Buffalo, the household name in computer peripherals and networking equipment, are set to release two new digital TV tuners, the company announced at a press conference at Otemachi, Tokyo, today. With the coming switch of terrestrial TV from analog to digital signals, the market today is flooded with tuners that either only have viewing capabilities with no recording features nor recording features, or high-end devices with every feature under the sun all packed in; Buffalo hope to alleviate that with their new affordable and easy-to-use digital video tuner/recorders, the DTV-H500R and DTV-X900.
Both devices will be available later this month for “around” 20,000 JPY (DTV-H500R) and 30,000 JPY (DTV-X900).
DTV-H500R
This product was designed as a “personal tuner” for I-just-want-to-be-able-to-watch-TV consumers, packing a digital tuner and a 500GB hard drive into a compact body just slightly larger than the VHS videotapes of yesteryear. As a dumbed-down simple device for people who want only basic, useful functions, it lacks advanced features like an optical disc drive (instead allowing for external hard drives – up to 2TB – to expand storage space), timeshifting, and networking functions. Along with the yellow-white-red RCA connectivity for analog TVs, it also has an HDMI port to serve as a digital video recorder for already-digital HD television sets. This model will be available in white – a rarity for this type of product – as well as a version with the buttons on the front panel labeled in English.
DTV-X900
Built for more advanced users, this model also supports USB external hard drives, but has additional features like Tsutaya TV, Yahoo! Japan for-TV services, and an RSS feature to display podcasts and feeds from Flickr and Twitter, among others. The X900 also acts as a network-attached storage device, able to serve media to computers, Sony and Toshiba TVs, and Playstation 3.
