LG had their annual line show in New York yesterday, in a very odd, and somewhat creepy venue: Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum. I'm not sure what that's supposed to say about LG's products -- that they're replicas of famous faces? Somehow I don't think that's what they were trying to get across.

After being harangued by a Joan Rivers impersonator in the lobby, we were led upstairs to the main floor, where fake celebrities were seated at small tables amongst the latest and great LG products. Probably the biggest innovation for a PC-centric crowd is their new $899 internal Blu-Ray drive, which records at 4x (in other words, taking 22 minutes to record a disk.) It also reads and writes all the old-school DVD formats, including the Rs, RWs, RAMs and multi-layer. Sweet.

I desperately want the midnight blue, $1,500 clothes washer that steams your clothes and lets you monitor the cycle from a little remote pad (at right), and the refigerator that shows the weather on a built-in LCD screen isn't so bad, either.

New to LG's displays line are a 47-inch, 1080p HDTV LCD TV, a 60-inch plasma HDTV a 26-inch LCD HDTV with a low $1,049 list price, and a 19-inch LCD computer monitor with 4ms response time and a 2,000-1 contrast ratio. 

Since I'm not the big HDTV expert around here, I'm going to reprint a paragraph from the press release and hope that Rob Heron on DL.TV comments about it next week:

Featuring LG's fifth-generation VSB chipset for optimal digital TV broadcast receptions, this 47-inch LCD HDTV is equipped with ATSC/NTSC/QAM tuners and is CableCard compatible. Other convenience features include TV Guide On-Screen® electronic program guide, multiple HD inputs, including two HDMI inputs with HDCP, and a swivel stand. The unit is also VESA compatible for convenient installation. The 47LB1DA is planned for August introduction with a manufacturer's suggested retail price of $3,999.

Oh, they showed some phones too. You'll hear a lot more about the LG Chocolate mobile phone on Monday, I promise.