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.