I have to say that the Toshiba RDX1 Video Library Station is one cool concept.

Take a DVD RAM/DVD-R video recorder, add a humongous hard disk and then throw in some really smart software which will let you program in timer recording of 32 programmes for up to 2 months, will catalogue and index up to 3000 titles (complete with thumbnails, title and chapter names and disk spanning IDs) and will let you create DVD RAM backups of your programs as required. Not only that, but it also offers high speed library dubbing.

‘You can dub an hour of content recorded in the highest picture quality mode (MN 2.0 Mbps/DD1) in about 7.5 minutes, and an hour of content recorded in the standard mode (SP 4.6 Mbps/DD1) in about 16 minutes.’

It’s copy protected to the nines of course, but it’s still a great pointer to the future direction of the multimedia living room appliance. Japan only at the moment, alas!