Audio Video News

Sony just unveiled two new Bravia HDTV lines, focused on offering some of the fastest pictures or thinnest profiles on the market. Unfortunately, since they're two separate series, you're going to have to make a choice between a really thin screen or really fast video.

The Bravia W1 series features a blazing 240 Hz picture - twice the speed of formerly top-of-the-line 120 Hz screens and a full four times faster than the 60 Hz most HDTVs offer. Were I in Boston, I would describe the picture as "wicked fast."

Samsung was the first to show off a 240 Hz prototype a few months ago, but it looks like Sony is going to beat it out of the commercial gate. The Bravia KDL-40W1 and KDL-46W1 are scheduled to ship in Japan on November 10 for respective retail prices of 290,000 and 400,000 yen, about equivalent to $2,600 and $3,600 USD.

Thin is the key to Sony's other major HDTV announcement. While the Bravia W1 screens focus on speed, the Bravia ZX series focuses on size.

While the Bravia KDL-40ZX1 offers a 40-inch screen, it cuts a profile just a hair under a centimeter (less than four tenths of an inch to us non-metric Americans). That's thinner than most cell phones and digital cameras.

Once again, Sony looks like it'll beat yet another company from prototype to store shelves. Last year at CES, Pioneer showed off a concept Kuro HDTV that measured just nine millimeters thick (about a millimeter, or 1/20th of an inch thinner than the Bravia ZX). While it's remained a concept model, Sony plans to ship its super-thin screen the same day the Bravia W1 comes out.

That much thin-ness doesn't come cheap, though; at 490,000 yen (about $4,500 USD), the ZX1 costs almost twice as much as the 40-inch W1 model. -Will Greenwald

[Photos courtesy of Engadget]