CES 2009

We were all wondering how Toshiba would deal at its press conference with the recent news about Warner going Blu-ray exclusive. The answer: to their great credit they made clear their disappointment with the news, admitted that it had been a difficult week for them, but still expressed their belief that HD DVD offered the consumer the best combination of value and performance. However this all pans out, they handled it as well as could possibly be expected.

In more upbeat news, Toshiba launched five (count 'em) five ranges of new LCD TVs. At the top of the line are the Cinema Series REGZA XF550 Series designs, at 40-, 46-, and 52-inches in size, topping out at $3199.99. They all offer Toshiba's "Super Narrow Bezel" design (a frame that's less the 1" wide on all sides), together with DynaLight Super Contrast, ColorBurst wide color gamut, three HDMI 1.3 inputs, 120Hz operation, and 5:5 film pulldown for 24fps sources.

Toshiba also announced that in the future it will be splitting its product launches into two per year. At this show they mentioned future technologies that just might find their way into Toshiba products faster than an annual rollout would permit. No promises were made for early introductions of these features, but Toshiba is working on adding the Cell chip and LED backlighting with local dimming to some of its future LCD designs.