AV zombie

Sharp will unveil a Blu-ray disc recorder with a one terabyte hard drive at this year’s CEATEC tech show, which runs in Tokyo between October 2-6. The company, which recently grabbed a 14 per cent share of struggling plasma giant Pioneer, says that this is the first BD player to compete in storage term with Toshiba’s Vardia range of HD DVD recorders. Its BD-HDW20 (pictured), whose 1TB hard drive can record 127 hours of HD TV, will be joined by 500GB version, plus seven BD disc-only recorders available in black, white, silver and red finishes, designed to to match Aquos LCD TVs. All the models stress ease of use, and include a disc meter which reveals the amount of free disc space remaining on recordable Blu-ray discs. The units also offer HDMI CEC control.