Sharp yesterday launched its bid to bridge old-style DVD media and brand spanking new HD kit with a DVD player equipped not only with HDMI portage but the ability to upscale standard-definition movies to 720p or 1080i HD resolutions. Best of all, the DV-SV97H costs a mere 90 quid.

The Sharp machine pretty much does everything you'd want from a DVD player. It's read DVDs, CDs, Video CDs and Super Video CDs, and content stored on DVD±R/RW and CD-R/RW media. It can cope with MP3, JPEG and MPEG 4 files, not to mention DivX content. It will happily work with PAL and NTSC standard definition video formats. It supports DTS, Dolby Digital, MPEG audio and Linear PCM.

In addition to the HDMI port, there's a SCART connector; component-video ports; co-ax and optical digital audio ports; and composite video and RCA stereo audio jacks.

Sharp said the DV-SV97H is available now. ®

HD TV in the UK Read all about it HERE.