Sony Corp has announced new models of the PSX hard disk drive (HDD) DVD recorder series. The new products, added with capabilities such as copying of video data onto MemoryStick, will be launched on April 15, 2005. Sony is releasing these models with the aim of promoting the use of the PSX in conjunction with the PSP portable game console. The company suggests, for example, that customers use the PSP to replay video shot with the PSX. Users can also copy video data onto MemoryStick Duo, which is smaller than conventional MemoryStick, by using a compatible adaptor.

The new products will come in two types: the DESR-7700 with a 250GB HDD and the DESR-5700 with a 160GB HDD. Both models use the same hardware used in the conventional PSX. The price will be open, but the company expects it to be around ?80,000 and around ?60,000, respectively.

The HDD DVD recorders dub an MPEG-2 video data file recorded on the HDD onto MemoryStick after converting it to an MEPG-4 file. There are two types of dubbing mode: high-resolution mode, with the frame rate of 30 fps and the encoding rate of 768 kbps, and low-resolution mode, with the frame rate of 15 fps and the encoding rate of 384 kbps.