HP pushes further into the living room

HP has launched a slew of new products for the living room, unveiling three new Digital Entertainment Centers that allow the user to record TV shows on a hard drive, view and store digital pictures and listen to music.

One of the models is designed to work with a high definition TV, while the others support standard broadcast signals.

The Digital Entertainment Centers are available immediately in France, Sweden and the US.

For the American market HP also launched 10 new TVs using rear projection, LCD or plasma screens.

The devices use a series of technologies announced in January which HP has bundled under the name Visual Fidelity.

With plasma and LCD screens, the technique adjusts the sharpness and colours of the picture based on the room's ambient light.

The rear projection models, featuring screen sizes of up to 58in, use a technique that enhances the sharpness by splitting each pixel into four. These models will be available late this summer.