So what do you do with the disk after you've recorded it? Take it out and play it in a blu-ray player? Why would you do that when you've got a player built into the TV? What's wrong with a HDD recorder? Bound to be more reliable.

I'm sure the embedded recorder works as a player too. I guess you could record something and give it to your mate.

I wonder if this gets around the encryption that Sky uses, since you would be recording what the TV is displaying rather than some output from the Sky box itself? Do they even still scramble the output from the Sky box?

...It's a win/win for Sharp. Putting aside the rabid polarised views on BR for the moment, Sharp are one of the original members of the Blu-Ray consortium so have a vested interest in pushing a product they have put money into. And it will also encourage people to buy Sharp HD panels. It helps remove the consumer barrier for BR that "I can't justify buying another fancy DVD player".

It's got little, if nothing, to do with the BR recording side of things and virtually everything to do with BR playback.