Panasonic announces new Japanese PVRs

Panasonic is having a PVR party. Okay, I'm done with the alliteration now, I promise. The big P is launching five new high definition personal video recorders in Japan. The lowest-end models will sport 250GB hard drives, while the priciest of the bunch will have 1TB of storage.

They've all got DVD burners, and two models also include retro-style VHS recorders. Can you even still buy blank VHS tapes?

Each recorder has HDMI output, S-video and composite inputs, and some have ethernet jacks for downloading program data. The VHS models include one TV tuner each, while the non-VHS models have dual tuners. They're launching in Japan in the next two months for ¥80k to ¥200k ($669 to $1,688) and be available in the US sometime around the fifth of Neveruary.