Sharp's IFA presser features giant 1-inch thin LCD (and little else)

Sharp has just wrapped a rather dry press conference at IFA, where it announced very little, but did rattle off a series of fairly benign and boring numbers (which we will spare you from). There were a few moments of excitement during the hour-long presentation, though mostly due to the thunderous bass of the company's sound and light show.

First up, president Mikio Katayama took the stage, where after a brief, yet loud lightshow, he described new LCD technology that the company was working on, which he referred to as Sharp's "dream." The new televisions will offer contrast ratios of 100,000:1, yet will only be 20mm thick, and will use half of the energy of a typical modern LCD. Mr. Katayama said that he couldn't tell the audience how the new displays were developed, but that the work was part of his company's ongoing pursuit of television perfection. Mr. Katayama went on to discuss a new Japanese LCD plant which is under construction and will cost 380 billion, due to be ready for production in 2010.

Next up, Toshiyuki Tajima -- CEO of Sharp Europe -- hit the mic, and more staid facts were repeated. Then Mr. Tajima touted Sharp's ability to manufacture blue-violet laser diodes, just before introducing a new Blu-ray player, the BD-HP20S.

Next up was Frank Bolten -- head of Sharp's German division -- who introduced the full lineup of HDTVs that the company will be offering this year. We won't bore you with rest of the details, suffice to say: Germans want bigger, clearer HDTVs (who doesn't?) and Sharp is more than prepared to give it to them. Stay tuned for details on new products as we get them.