Panasonic is to roll-out sales of a range of Blu-ray recorders in Australia, making it only the second country after Japan to receive the devices.
A 500GB Twin High Definition Tuner and VIERA Link model is to go on sale this month as well as various lower-spec recorders, the first 46” plasma TV and new 37” Full HD LCD TV models.
Paul Reid, Panasonic Australia’s Director for Consumer Electronics Group, described the move as a “significant breakthrough” for Blu-ray.
“Panasonic has led the way in home entertainment products and continues to bring innovation to the market with Australia’s first Blu-ray recorder for the living room,” he said.
Other overseas markets, including Europe and the US, are to receive the new model shortly.
Tag: panasonic
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Australian market first to get recordable Blu-ray player outside of Japan
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First single-chip processing LSI developed by Panasonic for Blue-ray Disc players
Panasonic has announced that it has developed the first single-chip signal processing LSI for Blu-ray Disc players that can both read the disc and decode the content.
Previously these functions were performed by separate front end and back end LSI in addition to seven external memory chips.
By combining the functionality into one chip, 50 per cent less space is required and 25 per cent energy is saved.
As a result of the single chip solution, manufacturers will be able to make smaller Blu-ray players that consume less energy.
The innovation is also likely to result in cheaper Blu-ray playback devices.
The Panasonic chips support Blu-ray 2.0 standard, MPEG-4 H.264 and VC-1 codecs and high-quality audio, including lossless coded content.
The chip is also able to play back video on two screens and can display 3D graphics.
It also supports CD and DVD playback.
Panasonic expects to start shipping the chips to manufacturers in June 2008.