Sony looking to stuff Blu-ray recorders in select LCD HDTVs?

Given that Sony has primarily used its PlayStation 3 console to snag market share in the home video sector thus far, it's not surprising to see it branching out now that Blu-ray stands alone. Nevertheless, the next logical step has already been hinted at by Ryoji Chubachi at a recent press event in Taipei. Reportedly, Sony is hoping to "increase the global market share of its BD products from 20-percent currently to 50-percent by the end of 2008," and in order to do so, it's looking to gift select LCD HDTVs with "BD recording functionality." Of course, it was only a matter of time before those DVD / LCD combos became Blu-ray / LCD combos, but giving users the ability to capture broadcast material without an external burner is certainly an interesting twist.

[Via Electric Pig]

[zargon @ Apr 7th 2008 11:57AM]

No thank you!

I want to keep my components seperatly to simplify if a devices fails or if I choose to upgrade.

[Lowest Ranked @ Apr 7th 2008 12:52PM]

Exactly!

I can't see this as a practical idea.

Sure its 'cool', but how many of you ever owned and used a DVD Recorder connected to your TV?

Regardless, optical media, still has a spin-up/down time, thus meaning load times. Whereas its digital medium competitor (DVR, TiVo, STB) is instantaneous.

This is almost a step backwards.

[Homeboy @ Apr 7th 2008 1:32PM]

I hate all in one products as well. Imagine the frustration and dismay of having to send in a wall mounted 47 inch LCD just because the Bluray loading bay is jammed. 3-6 weeks of waiting for your baby while starring disappointingly at the dusty 26 inch CRT you picked up from the basement.

[Jon Acheson @ Apr 7th 2008 1:32PM]

I don't want integrated components in my TV.

However, as a happy owner of a DVD recorder, this talk of Blu-Ray recorders interests me. It will be years before such a thing is in my price range, but it is something to look forward to.

[Johan S @ Apr 7th 2008 2:32PM]

Yeah but if Apple comes out with a HDTV with aintegrated Apple TV and Mac, you'd be standing in line to buy it.

But if Sony decides to integrate the PS3 in their HDTVs people complain.

Some of us do want integration so we dont have to muddle with wires and/or connectivity issues.

[Chuckles McGee @ Apr 7th 2008 3:12PM]

Ick indeed! My Tivo can record HD, that's all I need.

[Bookshelf @ Apr 7th 2008 4:54PM]

i think its just because mac users don't like clutter and love integrated things. thats why they would love a tv that has a apple tv and a mac inside it. zomg! it only take a power cord! thats it!

[Sam Winter @ Apr 7th 2008 8:05PM]

Can someone please answer why DVD and BR recorders connected to TVs are so popular in Japan, but not in the USA ???? Is it the stupid ass MPAA that causes the discrepancy?

Why doesn't Tivo have a BD or DVD recorder? If I just have a standard cablebox, can I buy a DVD burner and connect it via HDMI to record HDTV on disc? Does anyone do this regularly, and if so, can you tell us your experiences doing it ?

[Hax Or @ Apr 7th 2008 12:06PM]

I heard Blu-Ray was dead. Apparently we should hold out for HD-DVD.

Just my 2 cents

[Andy @ Apr 7th 2008 12:55PM]

What?

Maybe when BR discs drop to less than $8 each, this might catch on a bit more. Until then, it's gonna be early-adopters only, and won't help that 20% much.

[mongoos150 @ Apr 7th 2008 12:11PM]

Built in components = *groan*

[Ph4r @ Apr 7th 2008 12:13PM]

This could be really sweet, full digital access to All Video materials. I would love to see some great hacks come together for this.

[rock99rock @ Apr 7th 2008 12:15PM]

I knew karaoke was popular in Japan, but jeez

[LongshotX @ Apr 7th 2008 12:20PM]

Sony should be looking at getting that price below $200.

[kal326 @ Apr 7th 2008 12:21PM]

Great something to make a Sony LCD tv even more expensive...

[LongshotX @ Apr 7th 2008 12:31PM]

I know right...seems like they do everything they can to jack up the price of blu-ray. Does Sony understand yet that many of us just want a cheap Blu-Ray player that does everything it is suppose to do, without the consumer worrying about stupid profile BD-Live, etc.

[Marc @ Apr 7th 2008 12:24PM]

But will you be able to tune the TV and Recorder to seperate channels/imputs?

[BK @ Apr 7th 2008 12:25PM]

That is a lot of sweat.

[Shane @ Apr 7th 2008 12:44PM]

When I read this the first thing I thought of were the "TrueTech" LCD TV/DVD combos that they sell at Target. No thanks. Give me a Blu-Ray player for $99 that will work with my existing HD display.

[Gibson @ Apr 7th 2008 1:29PM]

exacta-fucking-mundo

[IdBuyThatForADollar @ Apr 7th 2008 1:50PM]

Is this the same Sony that promised 380 PS3 games by March '08? How did that one go? (Tip: They missed their mark by over 75%)

[Evan @ Apr 7th 2008 1:59PM]

They're going in the wrong direction! Many people don't even use the tuner or speakers that are built into their TVs, and they want to add even more stuff inside the TV? Please Sony, just give us a monitor, and let us provide our own external Blu-Ray players, audio receivers/speakers, and tv-tuners/cable-boxes.

[apeguero @ Apr 7th 2008 2:08PM]

Dumb idea. Why not add USB device recording capability so that I could plug an external storage device via USB? Say USB HDD, thumb drive, etc? Why discs? I wish we'd move away from discs soon. You know how excited I was to discover my PS3 sees my bootleg movies in AVI, MPG, and DiVX? That's cool. Now, if only the TV came with software and a USB plug to allow this then that would be even better. Or, why not a Wifi 802.11n built into the TV? This way I can skip the external source all-together and just stream my movies to the TV? Blue-Ray recorder built-in? Meh.

