Movie marvel: Just as the arrival of home video in the 1980s impacted heavily on the movie-theater industry, free-to-air TV is now being undermined by pay TV and movies delivered via the Internet. Television-set manufacturers are helping to widen channels for the new methods of movie distribution, and now Sony is making VOD (Video On Demand) services easier with two new series of Bravia LCD high-definition TVs, the W5 and F5.

Each unit features a Felica/Edy e-Wallet reader on its remote control. This reader allows the Bravia owner to use their TV remote to pay electronically for VOD services from their sofa. In effect, it makes movies on demand almost as easy to access as free-to-air channels.

Enhanced picture quality is the other selling point for the new TVs. All but one of the six new models are equipped with a 240-MHz Motion Flow panel, and all have a full HD resolution of 1920×1080. One of the main failings of LCD panels is that they struggle to show fast-moving images smoothly. TV makers tout 100 MHz or better as the standard for decent quality, so Sony claims its 240-MHz panels will show even higher-paced offerings such as soccer games smoothly and sharply.