder

Specs: Click here for full specs

Price: £255.31 direct from TVonics

Let's not beat around the bush; £250+ is a hell of a lot of money to pay for a Freeview+ HD recorder these days, considering you can get very capable set-top boxes for little over the £100 mark. While the entry price may prove a barrier for many, there is no denying however the quality of TVonics' latest flagship recorder, the DTR-HD500 Freeview+ HD recorder.

A slick, curved, black gloss design makes the 85mm x 380mm x x200mm DTR-HD500 very easy on the eye, with a small display on the front showing channel names and other info snippets. The first clue as to the reasoning behind the DTR-HD500's premium pricing can be found on the unit's rear, where you'll find a HDMI output accompanied by a pair of HDMI inputs. Though labelled for a DVD player and games console, they can in fact be used as a dual HDMI switch for any device that uses the connection, including Blu-ray players.

Two USB ports are available for viewing media files, equally useful for those looking to update the box. After listening to the requests of early testers, the DTR-HD500 can now playback Dolby Digital Surround audio, installed via a download popped onto a memory stick. An Ethernet port sits on the back too, though its purpose isn't all that clear. We'd have much rather had a Common Interface slot for Top-Up TV, sadly absent.

Housing a 500GB hard-drive, the DTR-HD500 is just about the biggest Freeview+ HD recorder we've seen, allowing you to store a veritable library of around 65 hours worth of Freeview HD programming or 250 hours worth of standard definition content. Twin DVB-T2 tuners also allow two channels to be recorded at once, as well as set up series links; very handy should the X-Factor clash with the footie.

All of the excellent features above however would be a bit pointless should the DTR-HD500 suffer from poor image quality. After a quick and simple channel scanning set-up, the box thankfully doesn't disappoint, offering vibrant, pin-sharp HD content and top-notch standard def upscaling. A clear EPG offers lists nine channels over 90 minutes per screen-filling page, while an overlaying pop-up box can be used to browse channels while watching shows. The EPG can be a little slow to refresh if you try to quickly scan far into the future though, which was a little disappointing at this price range.

Recorded shows are kept in a dedicated library area, displaying how much hard drive space has been used and is left to fill. The remote control proves a little confusing here, as as sorting and navigating through stored shows is overly complex, while an "editing" function only allows you to block minors from shows or lock a show to prevent its deletion. Both live TV and recordings can be paused, rewound and (providing you're running slightly behind broadcast time with live shows) fast-forwarded, at two different speeds.

All in, the TVonics DTR-HD500 Freeview+ HD recorder is a very capable set-top box that, while having a few quirks, does well to keep the pace with the standard-setting Sky+ HD box. Those quirks can be a little annoying considering the premium price tag, but you still get a load of quality features for the dough.

4/5

Sagemcom have unveiled their first set of Freeview HD TV recorders for the UK, the RTI90-320 T2 HD and the RTI90-500 T2 HD.

The eagle-eyed among you may have noticed that Sagemcom were once the communications arm of tech manufacturers Sagem. Sagemcom are now a manufacturer in their own right, and these two brand new DTRs represent their first step out into the big wide world of consumer tech.

Both models have basically the same set of specs, barring the amount of storage available on each. The RTI90-500 T2 HD features 500GB of recording space, while the RTI90-320 T2 HD has 320GB. 500GB equals roughly 250 hours of SD video or 125 hours of HD, while the 320GB model can hold around 160 hours of SD video or 80 hours of HD.

Both are capable of recording and playing back the full range of Freeview + channels, including the growing number of HD channels the service provides free of charge. As both are packing in dual twin tuners, you're able to watch one channel and record another at the same time.

There's an eight-day EPG at the heart of the UI, as well as one-touch recording, series recording and one-touch access to your library of saved shows. Looking t the future, there's also an Ethernet port for a potential roll out of interactive services.

The the RTI90-320 T2 HD will be available at the end of April, whilst the RTI90-500 T2 HD will hit stores at the end of May. No pricing available yet.

Looking for a Freesat+ DTR that will be HD ready straight out of the box? Sagem's Freesat+ DTR could soon be filling that gap under your flat screen.

Available in two 250GB or 500GB models, the new boxes feature auto set-up options to help you watch HD content within minutes of plugging in the DTR.

Sagems' MD Raphael Fainac said, "Sagem is a leader in set top box technology, we provide our customers with products that they need. Our top of the range Freeview + boxes and exciting new Freesat+ DTR's will bring a festive cheer to UK households this Christmas. We pride ourselves on providing great quality and hard wearing devices that give customers a completely satisfactory user experience from purchasing to using and any required customer care."