[AJ in the East Bay @ Apr 7th 2008 2:18PM]

Sony is doing everything in their power to make Blu-ray a success, but they're doing it wrong. People want cheap BD players, nothing else. If Sony wants to make up for what they lost when they paid studios to switch to Blu-ray, so be it, but eventually the customer will decide if Blu-ray is for everyone.

[mymaclife @ Apr 7th 2008 2:39PM]

Sony are doing it so wrong they won the format war! Try telling the guys at HD DVD Promotions Group that Sony are making a bad job of pushing Blu Ray! FFS!

[kal326 @ Apr 7th 2008 2:58PM]

@mymaclife

Blu-ray won a HD Format battle, but the war is still far from over. All that has been decided is the format, you still have to sell consumers on the idea. Recently reports have shown that HD movie adoption is still far below what the industry was hoping. Converting users from DVDs to more expense movies and players in the next battle.

[mymaclife @ Apr 7th 2008 3:28PM]

@ Kal

If you read my reply and what I replied to in AJ's post, you will see your response is un-necessary.

[doodio @ Apr 7th 2008 3:18PM]

It's nice to see you jerks complaining that the price of blu-ray is too expensive. HDDVD was by far the best choice for consumers, you'll not see a $99 blu-ray player any time soon, and you all don't deserve it. All this bullshit ps3 fanboy crap, we should have lobbied and protested for HD DVD, now look what you're left with.
I'm downloading new hd movies, I don't care if it's slightly reduced quality, better than paying 3x the price that I should for a movie. I'll be getting an hd dvd player for all my upscaling and cheap hd dvd needs.
And yes I can easily afford sony's price, it's just bullshit and I won't do it.

[rock99rock @ Apr 7th 2008 4:25PM]

hddvd fanboy!!! Like you are any better than a ps3 fanboy... Skrew BOTH formats i say. Newsgroups and Torrents foreva!

[Miikun @ Apr 7th 2008 4:25PM]

Meh you guys are not looking at the target consumer, who is already receiving complaints that a non-flat TV detracts from the decor. Now, the wife finally agrees to a flat screen because it doesn't stand out or occupy cabinet space / require special furniture, and now you're going to have to hook up an external BD recorder with an hdmi cable, and a flat 1' deep surface to put it on? These people don't care about the serviceability or the inability to ship one part to be repaired, repairs never even enter the equation. Watching media from a HDD? Not in the equation, they want to borrow a disk from a friend and put it in, they don't spend the time to download media, or install AnyDVDHD to rip a disk, they simply get them from Netflix or off the shelf at Target. They don't spend time reading Engadget or caring about anything besides their kids, house payments, and their sports teams. Watching a movie or recording a TV show is just commodity tech, and if it can be don e elegantly, they prefer it.

[DssTrainer @ Apr 7th 2008 4:30PM]

This is a great idea as long as you keep it modular. I want to be able to use the same Blu-ray drive in my PC as my LCD TV so in case it breaks I can hop on newegg and replace it without dismantling the TV.

[Achilles @ Apr 7th 2008 6:29PM]

More Sony crap. Fix your current problems. If you want to see the numbers, lower your prices on BR. Movie studios need to their part as well. BR movie selections suck! The former Red studios need to quit dragging their feet as well.

Give me a decent, semi-affordable stand-alone BR player that isn't buggy from the start and I'm sold!

[doctorSpoc @ Apr 7th 2008 11:13PM]

optical media is dead...

Toshiba is actually won, by loosing... they will get out of optical media before Sony and move on to digital media sooner... Sony is back in the dark ages with BlueRay.

[I LOVE THE CAPS LOCK KEY @ Apr 8th 2008 2:28AM]

Dear Sony,
Here is a much better way to gain market share: MAKE BETTER PRODUCTS that can best a PIONEER KURO. KURO is the replacement for the Wonderful Trinitron you hastefully abandoned so many years ago.

Sincerely with past love,
CAPS LOCK.

[Jeffrey @ Apr 8th 2008 3:35AM]

HOME SERVER!
HOME SERVER!

I don't want a BluRay recorder either. With cheap hard drives, if I had an integrated solution I'd use a 2.5" SATA for now. Let's also not forget that I need a CableCard for the HDTV to even receive the stations correctly and that's NOT here yet in Canada and to my understanding not fully supported in the USA (or anywhere?).

I'm still waiting for an inexpensive box used to store all my media. My BluRay movies, DVD's and music etc would all go to this box and stream to my HDTV's PC's etc. This is nothing new yet I still can't find a reasonably priced one that properly powers off and either plays the video or streams it efficiently to a device that can.

Actually, I'm a little miffed at the state of Digital Video Recording in general. My Rogers Cable provider has the exact same box for 3 years and hasn't even properly supported the manufacturer upgrades. Aside from a Home Server and/or a PC solution (PCI CableCard) most people just want a good, solid DVR with a hard drive (eventually SSD). Discs for DVR are dead!

[Lexhard @ Apr 8th 2008 10:28AM]

Well... I'd rather much tell them to stay with the PS3. Blu-ray was somehow grew with the PS3 so why seperate, not unless they are thinking of making a deal with microsoft. Anyway, don't be ridiculus of putting an HDTV/blu-ray combo along with the recording funtionality. We'd be wasting our money if we already have a PS3 or a Blu-ray player. Selling it seperately wouldn't be a problem, but just leave the combos out, that would be another cost to think of. I remember that Blu-ray alone is expensive enough. That is why it didn't sell on the first time it came out, but hopefully... because of the PS3 games, you rose to the top too. Consumers only likes to buy something that would benefit them on a lower price...