Panasonic yesterday launched a new product - the HDTV Photo Player DMW-SDP1- which is said to enable users to view photos taken by a LUMIX or other SD-compliant digital camera in High Definition quality on a large screen TV, such as Panasonic's award winning series of Plasma TVs.

Panasonic's latest DMW-SDP1 is a compact, lightweight photo player that sports a Venus Engine III image processing LSI, the same technology included in Panasonic's renowned LUMIX cameras series. The Venus Engine III determines a reduction of the image-to-image interval to as short as 1 second, so users will benefit from the quickest answer time available on the dedicated market segment.

"The debut of our first HDTV Photo Player truly positions Panasonic as the one-stop source for the integrated complete home entertainment solution," said Takeshi Yamada, Product Manager, Digital Imaging, Panasonic Corporation of North America. "Consumers can now take high quality photos with our line of LUMIX digital still cameras and view them in high definition on one of our award winning Panasonic Plasma TVs and home theater systems.

The user can connect the SDP1 using a HD component cable to a High Definition TV and insert a SD/SDHC memory card into the slot in order to see all their photos in a 1080i high definition quality. The DMW-SDP1 supports motion JPEG playback, regardless of TV system, and it also has a normal VGA (640 x 480), wide aspect VGA (848 x 480) motion images, which can be recorded with LUMIX. On the other hand, the SDP1 offers dynamic motion image playback which especially benefits viewing on wide aspect HDTVs.

The player also delivers high definition motion image with a 1280 x 720 resolution coming at 15 fps (frame per second) with natural detail reproduction that is recordable with the LUMIX new model DMC-LX2.

The included remote control enables the user to easily control the photo player while the customer can also connect the DMW-SDP1 to a Pictbridge-corresponding printer via the included USB cable.

"Panasonic is returning people to a time when they sat in their living room and shared photo albums and memories with family and friends," added Yamada. "The only difference is that now, thanks to Panasonic's cutting edge technologies in digital cameras and Plasma TVs, those memories are as crisp and clear as the day they happened."

The DMW-SDP1 will have a suggested retail price of $129.