P.M. BRIEFING : Sony Corp. Develops Digital VCR

Sony Corp. today announced it has developed a portable digital videocassette recorder that allows tapes to be copied or edited more than 20 times with little loss in quality.

The machine, dubbed the DVR-1, is the first portable VCR that uses digital rather than analog recording, resulting in better picture quality and little picture distortion when copies are made, Sony officials said.

Although the $37,000 machine is intended primarily for such professionals as television journalists, company officials said they plan eventually to develop one for the general public at a cost of $760. The recorder will go on sale in January.