Panasonic today announced a photo playback device that's ready for the HD TV era. It also supports the high capacity SDHC memory card format the company has been promoting of late and handily featured in its latest digital cameras and camcorders.

The DMW-SDP1 is a little more than a memory card reader for HD TVs. The 85g silver gadget can take any SDHC, SD or MMC and display the storage device's contents in all their glory at 1080i resolution. It'll also hook up to a printer using the PictBridge direct-to-print system.

The unit supports JPEG photos, JPEG pictures with embedded QuickTime audio and Motion JPEG videos, though not when they're stored on MMC media. Beyond slideshows, the device will rotate shots and zoom in at up to 16x magnification. There's also a "calendar playback" mode, which will show a specific image at a user-set date - a kind of DIY screensaver for your HD TV.

Panasonic said the DMW-SDP1 will go on sale in Japan on 22 September. It comes with its own remote control. The company did not specify a price. ®