April 19, 2005 – Toshiba Corp. in late May will release an LCD television equipped with a hard-disk drive, the firm said Monday, according to the Nihon Keizai Shimbun. The high-definition LCD TV, which is compatible with terrestrial digital broadcasting, features a 160GB hard-drive recorder that enables users to record programs without a DVD recorder.

The new TV is also equipped with a couple of convenient functions. For instance, if users have to interrupt their viewing of a program to attend to some other business, they can hit record and pick up from where they left off just by pressing one button. They can also set the TV to record news programs automatically so they can watch the latest news anytime.

The new set comes with either a 37-, 32-, or 26-inch screen. The 32-inch model is expected to retail for around 350,000 yen (US$3254), lower than what it would generally cost to buy an LCD TV and a hard-drive recorder separately.

By bolstering its LCD TV lineup, Toshiba plans to boost its share of the Japanese flat-panel TV market by 5 percentage points to 15% in fiscal 2005. The company is aiming for a double-digit share of the global market compared with 7% last fiscal year.