Integration continues

The Register's reporting on new screens from Hitachi.

While 32", 37"and 42" LCD/Plasma screens are not particularily impressive, Hitachi's pushing the envelope with integration. The systems come with 4 integrated tuners and with harddrive based video recording (PVR) as an option.

While DVD integration has remained limited to small yet bulky CRT's (or otherwise high end Bang and Olufsen hardware), I'm betting that PVR's going to find it's way into an increasing number of LCD's. Look at it this way: the marginal costs of putting a drive pased PVR into a flat panel display are pretty small (let's say, less than 5% of the selling price, if that). On top of that, I'm sure there are companies in Taiwan that will supply manufacturers with packages for easy integration into their flat screens. My take is that the chances are pretty good that within 12 months atleast a quarter of all flat panel displays will sport an integrated PVR functionality. Now my question is: what's the OS they will be using for them?

(On another note, the good people at Hitachi really need to do something about the info management on their site - as I'm writing this, it's impossible to find proper information on these new Wooo displays)