Toshiba has re-iterated its plan to bring HD TVs kitted out with the Cell processor to market in a year's time and showed off its prototype at the CEATEC show in Japan this week.

It demonstrated a similar telly as the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas back in January.

Toshiba outlines its plans for Cell
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Toshiba uses the Cell chip to process incoming digital video streams. For example, the chip is used to do multi-channel picture-in-picture - 48 programmes shown in real-time on the screen at once, assuming there are sufficient tuners on board and video sources hooked up to the TV.

In the past, it's shown how Cell can be used to zoom into the picture and do high-quality picture interpolation to yield a magnified segment of the image that's virtually indistinguishable from HD.

Toshiba will also put Cell to work smoothing text incorporated into moving images. The sharp edges of text can be hard for digital video encoders to compress cleanly.

And why the long wait? We'd say Toshiba's waiting for Cell to shrink to 45nm to ensure it has chips that don't run to hot and consume too much power, as current ones do.

Toshiba's Cell-based QuadCore graphics chip gobbles up so much energy, Toshiba laptops that use it disable the part when they switch to battery power.