It may be a Japan exclusive for now, but Hitachi's Mobile Hi-Vision Cam Wooo has folks drooling from sea to shining sea. The cats over at Akihabara News were able to take a glimpse while KDDI unveiled its summer lineup, and they seemed to be quite impressed with the video quality and ease of use. Check the read link for a video of the flip phone in action, but remember, don't get too attached unless you call Japan home.

Japanese carrier KDDI au has now followed Softbank and NTT DoCoMo in pulling the red velvet cover off its summer 2009 devices, and as always, there are some neat tricks in here. From Toshiba, the Biblio is billed as an e-book reader; granted, it's using an LCD instead of an E-Ink display, but it's a doozy at 3.5 inches at 960 x 480. It features 7GB of user-accessible storage on board for books, and also has a slide-out dynamic keyboard that can display a numeric pad in the portrait orientation or full QWERTY in landscape. Moving on, the Sharp Sportio Water Beat -- as its name suggests -- is a waterproof sports-oriented set with advanced calorie and distance tracking (a la Nike+), but you're still never too far from your true destiny as a couch potato thanks to the phone's one-seg reception. Next, the Hitachi Mobile Hi-Vision Cam Wooo is the latest in the multimedia-centric Wooo series, becoming KDDI's first phone capable of 720p video recording at 30fps -- and there's HDMI-out on board for when the time comes to enjoy your footage. Finally, the SH002 is the realization of Sharp's solar phone concept from earlier this year, delivering one minute of talk time for every 10 minutes of charge time. There are other announcements in the mix here -- eight new phones in total -- but those were the killers of the bunch, and as always, this post is about as close as most North Americans will ever get to them.

[Via Engadget Japanese]

While it won't be the first handset to capture 720p video (hello, OmniaHD!), Hitachi's Mobile Hi-Vision Cam Woo is still apt to garner quite a bit of attention. As the leaked images hosted down below show, this clever flip phone packs 1,280 x 720 video recording, a 5 megapixel sensor, HDMI interface and a microSDHC slot for good measure. A generous tipster has informed us that said phone is slated to launch this coming Monday on KDDI, though we fully expect that envious North Americans won't ever get to toy with one on their home turf. For shame.

[Thanks, Anonymous]

This year's edition of the Hitachi Wooo line of flat panels look a lot like their predecessors on the outside (120Hz IPS LCDs, 250GB HDD equipped models with iVDR slots for additional hard drives and Wooonet DLNA network support) but it's what's inside that counts. The four new XP plasma models range from 42- to 50-inches and promise even better contrast ratios, as high as 40,000:1, with better color reproduction and the promise of greater energy efficiency. The ultra-thin 35mm / 1.4-inch thick LCDs are back in four new models, with UWB wirelessly connected tuners, auto sensing/adjusting brightness and aforementioned "eco" power sipping improvements. The relatively fat XP line of LCDs consists of just three displays, but just like all the rest, buyers can still hook up to the 'net and pull down video on-demand or Yahoo! Japan's web TV portal -- features unlikely to make the jump when we see U.S. versions of these later this year. The XP plasmas and LCDs go on sale in Japan later this month or next, while the ultra-thins will be crash dieting until October.

Read - Hitachi, recording double-35mm-thin LCD TV "Wooo UT800"
Read - Hitachi, 7 new plasma / LCD

So KDDI's latest lineup of new phones features the usual array of 8.1 megapixel cameras, wide VGA displays, one-seg TV tuners, and teleporters, but one particular handset stood out: Hitachi's Wooo H001. The dual-hinge flip's claim to fame -- well, besides the bizarre color scheme -- has to be the stereoscopic IPS display that presumably uses the same parallax barrier method shown off by the carrier late last year. The phone will happily serve up 3D-ified versions of various UI elements and mobile TV content, and when you start to get woozy (or Wooozy, as it were), just flip a switch and you're back to the reassuring flatness you're used to. It'll launch in three colors in April, and naturally, you'll have to be in Japan to get it.

