LATEST ADDITIONS

In the large-screen category, Toshiba has plenty to show. The XV645 series includes 40-, 46-, and 52-inch models that will be available in May. All are 120Hz and include Toshiba's Resolution Plus, which used to be called SRT and does a very creditable job upscaling standard-def to 1080p.

Tucked away in one corner of the Sharp booth is a new single-chip, 1080p DLP projector, the XV-Z15000, which will sell for a mere $3000 starting in March. It has Sharp's VyperDrive, which bypasses the video processor for gaming, but it doesn't have anamorphic capabilities or, more importantly, lens shift, which makes placement more difficult.

Yet another concept demo in the Hitachi booth was called Super Resolution, which interpolates new pixels on a frame-by-frame basis to increase an image's resolution. The split-screen demo was very impressive, as shown here.

Perhaps the most highlighted section of Hitachi's booth is called Style Unlimited, in which the current Ultra Thin TVs are wrapped in various designer frames, including the gold-leaf pictured here. The gold leaf was applied by a company called Hakuichi, one of the most famous in Japan for this skill. Hitachi had several people in the booth asking attendees which designs they preferred to gather data on the US market. Some of the designs were way cool and very beautiful, but I always prefer a black bezel that calls as little attention to itself as possible, and I said so to the pollster. However, I realize that I'm quite geeky and many Joe the (insert occupation here) types might really like this idea.