On top of that Sony are set to role out a new multi million dollar marketing campaign for their new range of Bravia LCD TVs developed by their new advertising agency Saatchi and Saatchi.

Randy Waynick, Sony home products division senior VP, said Sony's marketing efforts will tie into the "Sony United" directive in more aggressive ways. For example, he said Sony will seek to communicate how advanced video technologies developed for its commercial broadcast video division have transitioned into its consumer-level HD camcorders and how experts from Sony Pictures are lending their expertise to the picture quality settings on new Sony TVs.
 
"From the lens to the living room, Sony has been leading the HDTV transition from its very inception, including the development of high-resolution HD content that will engage consumers as never before," Waynick said.

The efforts will dovetail with Sony's consumer education efforts on the benefits of "Full HD" last year, which he said reached over 180 million consumers. This year, Waynick said, Full HD 1080 will not be Sony's premier advertising slogan.

"At Sony it represents a higher-definition experience, whether it's the ability to capture images from one of our latest Cybershot cameras, or from our HD camcorders, and then conveniently be able to edit and customize content on a high-capacity HD notebook," Waynick said.

Waynick said the effort will employ HDTV test-drive promotions which will encourage consumers to visit retail stores to experience the latest Bravia products, and will bring a significant expansion to Sony's online outreach.

"You'll see partnerships between Sony and our retailers to tell the HD story even stronger than last year," Waynick said. "What we learned last year is that people are coming into the HD environment in stores for TV, and what we really want to leverage this year is some attachment to audio. It's not as high as it should be, no retailer is satisfied with it, and we are going to do more about that."

Marketing efforts will be used to advertise the benefits of Sony Internet Video Link system, which, he said, will bring the Internet and TV together in an entirely new way.

"That's the kind of story that I think is going to start to resonate with people," Waynick said. "There is going to be so much business done in HDTV this year that we think there are going to be natural connections made between all the categories that support HD. We've been leading to this for the past several years, and now it is all starting to come to fruition."

One of those connections will be made in Blu-ray Disc products.

Christopher Fawcett, Sony home video product management VP, cited Nielsen sales data showing Blu-ray Disc currently represents 70 percent of HD video disc sales, and Sony's disc production unit has produced more than 2.5 million 50GB-capacity discs since last year.