Everyone was surprised when Sony killed the Trinitron line of desktop displays-the Trinitron series had long been recognized as some of the best CRTs on the market, regardless of the size. Another shock came when Sony announced that they were ceasing production of all displays entirely, including their modest LCD lineup. It seemed that Sony was out of the display business entirely. Then, this week came another surprise.

Sony's getting back into the fiercely competitive LCD display market with the new Luma series of widescreen displays, and to rise above the competition of the Dells and the Samsungs and the NECs, they've decided to aim squarely at high-end graphic designers and video editors who need some of the features Sony claims the Luma displays will offer. The new Luma lineup sports two 20-inch models (the LMD-2050W and the LMD-2030W) and a 24-inch model (the LMD-2450W). The LMD-2030W is geared specifically towards people doing a lot of video production, and has several inputs on the back of the display, including HDMI, composite, RGB, component, and standard DVI. The LMD-2050W and the 2450W both offer the same inputs, but add on features like side-by-side video, built-in closed captioning, Sony's proprietary Chroma-Tru color processing for accurate colors (a feature that graphic designers will appreciate), and both support 1080P input for high definition video.

The new displays are scheduled to start shipping in May, and no pricing has been announced, but it's clear that these kinds of displays are not aimed at the general consumer or even the home video/photo enthusiast. Expect to see very high prices, but for those in the video processing or graphic design business who might benefit from these kinds of features, it may be worth it to have them all rolled into the same display.