One of the worst things about a home theater aside from the wires is that the speakers tend to be big and bulky. Larger speakers often sound better, but they are hard to hide and can really mess up the looks of a room (so says my wife).

To go along with the new line of Sony Bravia HDTVs I wrote about this morning Sony has released a HT-IS100 Bravia Theater Micro System. The system is designed around five tiny speakers that are each about the size of a golf ball or a strawberry.

When it comes to LCD HDTVs Sony has some of the most popular sets on the market in its Bravia line. While LCD TVs and LCDs on notebooks share some of the same tech, notebook LCDs have been using LED backlighting for better picture quality and thinner profiles for a while now. The LED tech hasn’t been seen much in HDTVs until now.

Sony introduced seven new XBR HDTV models including models using TRILUMINOS LED backlighting and local dimming to provide better black levels and contrast. The TRILUMINOS LED system uses clusters of red, blue and green LEDs to produce improved color. The new models include screen sizes from 19 to 70-inches.

Sony announced two series A, Bluetooth enabled Personal Media Players: the NW-A820 and NW-A829 in Japan today. Both include a 2.4 inch 320 x 240 LCD display and can playback MP3, WMA, ATRAC,ATRAC Advanced Lossless, Sony PCM, and AAC and HE-AAC audio file formats but doesn’t support DRM on WMA and AAC. They also support video file format in MPEG4, AVHC, H.264 and provide seamless wireless audio video playback to Bluetooth headphones using Bluetooth version 2.0 A2DP/AVRCP.

If you like, you can also get an optional VRC-NW10 dock that has the ability to schedule, record and store TV programs using EPG broadcast television or radio programs. The A820 has 8GB flash storage while the A829 comes with 16GB. Expect to see these around March in Japan. The NW-A820 is priced at 28,000 Yen ($260), NW-A829 at 38,000 Yen ($353) and the optional cradle at 20,000 yen ($186).

That’s right, it’s 2008 and Sony is releasing a tape deck. Wtf you say? Me too. I’m not sure what they are thinking here, but I’m betting an 8-Track deck is around the corner. This dual tape recorder has a nice modern look, at least. It also features a CD player and a FM/AM Radio Tuner. It comes in two shades of gray and is available only in Japan for around $145.

There must be a surplus of tapes in Japan that I had not heard of. Either that or they just collectively discovered the magic of the garage sale cassette. Seriously, alot of people still use tapes. Mostly because they are cheap. The tapes, not the people. OK, them too. Still, I would be curious to find out how many of these units Sony is able to move.

Among other cameras Sony released this week it was showing off a new line of colorful W-series Cyber-shots for the consumer crowd. The W-series will price between about $200 and $300.

Models of the W-series will include the 10.1-megapixel DSC-W170 and 8.1-megapixel DSC-W150, both with Carl Zeiss 5x optical zoom lenses, and the 8.1-megapixel DSC-W130 models and 7.2-megapixel DSC-W120 units with 4x optical zoom and 2.5 inch LCD screens.

Colors on these models will range from pink to blue to gold and red. Availability is slated for between now and April, again depending upon the model. Check out the full Sony press release after the jump for all the details.

Another new digital camera unveiled by Sony is a family focused model for parents looking to document their kids smearing paint on the walls for later in life blackmailing. It is called the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H10 and price is set at around $300.

The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H10, which will be available in May in two body colors, ships as an eight-megapixel model with a Carl Zeiss 10x optical zoom lens. Sony has made this camera somewhat compact (4-1/4-inches wide by 2-3/4-inches tall by 2-inches deep) and enhanced its features with face detection technology which can focus on up to eight guilty faces in a frame.

Sony unveiled a number of new digital cameras for the consumer market this week. One of these is a compact, high megapixel shooter called the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T300. It is priced at around $400.

The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T300, available in three body colors this March, sports a 10.1-megapixel ability. Almost more interesting than that though is the 3.5-inch, 16:9 widescreen touch display on the backside and also new “intelligent” scene recognition technology which Sony says “allows the camera to analyze shooting conditions and automatically select the optimal settings for the best photo results.”

Sony is only days away from releasing the availability of Skype on the PSP and the company has released an announcement saying that the January 24th launch will be delayed. In particular, Sony officials said that the microphone products they’ve created for the PSP to go along with the Skype service are what is causing the problem.

Both the Single Pack and the Double Pack microphones did not meet Skype’s specifications, and instead of going on without them Sony is going to hold up the whole works. A new solution and a new launch date for the Skype service and microphones for the PSP are being “sought after” and will be announced at a later time.