Confused over the differences between Freesat and Freeview, and not sure which set-top box you should be getting? Fill out Sagem's handy questionnaire at www.sagemdigital.co.uk to help find the box for you.

Panasonic has announced its latest line of Blu-ray and DVD recorders in Japan – all featuring monstrous sized hard drives.

The Blu-ray series is comprised of three recorders – the BW700, BW800 and BW900 – with integrated hard drive storage that starts at 250GB and tops out at a massive 1TB, similar to Sharp’s BD-HDW20.

But, the best thing about these new recorders is that they compress HD video at amazing rates, offering about 18 hours using a 50GB Blu-ray disc and up to an incredible 381 hours onto the 1TB hard drive.

Pioneer has offered up some details of its latest home cinema system, designed to compliment the look of the company’s new Kuros plasma HDTVs – straight from the Darth Vader school of thought.

The LX10 system features 250GB hard drive DVD recorder with integrated digital tuner, HDMI and high-definition up scaling to 1080p as well as a receiver and four stylishly carved speakers and subwoofer.

Sharp is planning to release its first Blu-ray recorders for three years in Japan with three new models – and the company insists that it will switch to Blu-ray on all of its recorders there by 2011.

That goal is less aggressive than Sony, who has already ceased production of any more DVD recorder in the Japanese market.

Sharp’s BD-AV1 and BD-AV10 will be able to record terrestrial and satellite high-definition TV. There’s also an iLink for connecting a Sharp hard drive recorder, so the programmes can be moved from the hard drive to Blu-ray discs. But, without any other connections, users won’t be able to connect devices like an HD camcorder.

In a clear declaration of intent, Sony has discontinued the release of DVD recorders in Japan – with the company concentrating exclusively on high-definition Blu-ray recorders.

The announcement was made shortly after the introduction of four highly specified Blu-ray recorders, which can burn and record high-definition content using the latest MPEG-4 AVC format, to the Japanese market.

With a wide range of high-definition programming available in Japan via terrestrial and satellite broadcasts, there’s been an explosion in interest for HD time shifting and recording – even more than for play only HD discs.

However, this strategy isn’t expected to be followed outside of Japan.

Via
AV Zombie

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Two companies have announced the release of the world’s first mini Blu-ray recordable/rewriteable discs to coincide with Hitachi’s recently released Blu-ray compatible camcorders.

Both Verbatim, the licensee for Mitsubishi, and Imation, the licensee for TDK, have announced the release of 8cm Blu-ray discs that will be available in BD-R (recordable) and BD-RE (rewriteable) formats.

Hitachi has developed several critical technologies to create a camcorder that shoots in 1920x1080 high-definition. The company is expected to announce the new Blu-ray camcorder later this year.

Among the newly developed parts are an optical head for Blu-ray/DVD, an image pickup device, CODEC LSI and image processing LSI. The small sized optical head that allegedly supports Blu-ray disc media is the first of its kind. It carries two lenses that separate the Blu-ray and DVD optical systems with support for BD-RE/-R and standard DVD-RAM/-RW/-R.

Sony has announced details of its next generation DVDirect DVD recorder, which can transfer high-definition home videos and photos to DVD discs without using a computer.

The new VRD-MC5 can transfer AVCHD videos to DVD in their native 1080i resolution when connected to a compatible Sony Handycam camcorder. And the subsequent DVD can be played on compatible Blu-ray devices including computer drives and the PS3 games console.

Evesham has unveiled the revamped e-box HD that includes Dual Core processing, high-definition capabilities and Windows Vista. It's a fully functional set top recorder and all round entertainment system that combines PC, TV, DVD and audio features in a single system.

Dual integrated TV tuners allow you to record one programme while you watch another and an HDMI output means you can display upscaled images using a high-definition display.

If rumours are to be believed, Panasonic has plans to introduce a 4x speed Blu-ray recorder that will be able to burn copies using the Blu-ray double layer disc format.

It's similar to LG's already released GBW-H10N writer, except that it offers 4x speed burning using double layer Blu-ray discs - which basically gives you 50GB of storage in 46 minutes.

No specific information has been released by Panasonic yet but expect an announcement to be made later this year.

Via
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Humax are releasing a new combined Personal Video Recorder and 32 inch widescreen HDTV tomorrow for around £900.

Though specs are a bit sketchy (there's nothing obvious on their website yet) it looks like it may be an upgrade to their LGB-32TPVR which is a 1366x768 resolution, 40Gb PVR HD ready affair, but probably only displays 720p (though the specs for that TV don't say either). It has a DVI-D connector.

This one - the LP32-TDR1 - will sport a 160Gb hard drive, 2 Freeview tuners (so you can watch more than one digital programme at once), 3 AV inputs, component, S-Video, PC, Composite, 2 Scarts, and one very important HDMI connector.