[Via Akihabara News]

We knew Hitachi's Ultra Thin HDTV family would boast ultra-wideband technology, and while little was said about this aspect during CES, we've now learned that Tzero will be responsible for handling the aforementioned UWB duties. As expected, the UT HDTVs will "be able to receive high-definition video wirelessly from any HDMI equipped audio / video component," as Tzero promises that users will see transmission speeds of up to 480Mbps. Interestingly, we're told that the UWB-equipped sets are available in Japan right now, but only time will tell if those luscious wireless abilities will make the trip stateside in Q2.

At this point, we've certainly seen thinner LCDs announced by Sharp, Samsung, and LG.Philips. However, Hitachi is first -- the world's first -- to roll their relative 35-mm (1.37-inch) fatties out for production. The Wooo UT series announced this morning in Japan features a pair of 1080p sets measuring 42- or 37-inches with a lowly 32-incher throttling things back to a 1,366 x 768 pixel resolution. All feature just a single HDMI input, D-Sub 15 analog-in for your legacy PC, at least a 450cd/m2 brightness, 178-degree viewing angle, and 120Hz IPS panel wrapped in a bezel just 35-mm thick. So why just a single HDMI you rightly ask? Well, Hitachi has moved the tuner into an external Wooo Station box with 3x HDMI inputs (among others), SD slot, removable iVDR-S storage, LAN and optional ¥90,000 ($785) UWB module for up to 9-meters of wireless delivery. The V-42 is expected in early April, the V-37 by February, and V-32 in mid-December with prices of ¥430,000 ($3,753), ¥330,000 ($2,880), and ¥230,000 ($2,007), respectively.

[Via Impress]

Cramming DVR functionality into an HDTV is nothing new, but Hitachi is blessing two of its newest sets with a removable iVDR-S drive (shown after the jump) in case you feel like plugging your theoretical DVR HDD into other compatible devices. Up first is the 42-inch plasma, which offers up a 1,024 x 1,080 resolution, three HDMI ports, digital audio output, a headphone jack, Ethernet, dual ten-watt speakers, an SD slot, and a silver stand in case you're not keen on hoisting this up on your wall. The 37-inch LCD TV boasts a 1,920 x 1,080 Full HD resolution, 500cd/m2 brightness, 7,000:1 contrast ratio, built-in speakers, and the same port assortment as the P42-HV01. As expected, neither of these sets will come sans a stiff premium, so look for the iVDR-S-equipped PDP to land in "late October" for ¥390,000 ($3,232), while the L37-XR01 LCD arrives a month earlier at ¥350,000 ($2,901).

[Via AkihabaraNews]

We're already seen Hitachi's 2007 domestic HDTV line-up at CES. However, Hitachi saved a bit of Wooo-niqueness for their Japanese launch. The new XR01 and HR01 series of sets consists of five new TVs boasting a world's first: an integrated iVDR removable storage module -- a portable storage format used almost exclusively in Japan. In fact, Hitachi stuffs a 250GB IVDR-S ("S" as in SAFIA DRM) disk into the bay to get your started. These disks can then be plugged into compatible bays on your video recorder, PC, camcorder, etc, for easy portability of your media. The XR01 series is the only set to offer 1080p panels: the 50-inch P50-XR01 Full HD ALIS plasma and 37-inch L37-XR01 Full HD IPSα (120Hz) LCD. The P50 features 1100cd/m2 brightness and 10,000:1 contrast ratio while the L37 brings along a 500cd/m2 brightness and 7,000:1 contrast. The pair of HR01 PDPs pack a 1024 x 1080 resolution with the 42-inch P42-HR01 offering a 10,000:1 contrast and 1,500cd/m2 brightness while the 37-inch P37-HR01 goes 3,000:1 and 1,300cd/m2. Bringing up the tail is the 32-inch L32-HR01 with 1366 x 768 resolution, 500cd/m2 brightness and 7,000:1 contrast. All the sets ship with a dual terrestrial digital tuners coupled with dual terrestrial analog tuners and come loaded with inputs: 3x HDMI, 2x Japanese D4, 2x S-Video, 3x composite, Firewire, and Ethernet just to name a few. The top end P50 plasma is expected by mid-May for ¥570,000 ($4,840) while the L32 LCD is expected to pop on April 20th for about ¥250,000 ($2,123). Japan only, naturally.

