Although the 128GB storage space touted by the new BDXL standard sounds pretty sweet, nobody can deny the fact that Blu-ray XL recorders are still way to expensive for most of us, but Panasonic is set to change that with its new DMR-BR585 unit that is bound to hit Japan this month.
Featuring pretty much all the bells and whistles that one would expect from a present day Blu-ray recorder, Panasonic's offering can store your favorite TV shows either on the included 320GB internal hard disk or on a 100GB multi-layered recordable BDXL disc as it seems that 128GB discs are not supported.
Furthermore, content can also be recorded from the hard to a BDXL disc or vice versa, this unit managing to offer an impressive functionality in this regard.
Captured video in encoded using either the MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 standard, Panasonic stating that one BDXL drive can store up to 86 hours and 40 minutes of Full HD Blu-ray content, enough, I would say, even for the most die hard TV freaks out there.
Connectivity wise, the DMR-BR585 features a HDMI input, a SD card slot as well as Ethernet networking, although Panasonic does not state if this device features any kind of Internet streaming (or what streaming services are supported).