I won't go over all the PVR features again - they're the standard affair we all know and love.

This is a great solution if you're happy to have equipment from the same manufacturer in the same box, but if you're more into mix and match, or you already subscribe to a service that provides a PVR (Telewest, Sky) you might find it's not for you. Mind you, at £900, it's not a bad deal if the TV's any good.

Toshiba are about to release the world's first combined digital hard drive recorder and HD DVD recorder, the  RD-A1.

It features a 1 Terabyte capacity hard drive capable of recording up to 130 hours of high-def content, plus a recordable HD DVD drive that can read and write both HD and standard DVD media, allowing for backwards compatibility with existing discs, and able to store nearly 4 hours of high=def content on a dual-layer 30Gb HD DVD.

All content can be output in full 1080p HD, including standard DVD content which is upconverted. It also provides a simplified method for transferring existing DVDs to HD DVD.

As both HD and PVR take off, it's not surprising that an increasing number of PVR (Personal Video Recorder) sales are high-def ones.

Of all PVR shipments to the US, for example, over a third were high-def ones.

European consumers are currently more likely to buy standard-definition PVRs, as we lag behind the US in the whole HD scene.

However, as more people investigate these two new areas of viewing technology, uptake of high-def PVRs is sure to increase. Why bother buying a SD PVR if you're going to upgrade to HD TV sooner rather than later?

Read

The transition to High Definition in Europe has already met with some customer confusion; in the States the technology evolved much more fluidly, but here in Europe I feel that it is being crowbarred in before all the new services and disc formats arrive. Making it simple to understand what HDTV means, where to get it and the equipment you’ll need is probably a real pain for those involved in educating the average consumer. The latest solution is a new logo (pictured) which matches up with the existing HD Ready stickers.

From now on the HD Ready logo signifies a TV set as “capable of processing displaying” high def signals, whilst the new HD TV logo means that the device (such as a DVD player or set-top-box) can “receive and process” HD content. So basically the idea is: buying an HD Ready TV plus and an HDTV device means that they absolutely will work together. Now if only they could find away to explain the 720p/1080i/1080p issue with a nice simple logo...

via Reg Hardware

So your Sony PS3 is going to be pricey not because of its superb gaming facilities, but because it is basically a subsidized Blu-ray player that will allow Sony to take the lead in HD. That appears to be what the company CEO Howard Stringer is saying.

Games Digest reports that Sony's head talked to the Hollywood Reporter about the PS3 stressing its importance as driving adoption of high-resolution HDTV gadgets. Stringer spoke of a "high-definition value chain that starts with cameras and goes through projectors and television sets and ends up with the PS3."

The Hollywood Reporter piece puts forward a potential release date of Christmas 2006 for the PS3 in the US and quotes an unnamed source inside Sony as putting initial costs on the PS3 as at $300 to $400, a loss on each player for Sony, but "PS3 is a subsidised Blu-Ray player that will sell 20 million units. The first HD player will be on the market for $1,000."

Blimey – finish one HD DVD post and then another comes along. This time it is Tosh which has announced it is to be first in the world to deliver a notebook PC with an integrated HD DVD-ROM drive. No surprise there as Sanyo and NEC are hardly big names in the PC world. It makes its debut at the CEATEC exhibition in Japan next week and goes on sale in Japan in 2006 with other countries getting it soon after. The slim-type HD DVD-ROM drive, with a height of only 12.7 millimeters, has a single optical lens that can read HD DVD discs and read and write to standard DVD and CD.

Interestingly Tosh mentions the drive’s High Def TV potential saying 'With TV moving towards high definition digital broadcasts and PCs increasingly integrating advanced AV capabilities, including TV tuners, demand is emerging for high definition programming and content. Toshiba has responded to this trend by promoting the advanced imaging capabilities of the next-generation HD DVD format, and has now brought HD DVD to portable computing, the fastest growing segment of the computer market. '

Well it is the news that Toshiba, and its ever so slightly beleaguered HD DVD format has been waiting to hear. The twin big boys of the PC world, Microsoft and Intel have today confirmed they will join the HD DVD Promotion Group. This basically means that they will back the format, at the expense of the Sony lead Blu-ray rival. Other HD DVD supporters include NEC and Sanyo. The companies cited reasons such as low-cost manufacturing, future proof compatibility and superior capacity and interactivity as the reason for their move.

Interestingly there is still an olive branch for Sony and the Blu-ray group. The release concludes by saying 'Although the companies have determined that HD DVD is the only viable solution at this time, each remains committed to working toward one format that meets consumer and industry requirements.'

Here’s what their talking heads had to say and the full text of their reasons for choosing the format.