With royalty fees just around the bend for Blu-ray recorders in Japan, it seems as if locals are snapping up units left and right before the taxation is enacted. For the first time in a single month, shipments of recorders and players based on Blu-ray Disc broke the six-figure mark in June 2008 with 122,000 units. That's coming from data reported by the Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association (JEITA), which shows a notable increase from the 82,000 units shipped in May. Analysts are expecting the numbers to rise further in the coming months, as the Beijing Olympics draw near and many Japanese citizens spend their mid-year bonus on high-def wares. Still, it's not like folks in Japan are getting any stellar deals; the cheapest BD deck there is Sharp's BD-AV1, which still demands around ¥44,800 ($420). Just imagine those sales figures if there were a few reasonably priced players to choose from.

[Image courtesy of DayLife]

Word on the street is that Philips has decided to dip its collective toes into the DVR world with a new line of products that appear, at least ostensibly, to compete with TiVo. Like the "TiVo Suggestions" feature that the recorder-company offers, Philips' new devices tout user preference tracking, which will "learn" different user's likes and dislikes, and create custom sets of programming geared towards those tastes. The new line will also be able to access and download YouTube and other internet video, as well as podcast content. Advertising on the new boxes will also follow user's watching habits, thus ensuring a steady flow of laser-targeted ads beamed directly at your face. Apparently the new products will begin their lifecycle as software for PCs, but will eventually become set-top boxes for the living room. What's really interesting here is that Philips used to manufacture TiVo hardware, which increases the chances of cross-pollination (and lawsuits) oh... about tenfold.

Sharp just dropped a truckload of new AQUOS products on us. They announced, get this, nine new LCDs, four recorders, and even a TV stand/audio system. Out of the new LCDs, five of 'em have the speakers underneath the screen and four have them on the side. The two of the four 37-inchers that were announced are rocking the 1080p resolution, while the rest of the new line-up are the normal 1366x768 resolution we have came to expect. This is all set on a new "Black ASV LCD" that is suppose to give the sets a deeper contrast ratio with the full 1080p sets have a 1500:1 contrast and the other seven a 1200:1. The 32-inchers and larger are sporting two HDMI inputs and one DVI, along with a full arrey of legacy inputs, but also are rocking four 6.5cm woofers and two 2cm tweeters. The smaller sets only have one HDMI and DVI port, along with only full-range speakers. The sets should start coming out sometime in September and continue through the first part of October, with the 1080p 37-inchers retailing at 380,000 Yen ($3,311.54) and contiuning down to 140,000 Yen ($1,200) for the 20-inch.

Info about the recorders and TV stand/audio system after the jump.