Hitachi to unleash terabyte DVD recorder

Hitachi is thinking ahead to the days when people will want to save a lot of high-definition television shows to watch later.

The company unveiled plans to ship a new hard disk drive DVD recorder that can store one terabyte of data on two 500 gigabyte hard disk drives. That's enough space for about 128 hours of high-definition digital broadcasting, according to the good folk over at Reuters who did the math.

The device will initially be available in Japan next month for 230,000 yen ($2,089.95). Hitachi is also offering models able to store 160 gigabytes ($1,181.38), 250 gigabytes and 500 gigabytes of data.

The report also notes that the new models will be able to record two high-definition programs at the same time, a good thing to have if you are a sports fan and an HD movie fan in the same house.

Hitachi boldly told Reuters it wants 35 percent of the Japanese market for high-definition DVD recorders by the end of the year.

That's a big order to fill considering Matsushita controls 27 percent of the Japanese market for DVD recorders, according to MM Research Institute. Sony, Toshiba and Sharp round out the list of the four companies that sold the most DVD recorders last year.

Hitachi did not say if or when the terabyte machine would be available in the United States or Europe.