Panasonic's first Blu-ray DVD recorders

Matsushita, the company behind Panasonic, says that this June it's going to come out in Japan with a DVD recorder that uses the new Blu-ray discs. Blu-ray is one of the several high-definition formats that is jockeying to succeed the regular DVD discs we've gotten so used to lately. The advantage that the Blu-ray discs have over its competitors (the most formidable of which is Toshba's HD DVD) is that it can hold 50GB, or about 4.5 hours of high-definition video. And we hate to be the heavy here, but the introduction of two competing formats is going to be a massive headache for consumers (imagine having to make sure that every DVD you rent or buy is compatible with your player) and is only going to slowdown the already inexorably slow introduction of high-definition DVD movies.