Pansonic's Blu-ray recorder due out next week

For probably not much more money you could just fly to Athens and watch the games in person, but Panasonic is pitching their wildly expensive new Blu-ray disc recorder, which comes out in Japan next week, as the perfect way to capture NHK's high-definition broadcasts of this summer's Olympic Games. Unlike regular DVD recorders, Blu-ray recorders are actually compatible with HDTV and the discs have a storage capacity of up to 50GB, which is enough space for up to 4.5 hours of high-definition programming.