Ray of hope: Two new Blu-ray products by Sony are taking aim at the DVD and also undermining traditional television. Sony's new Blu-ray recorders, the 320-gigabyte BDZ-A750 and the larger 500-gigabyte BDZ-A950, work as both Blu-ray burners and hard-disk video recorders. The pair are designed for downloading videos that are bought from the Tsutaya TV or acTVila video-on-demand services. These can then be transferred to a PlayStation Portable or media players that can read Sony video formats for watching on the smaller screen. TV programs that are recorded on to the BDZ units the old-fashioned way can also be transferred to the portable devices.
The BDZs can also transfer video to cell phones, though this cannot be done with copyrighted video material that is bought and downloaded. Any downloaded movies can, however, be viewed on a PC, a PS3, or any other device that is connected to the BDZ pair in a home network.
Both players have digital and analog TV tuners and use Sony's CREAS HD technology. They support recording of MPEG 2/1 and MPEG 4 AVC content on hard drives or Blu-ray discs and DVDs.