Pioneer Introduces Combination VHS/DVD Recorder with Built-in HDD

Pioneer Corporation announced today the introduction in Japan of the DVR-RT7H, the company's first combination VHS/DVD recorder with built-in HDD offering a variety of easy dubbing features among VHS, DVD and HDD.
The Japanese market for DVD recorders has been enjoying rapid growth, and the DVD recorder has become the standard video recording device for the home. Especially, a combination VCR with DVD recorder (including models with a built-in HDD) has captured as much as 40% of the market.

Pioneer's first 3-in-1 combination recorder is equipped with One-button Auto Dubbing feature, which allows easily converting video archives of VHS to DVD. The DVR-RT7H also contains a wealth of other DVD recording features, such as up to 24 hours of continuous recording onto a single-sided Dual Layer DVD-R (DVD-R DL) disc and a maximum of 100x dubbing (HDD to DVD-R), the fastest in the industry. Thus, this combination VHS/DVD recorder can fully meet a wide range of customer needs.

The DVR-RT7H will be available in the Japanese market in late June with no retail price suggested.

Main features

1) "One-button Auto Dubbing" to copy an entire VHS tape of video content onto a DVD

After setting a VHS tape to be dubbed and a blank DVD into the DVR-RT7H, what users do is simply press the "Auto Dubbing" button on the product surface. The recorder will automatically perform all of the operations for dubbing: fast-rewinding the VHS tape, measuring the recorded time, selecting the optimum recording mode to DVD, dubbing from VHS to DVD, and finalizing the DVD disc*3. This feature is perfect for customers who want to easily transfer their valuable video archives from VHS tapes to the DVD medium.

2) A wealth of dubbing functions among VHS, DVD and HDD

The DVR-RT7H provides a variety of dubbing methods to suit customers' use, including: "6-way Dubbing", "One-touch Dubbing", "VHS Cueing Linked Dubbing", which detects VISS (VHS Index Search System) signals and divides the recording into titles or chapters during dubbing, and "Auto Blank Cut Dubbing"

3) DVD-R DL format compatible: capable of recording up to 24 hours on a single-sided disc

The new recorder's MPEG encoder allows higher picture quality and longer recording time for both DVD and HDD, compared with that for conventional models. Onto a DVD-R DL disc, the new DVD recorder can record up to 24 hours of video content in the MN1 recording mode, or a maximum of about 6 hours with the same picture quality as commercially available DVDs. For the HDD, the DVR-RT7H (equipped with a 200 GB HDD) can record up to about 569 hours.

4) "Quick Disc Navigator" and "Help Navigator" support easy, comfortable and smooth operations

Through human-friendly designing approach, the easy-to-use on-screen interface (GUI) for the new recorder has been developed in cooperation with the Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology (RCAST) at the University of Tokyo. Even when users operate the new recorder for the first time, they will sufficiently enjoy their simple, convenient, and clear on-screen controls thanks to the following new functions:

-- "Quick Disc Navigator" offers rapid scrolling and title display options. Users can find the programs they want to view quick and smoothly with rapid scrolling and several title display options (number of titles displayed: 4 or 8; order of title displayed: from the latest recording to the oldest one, priority to new programs, alphabetical/numerical by title name, or from the oldest recording to the newest one). In addition, users can select multiple titles at the same time in the delete, edit or other operation modes.
-- "Help Navigator" displays the operation guide screen to tell users the next operation even if they haven't read the instruction manual. With this function set to ON, a pop-up operation guidance is automatically displayed to give tips on convenient playback functions, etc.

5) Advanced Electronic Program Guide (EPG) functions

In addition to popular auto-recording features such as the "Automatic Key-word Recording," new search functions for easier timer recording are available: "New Program Search" to search for new programs, and "Show Me Search (Omakase Search)" to search for programs based on user-specific genre preferences. Thus, the new recorder's timer recording is now more simple and powerful than the previous year's models.

6) The industry's fastest high-speed copy capability of approximately 100x speed (HDD to DVD-R) makes it possible to copy a one-hour program in about 40 seconds

Thanks to Pioneer's proprietary DVD-R/DVD-RW drive capable of recording on DVD-R at 12x and on DVD-RW at 6x speeds, the new recorder can copy the one-hour program recorded in the MN1 mode onto a DVD-R disc in about 40 seconds, while the previous year's models needed over one minute to copy the same program. In addition, the "Two-Path Pro Dubbing" automatically optimizes the copy bit rate allocation depending on the images, and copy the program recorded on the HDD in the "XP+ mode" to a DVD disc in the optimum picture quality.

7) A variety of high picture quality functions including the "XP+ recording mode" (around15 Mbps transfer rate, capable of recording in super high quality to the HDD)

-- The new recorder is equipped with the "XP+ recording mode" (to HDD), which allows recording even better quality images at 15 Mbps, besides the previous highest picture-quality recording mode "XP" (10 Mbps).
-- Based on the designing concept for the "DianaCircuit," the full-digital signal processor employed in Pioneer high-end DVD recorders, the new recorder's high-quality video engine realizes finer, clearer videos.

8) Other advantageous features

-- Supporting the playback of DVD-RAM and DVD+R/+RW discs as well as DVD-R/DVD-RW discs.
-- "Jukebox" function allows one-touch recording of music CDs to the HDD.
-- Bilingual recording and variable resolution (2/3D1, 3/4D1) recording onto the HDD