Most interesting of this new offering from Hitachi is the introduction of two new technologies:

• In-plane Switching (IPS) providing a 178 degrees field-of-view and
• An integrated digital video recorder utilizing twin tuners

Integrated ViXS XCode Digital Video Recorder

The new Hitachi LCD allows extended recording of High Definition video to an internal 250GB hard drive via XCodeHD while keeping the resolution intact. The high-definition transrating technology allows hours of recording HD content while maintaining the original high quality picture.

It was only on April 17 that the 2001 startup, XiXS Systems, announced its newest breed of video processors featuring support for high definition (HD) broadcast content. The XCode 2121 and 2111 processor’s are based on ViXS’ powerful XCodeHD Engine which provides encoding and reprocessing technology to reduce video bit rates while maintaining the same quality as the original content. The reduced bit rate allows content to be stored using only half the space required by other video encoders. The XCodeHD Engine can also provide HD-to-SD downscaling.

Founded in January 2001, ViXS Systems Inc headquartered in Toronto, Ontario and has filed over 100 patents to date.

In-plane Switching (IPS)

Hitachi’s W37L-H9000 LCD panel features in-plane switching (IPS) mode LCD from IPS Alpha Technology, Ltd. IPS Alpha Technology, Ltd is a joint venture between Hitachi, Ltd., Toshiba Corporation, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd., and wholly owned Hitachi subsidiary Hitachi Displays, Ltd.

IPS is a type of TFT-LCD display technology which is advertised as offering a wide 170-degree viewing angle, both horizontally and vertically, along with minimal gray-scale inversion. This is made possible by the liquid crystal molecules rotating while remaining parallel to the substrate when a voltage is applied, yielding perfect orientation of the crystals – according to the companies who have developed it. Read more about this technology at Hitachi Displays.

Hitachi’s W37L-H9000 LCD HDTV has an advertised resolution of 1366 x 768 and brightness of 500cd/m2.

The W37L-H9000 is expected to retail at approximately $3,050 from this September.