Japan's Sharp introduces LCD TVs with built-in Blu-ray

Japan's electronics giant Sharp president Mikio Katayama displays the world's first LCD televisions with built-in Blu-ray disk recoder, the "Aquos DX series" at a Tokyo hotel. Sharp will put the TVs on the domestic market on November 20, 2008 and will start exporting the product at the end of this year.

Japan's Sharp Corp. on Wednesday launched what it billed as the world's first liquid crystal display television with a built-in next-generation Blu-ray DVD recorder.

The latest in Sharp's Aquos line of televisions will hit the market in late November with prices between 170,000 and 500,000 yen (1,680 and 4,950 dollars).

"At a time that competition is tough and the atmosphere bad, we want to differentiate ourselves by offering customers products that are of great quality but simple to use," Sharp chief executive Mikio Katayama told reporters.

The new Aquos "DX series" means a customer does not need to buy a separate DVD player or recorder, although the DVD unit can still come out of the television if there is a need for repair.

Sharp was at the forefront of LCD televisions. Blu-Ray, backed by Sony Corp. and other electronics makers, has beaten out Toshiba Corp.'s HD DVD as the next-generation standard.

Sharp said it would not immediately release the new Aquos overseas. Japan has been the key market for next-generation DVDs, which allow better quality images and more interactive features than traditional DVDs.

Š 2008 AFP

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Posted by Lord_jag 10/21/08 09:24

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I don't know about that. I usually own my TV for about 10 years, and they change movie formats, it seems, far more frequently. I see this just being one more input on my TV that is never used once they move on to the next storage medium.