Toshiba Corp., a leading maker of consumer electronics, on Thursday issued a statement that it would delay the release of the HD DVD recorder for consumers RD-A1. The company apologized for the delay and said it was conditioned by unexpected production delay.

Toshiba said that it would release its HD DVD burner, which also includes 1TB hard disk drive storage, on the 27^th of July, 2006, approximately two weeks behind the original schedule on July 14. The firm did not explain the exact reasons for the delay, but cited problems with production without elaborating. Given that it is unclear whether Toshiba plans to market the RD-A1 device outside Japan, only customers in the land of the rising sun are effected by the announcement.

Toshiba’s RD-A1 integrates two digital TV-tuners to receive the full range of HD broadcasting sources – terrestrial, broadcast satellite (BS) and communications satellite 110° (CS) broadcasts – while another dedicated tuner handles analog broadcasts. The RD-A1 can record two broadcasts at once, one digital broadcast and one analog. Unfortunately, the RD-A1 cannot actually record videos in maximum resolution possible, which means that users will only be able to record content in standard definition.

The RD-A1 HD DVD recorder from Toshiba features 1TB hard disk space, which allows users to record video, however, a noticeable drawback of the RD-A1 is that the device cannot record video maximum resolution and encoding it using MPEG 4 AVC (H.264) codec. According to the firm, the RD-A1 can record video in MPEG 2 format and then perform up-conversion from standard definition video, which means that “image quality may not match that of an original high-definition source”.

Toshiba said its RD-A1 can record HD DVD-R, HD DVD-R DL (dual layer), DVD-R, DVD-R DL, DVD-RAM and DVD-RW discs. Naturally, the device can playback different types of HD DVDs, DVDs and CDs.

The recommended price is ¥398 thousand (approximately $3420).