Sony announces the BDZ-V9 and BDZ-V7 highly anticipated Blu-ray disc recorder in Japan.

The Sony BDZ-V9 features a 500GB HDD, whereas the BDZ-V7 comes with a smaller 250GB hard-drive. Besides the larger hard-drive the BDZ-V9 features 1080p output (the BDZ-V7 only does 1080i), Sony PSP memory stick video export and video serving via LAN.

Both Sony Blu-ray recorder support BD-R and BD-RE discs. The new devices feature the Sony XMB user interface known from the PSP and coming on the PS3. The Sony BDZ-V9 starts shipping on December 8th in Japan and the BDZ-V7 8 days later on the 16th. There is no information yet if and when Sony is releasing Blu-ray disc recorder outside of Japan.
More details in this Sony press-release (Japanese).

Panasonic announced their Blu-ray Recorder DMR-BW200 and DMR-BR100 already 2 weeks ago.