Canon will ship its first large-screen flat-panel TV next year, based on a technology called SED, taking on the established plasma and LCD manufacturers in the emerging high-definition market.

The 55in high-definition TV will initially launch in Japan, with a European version available from 2007, said Canon at Canon Expo in Paris. It uses Surface-conduction Electron-emitter Displays (SED), which it jointly developed with Toshiba.

Like traditional Cathode-Ray Tube (CRT) technology, SED generates light by colliding electrons against coloured phosphors coated on the back of a screen. Where a CRT uses a large and power-hungry electron gun, though, SED panels use tiny electron emitters for every pixel on the display, and so are cheaper to run.

Canon and Toshiba claim SED delivers a sharp picture with pure blacks, vibrant colour, fast response times, wide viewing angle and relatively low power consumption, thereby offering the best of LCD and plasma technologies with none of the downsides.

At the Paris Expo, Canon demonstrated a 36in SED panel side-by-side with a 37in plasma and LCD TV, all showing the same material. The competing products were not named, nor their configuration described, but Canon assured delegates that they were using default settings.

The SED image was considerably brighter and more colourful than the Plasma and LCD sets, with very wide viewing angles and black levels as deep as Plasma. No mention was made of screen-burn.

Power meters connected to the three displays indicated that the SED TV consumed between 92w and 138w, the plasma between 95w and 202w and the LCD, with its constant backlight, consuming a steady 135w. During normal viewing the SED consumed less power than its rival technologies.

Pricing and a firm launch date were not confirmed, but the 55in model that will be sold in Japan during 2006 is expected to cost the same as similar sized plasma sets.