A very big room, journalists on the feedbag, and the tricky task of pitching big pretty TVs in an ugly economy made the noontime Sharp press conference at CES 2009 something of a tangled affair.

They're optimistic at Sharp, even though executives in agreement with Displaysearch stats that have sales of LCD TVs off 16% globally in 2009. There's always 2010 and an expected 10% uptick, and Sharp wants you to know that they're in it for the long haul and feel that tough times can strengthen a company. (And when someone gets up at CES and says anything different, Betanews will be the first to tell you.)

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Elvis! The season's first sighting of the King occurred at the Audiovox press event. The King was in relatively svelte form (for jumpsuit-era Elvis); also, Audiovox announced some products.

(Really, CEO and president David Geise reminded the crowd, it wasn't such a stretch; the 35th anniversary of Elvis's Aloha From Hawaii special, the first event ever broadcast worldwide live via satellite, is at hand. Only at CES...)

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Samsung has announced that its first DivX Certified flat-panel high-definition televisions will be available in March. The company announced a licensing agreement with DivX last year.

DivX is digital video technology that lets users create and watch content, and only a few years ago was relegated to the task of making ripped videos smaller on PCs' hard drives. But since that time, the company has made a surprisingly reliable video compression format, at least for IPTV. Having the Samsung HDTVs certified by DivX means consumers can play back high-quality DivX video on their displays.

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Vizio has announced its first Blu-ray disc player, also supporting BD-Live content and also priced at $199.99.

The VBR100 Blu-ray Player uses 1080p and upconverts from 720p and 1080i -- unlike Memorex', which also upconverts from 480p. Vizio promotes its unit's "super slim" dimensions of 17 X 11 X 2 inches. Memorex has not yet revealed the size of its player.

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Known worldwide as an infrastructure company, Cisco now plays a bigger role in the CE field for being the parent of major consumer router manufacturer Linksys, and for finding its way into the IPTV infrastructure.

1:54pm PT: Closing statements

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CES has been the scene of "environmentally sensitive" consumer electronics fare from its beginnings. But this year, more corners of the show than ever are going green.

Along with conference sessions focusing on green computing, CES 2009 is playing host to a new green pavilion known as Sustainable Planet. Inside the Pavilion and in many other nooks and crannies, vendors ranging from HP and Lenovo to little start-ups are fielding impressive numbers of eco-sensitive PCs and other gadgets, in an assortment of hues of green.

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Toshiba's press conference at CES 2009 this morning featured announcements in the areas of LCD TVs, DTV/DVD combos, and standalone DVD players.

Maria Repole, Toshiba's PR exec, began by making note of the high-def advertising display Toshiba installed in Times Square last summer. His deputy then took the stage to speak generally about Toshiba's contributions in the area of picture quality and connectivity. Consumers "increasingly want to access content wherever they are," the Toshiba rep told the crowd. "We are committed to meeting the entertainment needs of consumers today."

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Toshiba has released two ultraportable notebooks intended to be ecologically friendly -- but they're not ultra-low-price.

The R600 comes in two models, the S4201 for $2,099, and the S4202 for $2,999. Each has a 12.1-inch screen and starts at 2.4 pounds. The S4201 comes with a 160GB hard disk, while the S4202 comes with a 128 GB flash disk. They both include an optical disc drive and support WiMAX.

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Holding down its traditional CES-opening spot at 8:00 am, LG on Wednesday ran through a dizzying number of announcements across multiple product lines.

Life is good indeed for the Korea-based electronics giant, which reported $13.2 billion in revenues for 2008, up 16% year-to-year. Speaking to the press mob, CEO Michael Ahn said that the firm means to spend the recession building on recent advances in consumer awareness. (The company reports that LG now has 92.3% brand recognition among polled consumers, up from 83% in 2007 and 75% the year before.) There will be, he said, no cuts in R&D or in marketing.

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Following the prediction before the holiday shopping season that prices for Blu-ray players would fall further into the $150-to-200 range, Memorex has announced its MVBD-2520, a Blu-ray player for $199.99.

The device, due to ship in early summer, includes Profile 2.0 or BD-Live via an Ethernet port, enabling consumers to download extra features and online bonus content, as well as firmware updates. It uses 1080p but can convert up from 480p, 720p, and 1080i.

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The first of NetGear's three big product announcements at CES this morning is its Internet TV player set top box which carries on it, among the usual Web-based offerings, a built-in BitTorrent client.

Netgear's Internet TV delivers Internet content like other set top boxes available today, but ups the proverbial ante by including a video search engine called "Vtap" that combs through the associated Flash video sites, downloadable CinemaNow rentals, and even available BitTorrent files.

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For people whose phones are crammed full of photos, music, video, and other space-intensive content, SanDisk has announced a 16 GB microSDHC card.

Phones from vendors such as Nokia, Google, and Samsung use microSDHC cards. (Similar cards are also produced by Nokia and Toshiba.) The card comes with a MobileMate Micro Reader that plugs into a USB 2.0-compatible port, which makes it easier to put data onto and take data off the card.

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For those who like to make a fashion statement with their solid-state memory -- as well as for those who keep losing the caps on the darn things -- Lexar has announced two new families of USB drives that don't have removable caps.

JumpDrive TwistTurn has a rotating case (really, "JumpDrive SwitchBlade" would probably describe it better, but that name probably didn't test well), while JumpDrive Retrax clicks in and out like a ballpoint pen. Each model comes in multiple sizes, with colors mapped to the size: 2 GB in white, 4 GB in red, 8 GB in blue, 16 GB in gray, and 32 GB in black.

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Toshiba Matsushita Display Technology Co., Ltd. will be previewing 3D technology on handheld 3-inch and 9-inch LCD displays that don't require special glasses to work.

The technology works by integrating a 3D film with the backlight modules of small- and medium-sized LCD displays that use Optically Compensated Bend (OCB) mode to deliver clear, true autostereoscopic viewing. Left and right eye images are focused sequentially into the viewer's eyes, allowing for full resolution of the display panel, the company said.

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Speaking to an overflow crowd in Las Vegas Wednesday morning, executives from Korean CE giant LG Electronics were expected to highlight built-in Internet connectivity in new HDTVs, among other features.

[11:01:30 AM] LG is pleased to be kicking off the 8am first-day press conference.

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