Panasonic's new VIERAs boast built-in Skype support, HDDs and Blu-ray recorders

Serkan Toto

Dr. Serkan Toto is an independent consultant and advisor focusing on Japan’s web, mobile and social gaming industries. Based in Tokyo, he works together with financial institutions and startups worldwide. Serkan has been the Japan contributor for TechCrunch.com since 2008. He is sept-lingual, holds an MBA and is a PhD in economics. → Learn More

Friday, May 14th, 2010

Panasonic announced [JP] a set of two new VIERA TVs for the Japanese market today, the 37-inch TH-L37R2B and the 32-inch TH-L32R2B. And they somehow managed to squeeze quite a few features and functions into the LCDs, most notably Skype support, a 320 GB HDD and a Blu-ray recorder.

The main difference between the two TVs is that the smaller one only has 1,366×768 resolution, while the bigger one is full HD (both have IPSα panels). Both models feature 20,000:1 contrast ratio and come with 16cm×4.2cm full range speakers, two HDMI ports, an SD/SDXC card slot, DLNA support, VIERA link, and LAN.

Users will be able to copy video stored on the HDD over to Blu-ray (but not the other way round) and video-Skype with other people in HD after getting Panasonic’s Skype-enabled TV camera. There’s are also support for a couple of video-on-demand services, for example YouTube, built into the devices.

Panasonic plans to roll out both TVs in Japan on July 9. Prices: $2,600 for the 37-inch model, $2,100 for the smaller one.

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