TOKYO--Toshiba Corporation today announced the industry's first compact personal DVD-Video player, the SD-P410. It is as small as a sub-notebook PC and weighting only 1.2kg, the new player can be easily carried around and brings new convenience to the use of DVD in the home and in business applications.

The company also announced SD-2100, another compact DVD-Video player only 37 cm wide. Both SD-P410 and SD-2100 will be launched on the Japanese market on November 16^th in Japan, at a price of 75,000 yen each.

Today more than 75% of Japanese homes have two or more TV sets, and 37% have three or more. SD-P410, approximately one fifth the size and a third of the weight of a standard Toshiba DVD video player, can be carried from living room to bedroom, or place to place, and easily and quickly connected to a TV via a single cable. Its portability makes it ideal for use as a business tool to play customized video software at business conferences, presentations and in business promotions. Sales personnel can carry the SD-P410 and product promotion DVD software to individual customer's homes to give personal presentations.

Toshiba's state-of-the-art expertise in DVD-related technologies, including advanced LSIs, optical disc technology, MPEG2 video decoding and other digital information processing technology, brings the superior image and sound output of DVD Video to the smallest DVD products on the market. And though compact in size, the two new players make no compromise in performance. In both models, the visual quality of DVD is complemented with such features as Spatializer Laboratories' Spatializer 3-D Stereo which provides the wide surround-sound effects of 3-D stereo sound. Both also offer four-power zoom that allows viewers to home-in on the action on the screen.

The two new players also incorporate a ten-bit video D/A converter that assures crisp clear images, and a twenty bit, 96kHz audio converter that surpasses the digital circuitry and sound of conventional CD and DAT formats. They also comes with digital audio output converting a 24 bit, 96kHz signal to a 20bit, 48kHz signal, which enables a 96kHz audio disc to be played through external amps with D/A converters installed. A highly-reliable, switchable dual-lens pick-up, supports playback of music CDs and video CDs.

Toshiba first commercialized DVD video in November last year in Japan, and has been aggressively promoting the expansion of the DVD market. The growing availability of DVD software titles, recently passing the 250 mark in Japan and nearing 500 in the U.S., is expected to accelerate market growth. The increase of titles is also increasing the range of software available, going beyond movies to mood videos and educational titles. The growing number and range of DVD software will see development of new applications using DVD video players. Adding the compact SD-P410 and SD-2100 to its product line up allows Toshiba to support evolving customer demand for versatile DVD products.

Specifications:

SD-P410

SD-2100