Newest Blu-ray recorders include transfer to PSP

Sony will release Blu-ray recorders April 30 in Japan that allow for one-touch transfer to the PSP, Walkman, and select mobile phones.

The BDZ-A70 will carry a hefty price tag, coming in at ¥170,000 ($1,658). At the same time, it shows a willingness by Sony to embrace the growing consumer desire for media portability.

The A70 will include a 320GB internal drive, and a similarly featured model, the A90, will have a 500GB drive. In either case, transfer to PSPs, newer Walkmans, and NTT DoCoMo's FOMA 905i mobile phone will be supported.

Resolution of the transferred videos will be 320x240, and in MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 format. The consumer will have the choice of either encoding for the mobile device in 384 or 768Kbps bitrates.

A two-hour show transfers in about 60 minutes, Japanese electronics news site AV Watch said.. The user interface apparently also allows the consumer to select a date range of the programs to be transferred, or by genre, or actor.

Most of the device's remaining features are similar to recorders and players that have come before it, the site reported.