By Matthew Henry
SYDNEY: LG Electronics today claimed an Australian-first with the launch of two flat panel TVs boasting built-in 250GB hard disk drives, providing up to 40 hours of high definition digital TV recording within the unit.
The company will roll-out a 42-inch LCD (RRP $5,375) and a 50-inch plasma (RRP $6,875) featuring the technology starting this month.
With both models, the combination of a built-in digital video recorder (DVR) and digital HDTV tuner allows users to record, play, pause and rewind high definition TV programs without the need of an external component such as a DVD recorder or personal video recorder (PVR).
Users can also record up to 100 hours of digital TV at standard definition quality, and the continuous recording function allows the user to pause and rewind live TV broadcasts.
LG believes the benefit of single-remote control operation for all TV and recording commands will be a big selling point.
According to LG Electronics Australia category manager – audio visual, Darren Goble, built-in DVR capability will be an increasingly popular feature in future television products from LG Australia following enthusiastic consumer uptake in other regions.
“The likelihood is that this will become a common feature and will be expanded across the range,” he said.
“It has been trialled in Korea and the US with great results, so I think the whole idea of integrating recorders into the screens is one that hopefully will expand over the coming 12 month or so.”
The 42-inch 42LC2DR LCD panel boasts an 8ms panel response time, 1366×768 resolution and a claimed 1600:1 contrast ratio. LG has also provided two HDMI inputs for single-cable connection to a wide range of home entertainment peripherals.
The 50-inch DVR plasma (50PB2DR) also features two HDMI inputs and 1366×768 resolution.