The good news is that this delay so far seems limited to Japan. It’s strange that they would come to this conclusion only a day before the launch. Are the microphones for Japan customers different and not up to standard while the microphones for the U.S. are acceptable, or is there some other force in Japan that doesn’t like the idea of free mobile VoIP minutes?

The Playstation 3 ended 2007 with a strong December selling just under 800,000 units during the month and looks to trying to keep on with momentum this year by releasing the white PS3 that we saw launch last October in Japan. It came with a 40GB hard drive, white DualShock controllers and like the other 40GB models it lacked the memory card reader, backwards compatibility and had only two USB ports. This white model headed for the US appears to be the same. The information along with photos was released by the FCC and shows it was originally submitted last October with a request to keep it under wraps for a while.

Sony has just announced the arrival of the ICDUX70 and ICDUX80 voice recorders that double as digital audio players (DAPS). They feature 1GB and 2GB internal storage space and play back for MP3 files and also record in MP3 stereo format, can capture 290 and 581 hours of audio in LP mode and are powered via a USB port.

The design isn’t too secretarial looking as such devices have been known to be in the past, which is a big plus. The USB connection also enables direct battery charge. The ICDUX70 comes in black and pink, while the ICDUX80 can be had in black and silver.

Sony pushed out a couple of new HD radios last week at the annual CES event for those audiophiles wanting some high fidelity sound without the subscription costs of satellite radio. The XDR-S10HDiP HD Radio (pictured bottom) is a tabletop type player that comes ready to go with speakers and an iPod dock on top. The XDR-F1HD Tuner (pictured top) is component HD tuner that can connect and bring HD radio to your existing home theater system.

Both systems will pick up over 1,500 nationwide HD radio stations and will also bring in regular FM and AM signals. The XDR-S10HDiP is the first of this type of HD radio from Sony and features the ability to dock and charge an iPod when connected. While listening to HD radio the iPod owners can also use the iTunes Tagging which lets you mark songs you like playing on the radio and save the titles in your iPod. The next time you sync your iPod with iTunes, it will find those songs and prompt you with the option to buy them. The tabletop player also comes with a wireless remote that not only controls the radio but also controls the iPod when docked.

[NOTE: With CES now over, we are winding down our CES coverage. Expect to see a trickle of stories on trade show announcements next week, but also expect we will be focused on MacWorld and anything else that comes our way. Thanks to everyone who has visited and linked to us - we enjoyed providing you indepth coverage of new product releases.]

Sony seems to have found enough success with its mylo Internet device to have unleashed at CES this week a new generation of the product. The updated Sony mylo goes on sale this month for around $300.

The Sony COM-2 mylo communicator, as it is being called, comes in black or white body colors and has a backlit, slide out QWERTY keyboard. Like its predecessor it lets you connect to open wireless hotspots to instant message with your buddies. You can also use it to view Web videos, take pictures and post them directly to a variety of sites, use widgets to do various online functions, play games and enjoy various media formats.

Get more details on the new Sony mylo after the jump.

Sony used CES this week as a platform to unveil a HD version of one of its computers. This “spherical digital living system” is called the VAIO TP and it will be available later this month in a standard version for around $1,600 and a premium version at around $3,000.

The updated VAIO TP is now HD friendly, according to Sony, and can support playback of premium HD channels when separate CableCARDs are plugged into it. This option though is only available on the premium version. The upside though is both versions come with a Blu-ray Disc optical drive.

Get more details on the new VAIO TP after the jump.

Just before the close of 2007 Warner Music Group joined EMI and Universal by dropping their digital copying restrictions on downloaded songs and offering DRM-free music through Amazon. Today Sony BMG, the last of the big four and the second largest music company in the world, has joined in and removed copying restrictions on their downloaded music and are offering their songs through Amazon as well. This makes Amazon the first online retailer to offer DRM-free song downloads from the world’s four largest music companies.

DRM’s previously had been required by these large music companies in order to prevent songs from being illegally copied which was believed to hurt overall music sales. The DRM would often limit the number of times and devices a song could be copied, such as a limited number of computers or a particular brand of MP3 player. Most consumers and rival media players manufacturers have been generally apposed to the restrictions due to these limitations.

Sony, the proclaimed leader in the high-definition camcorder category, rolled into CES this week with six new HD camcorder models. They offer features like 1920 x 1080 resolution recording and face detection technology. Sony says “the SR12, SR11, SR10, UX20 and UX10 models will all ship in March for about $1,400, $1,200, $1,000, $1,000 and $800, respectively. The HDR-HC9 camcorder will ship in February for about $1,100.”

The consumer electronics giant added that all these new camcorders feature a new high-profile encoding system and, depending upon the model, offer other must haves like high resolution digital still captures and hybrid/hybrid plus movie recording.

You can get the full details of these new Sony HD camcorders after the jump.