Sony Rolling Out Powerful DVR

Sony Corp. will begin selling a computer and home server system that makes a midget of TiVo. With 1,000 gigabytes of hard-drive storage, it can record six TV channels for nearly a week straight.

Vaio Type X, set to go on sale Nov. 20 in Japan, will cost about $4,700, Sony spokesman Shinji Obana said. There are no plans to market it elsewhere.

Recorded programs are displayed as a thumbnail TV guide that Sony calls Time Machine View. The television content can also be grouped by categories such as sports or sitcoms, Sony said.

To make room for new programs, the oldest recordings are automatically deleted unless they're specifically saved.

The machine has six analog TV tuners that can record six channels at once for a week at 19 hours of programming a day, or five and a half days of continuous recording.

By contrast, the top-end version of TiVo, currently $300 after rebate, can record one channel for 140 hours, or nearly six days.

By Yuri Kageyama