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Sharp to sell seven Blu-ray recorder models

An employee for Japanese electronics giant Sharp displays the company's new Aquos Blu-ray BD-AV10 disc recorder in Tokyo yesterday. The recorder can record and play two-layer 50GB discs and record a maximum of six hours of high-definition images. PHOTO: AFP

Sharp Corp, a member of Sony Corp's Blu-ray digital disc group, will sell seven recorder models in Japan beginning on Oct. 27 to take market share from Toshiba Corp's rival high-definition DVD (HD DVD) standard.

Sharp will initially produce a monthly output of 30,000 of the Blu-ray recorders, which will be priced between ?100,000 (US$871) and ?120,000, the Osaka-based company said yesterday.

Another two models with hard-disk storage, priced at ?200,000 and ?300,000, will be sold beginning on Dec. 1.

The recorders will extend the accessibility of Blu-ray, which rivals HD DVD as the next home entertainment standard, after Sony this month said it would sell four models beginning on Nov. 8. The new models may also help Sharp meet a forecast 33 percent gain in digital disc player and recorder sales to ?60 billion this fiscal year.

"We see huge potential for these models as about 80 percent of people are still using older, analog-type recorders," Masafumi Matsumoto, a senior executive vice president at Sharp, said at a briefing in Tokyo.

All Sharp recorders will be Blu-ray compatible by 2011, Matsumoto said.

Sharp, Japan's largest liquid crystal display television maker, already sells one Blu-ray recorder that needs to be used with a compatible TV from its Aquos range.

The Blu-ray format is also backed by Matsushita Electric Industrial Co, the world's largest consumer electronics maker, and Samsung Electronics Co. HD DVD has support from companies including Microsoft Corp, Intel Corp and NEC Corp.

Toshiba sells two HD DVD players and one recorder.

Sony, which has issued more than 60 movies including Casino Royale and Resident Evil: Apocalypse on Blu-ray, now sells two recorder models in Japan.

The company's PlayStation 3 game console includes a Blu-ray disc player.

Movie Blu-ray discs outsold the rival format by a two-to-one margin in the first half, estimates from Home Media Research showed.

In addition to Sony, Walt Disney Co and Fox are releasing titles only in Blu-ray, while Time Warner Inc's Warner Bros studio has put out movies in both formats.

DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc and Paramount Pictures said last month they would release movies using HD DVD, joining General Electric Co's Universal Pictures as the only studios to back that format exclusively.
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