[Via Impress]

Hitachi's Wooo DZ-HS503 hyrbid camcorder just busted out a can of Wooopass (har!) on the competition. Yeah, "hybrid" as in it records to both an internal 30GB hard disk drive and 8-centimeter DVD-RAM, DVD-RW, DVD-R, and DVD+RW discs. It will even record direct from that HDD to DVDs for 2x PC-less dubbing action. It appears to be the Japanese version of the DZ-HS500A mentioned in passing by Hitachi at CES. Inside you'll find a 3.31 megapixel CCD (suitable for 2.18 megapixel video or 3.05 megapixel stills), a lesser 10x optical zoom instead of 30x since the Japanese tend to be less creepy than Americans (ok, maybe not), a 2.7-inch 120,000 pixel TFT LCD, and even an SD slot for photographs. Expect the HS503 to hit for retail at about ¥140,000 or right around $1,162 -- beaucoup bucks for convenience over the quality of a 3CCD system. Also loosed are the Japanese equivs of the 8GB HDD / DVD hybrid DZ-HS301 and DZ-HS303 camcorders which shall hail by the names DZ-HS403 and DZ-HS401 in the land of the rising sun. Those will pop a bit sooner in February for ¥120,000 ($996) and ¥100,000 ($830), respectively.

[Via Impress]

Adding yet another item to what's likely one of the oddest titled product lines to ever grace the consumer electronics universe, Hitachi has now introduced the Wooo DZ-GX5300 DVD camcorder. This handheld unit rocks a compact, lightweight design and records SD video onto 8-centimeter (single-layer only) DVD-RAM, DVD-RW, DVD-R, and DVD+RW discs; additionally, the 3.3-megapixel 3CCD can snap stills and store them on the recordable disc or an SD card for easy transferring, and you can keep track of the action on the 2.7-inch swingout LCD. Users who like grabbing frames from full motion video will find lots to love here, and it sports a built-in capture function that grabs one second of time from a clip and automatically stores it separately without any fuss or post-processing. With an estimated run time of approximately 105 minutes, the newest Wooo should land later this month for a currently undisclosed price.

[Via Impress]

In a fit of marketing orb-asm, Hitachi just went big in Japan with their Wooo 10000 series of plasma displays with HDMI. The top of the line W60P-XR10000 brings a new 60-inch 1080i ALIS panel rockin' a 1920×1080 pixel resolution, dual-digital and terrestrial analog TV-tuners, and 250GB of disk for hosting MPEG-2 recordings dumped from the integrated DVR. The W50P-HR10000 and W50P-H10000 both bring 50-inch panels capable of a 1280x1080 resolution with the HR packin' that dual-digital/analog tuner, DVR, and 250GB hard drive, while the H skips the DVR altogether while paring back the tuner to a single digital/analog hybrid. Price/availability breaks down like this: W60P-XR10000 in late December for an expected ¥950,000 (about $8,160), W50P-HR10000 in mid November for ¥550,000 (about $4,723), and the W50P-H10000 in late November for approximately ¥500,000 (about $4,295).

Yesterday we joked that we'd all have 1TB storage devices hard-wired to our brains by 2056. We're not quite there yet, but today we're taking some of the first steps: Hitachi has just announced three new models of its WOOO DVR, which top out at 1TB. These sleek little players, the DV-DH1000D, DV-DH500D and the DV-DH160D all record in Hi-Vision (Japan's version of HDTV) and come in three colors including "piano black," "champagne silver" and another metallic color that Google couldn't translate for us. Hitachi's latest range from ¥120,000 and ¥200,000 ($1,020 and $1,700), and while the two higher-end versions will be released in early October, the DV-DH160D won't be out until the middle of that month. Each recorder comes loaded with two terrestrial digital tuners and two BS / CS digital tuners (a Japanese digital stream standard), along with three sets of component and S-Video ports on the back, HDMI, iLink (on the DV-DH1000D only), Ethernet, an SD card slot and a DVD-R / RW recorder. So if you're in Japan, get ready to smash your piggy bank or whatever it is that the Japanese are keeping money in these days -- knowing them, it's probably something way kawaii-er than ceramic swine anyway.

[Via Akihabara News]