POSTED BY

John Brownlee

AT 8:13 AM
Tuesday September 16, 2008

HDTV and Displays • Retro

aquos • blu-ray • sharp • vhs

Sharp smashes together VHS and Blu-Ray in one $1,100 player

sharp_blu_ray_vhs-560x278.jpg

The Sharp Aquos BD-HDv22 combination Blu-Ray/VHS recorder. It's like smashing together an abacus and a Cray: people can't understand why you'd need the former when you've got the latter. Why in God's name would you watch VHS when you've already got Blu-Ray?

But I've got a worn, dog-eared VHS copy of the 1975 Robert Mitchum version of Farewell, My Lovely — never released on DVD, let alone Blu-Ray — still sitting on my shelves. How sweet, how easy, to translate that grainy plastic brick into a nice Blu-Ray disc before the stock finally disintegrates. I understand, Sharp! And, I assume, so do all of the flabby, balding amateur pornographers who so bravely forged their bedroom careers in the early 80s: surely, they would like to transcribe their permed conquests to the next generation of medium.

So there's surely a market for this. It might even be a practical, commonplace one.The BD-HDV22 also allows recording of television programs to a 250GB hard drive and full support for BD-R/RE, DVD-R/RW and DVD-R DL. In short, it's a fine all-around system that can handle anything you throw at it, short of Laser Disc. But you'll pay for all those formats: it's due to be released on October 20 for $1,100.

Sharp didn't forget VHS, now marries it with Blu-Ray [Crunchgear]

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7 Comments

chromal

#1 – 10:48 AM September 16, 2008

blueray I can understand, but what is that slot on the left for? VHS? As in the old analog magnetic tape storage of NTSC video? How. Archaic.

milovoo

#2 – 10:55 AM September 16, 2008

Sure, despite hating VHS on principle, how else would I ever watch "My 20th Century" or "Shampoo Horns".

Anyone else have favorites have never made it to DVD?

Hamsterdunce

#3 – 1:18 PM September 16, 2008

For crap's sake... there's plenty of sub-$200 standard DVD/VCR combo boxes for transferring your old movies. Putting "Tapeheads" or "Max Headroom" (great old cruddy VHS flicks you can't get on DVD!) on anything more than a 480p DVD is just a waste of resolution (and money).

Anonymous Anonymous

#4 – 1:49 PM September 16, 2008

smash up? More like train wreck with that price!

This whole Blu-Ray thing is soooo monumentally stupid and overly priced.

jimkirk

#5 – 3:43 PM September 16, 2008

Tapeheads, apparently available on DVD! (I just put it on my birthday wish list.)

http://www.videoranch.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=VRS&Product_Code=600-012

Things I'd like on DVD include The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin. I have the first two seasons on VHS. The third season I've never found. Not the best, but completeness compels me.

GREAT! PBS used to have a show called Academy Shorts, showcasing films that won an award but were rarely seen since they weren't in movie theaters. GREAT! is an animated biography of Isambard Kingdom Brunel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isambard_Kingdom_Brunel by Bob Godfrey. Wonderful stuff, I can still hear some of the songs in my head "...you're certain to be treated as a great success, by adopting an inordinately tall headdress..."

If anyone has a source for this, please point me to it!

Not a Doktor

#6 – 7:02 PM September 16, 2008

I made my dad a video cd of a car race and he got all angry about how come something like that never took off. I then had to explain to him I only put 45 min of video on there and anything longer than that would take two or more discs.

Also I noticed it looked like a good vhs tape.

Rufus McDufus

#7 – 12:03 PM August 28, 2009

"blueray I can understand, but what is that slot on the left for? VHS"

It's for older and irreplaceable VHS tapes such as family videos you dipsh*t

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