CES’s premium 3DTV crop is preparing to ship out, with Sony’s HX929, HX820 and HX720 series of LED LCD screens and LG’s Infinia PZ750 plasmas now priced at Amazon for pre-order and they look really good.

3D-Display-info.com reports that Sony’s local dimming Bravia TVs start at $2,099 for a 46-inch HX720 with the famous Gorilla Glass we’ve written about, all the way up to $3,799 for the monster 55″ XBR-55HX929 with a LED backlight. Quite drool-worthy.

Meanwhile, the 50″ LG PZ750 with built-in Smart TV tech starts out at a decent $1,599, while a gigantor 60″ version of the same set will go for $2,100 or so (also reasonable). Watch for these to appear for purchase quite soon.

Now we know the raw reasoning behind this number: Vizio is prominently featured at Wal-Marts across the country, and their prices are pretty tough to beat. Never mind their pure stats with contrast ratio, etc are inferior to Sony and LG. Marketing and decent technologies have combined with low prices to make a juggernaut the other companies cannot ignore.

Raw numbers: Vizio captured a 27.6 percent market share, shipping roughly 2.9 million units in the US last year, a huge number. Samsung was second (kind of a surprise) with a 20.6 percent market share, shipping about 2.1 million sets total. Sony was third with 10.1 percent market share while LG was fourth with 9.4 percent.

Late last year, Sony smacked LG with claims of patent infringement, and now the Korean company is swinging back with complaints of its own. LG reportedly filed two claims with the ITC on February 4th, accusing Sony devices — including Bravia and PlayStation 3 — of stepping on eight separate LG patents. We knew something like this couldn’t be far behind Sony’s ITC filing and accompanying federal court case, and we’re equally unmoved to hear LG is firing back with its very own civil suit, recently filed in California. Last year we saw patent infringement suits spread like meningitis in a college dorm, and if this dispute is any sign, we can expect to see more of the same in 2011.

Lawsuits ar becoming the norm in the HDTV industry unfortunately, but hey, in the long run, innovation and competition is what makes better tech and prices for all of us.

We agree with the list for the most part, and notice two of the five units are Plasma technology, proving that Plasma units aren’t quite as dead as previously thought. The Sony we think is priced a bit on the high side for the screen real estate you get, but the picture is excellent, according to numerous reviews, and of course you all know of our respect for everything LG in the HD department.

Here’s the link to the article itself, and happy Super Bowl TV hunting to all of you, dear readers.

It will feature 14 Sony TVs, and its good from January 23 to January 29, 2011. Prices are decent for the type of units they are, indeed. Here’s more info from the source:

During the promotion, Best Buy is offering discounts on 14 different Sony sets, including:

* Sony Bravia 60-inch, 1080p 120Hz LED HDTV for $1,998 ($1,001 off the regular price)
* Sony Bravia 55-inch, 1080p 120Hz LED HDTV for $1,499 ($800 off the regular price.)
* Sony Bravia 55-inch, 1080p 3D 240Hz LED HDTV for $1,798 ($1,401 off the regular price.)
* Sony Bravia 46-inch, 1080p 60Hz LCD HDTV for $763 ($86 off the regular price.)
* Sony Bravia 46-inch, 1080p 3D 240Hz LED HDTV for $1,499 ($1,000 off the regular price.)
* Sony Bravia 40-inch 1080p, 60Hz LCD HDTV for $599 ($50 off the regular price.)

We always appreciate sales, so we thought we would pass this one on to our fair readers.

The 2011 lineup of Sony Bravia HDTVs is quite extensive with a total fo 27 models spanning nine lines. All but the five most inexpensive models feature internet streaming services while 16 of the higher end models being 3D capable. Most of the great streaming services we’ve come to expect are there, but in addition you can now watch Time Warner Cable VOD without a set-top-box as well. A few of the lines are compatible with a special Sony 720p camera (CMU-BR100) for use with Skype, while others feature Gorilla Glass. The XBR-HX929 Series sits at the top with a new local dimming technology called Intelligent Peak LED Backlight, and is also one of the lines that supports the new Media Remote application for iPhone, iPod Touch or Android, which includes full remote capabilities as well as a keyboard. The 929s will be available in April in 46, 55 and 65-inches, with the others hitting the street sometime between February and May.

That 65 incher will be something to behold we’re quite certain. We look forward to reporting on these as they’re released.

Sony has announced a new LCD display technology called Hybrid FPA (field-induced photo-reactive alignment), which it claims provides a bevy of improvements for LCDs in the areas of response time, contrast, panel stability, and production speed. For those of you who slept through display science in school (no shame), this boils down to Sony finding a better way to wrangle unruly liquid crystal molecules (LCMs) into more optimal alignments — which is important since this affects how light passes and therefore how images are resolved. The new technique builds on earlier work, which focused on the vertical alignment of LCMs via an alignment layer. As the left diagram shows, through pre-tilt positioning at the substrate layer, LCMs were forced into a more stable vertical state, which made shifting them quicker and more precise while requiring less voltage. In other words, images resolved faster and more evenly, resulting in “cleaner” whites and blacks with less motion blur. Hybrid FPA simply improves the situation by aligning LCMs even more vertically, which produced response times of less than 3ms in tests.

No word when this tech will be available, but hey, it all sounds great if you’re a 3D HD lover.

Sure, the PS3 is what’s hip and happening for Sony game fans, but unless you picked up one of the first generation (chubby) units you have questionable support for the greatest generation of games: those that released for the PS2. But, don’t fret noble gamer, and don’t lament about trading that console in for $15 store credit a few years back. Just buy a new TV! Sony’s KDL-22PX300 LCD has a rather hunky base that conceals a fully working PlayStation 2. That console is fully backwards compatible with O.G. PlayStation games and naturally also plays DVDs but, if that isn’t enough pixels for you, four HDMI ports await the clumsy probes of cables from sources that can better handle the ways of its 720p panel. The set can also serve up video from Sony’s Bravia service over Ethernet or an optional wireless dongle. It’s priced at £200 in the UK, which is just a tick over $300.

A US release is a possibility with some modifications in design of course, but no word on whether that will happen or not.

PC World recently asked that consumers grade their units on a variety of “reliability” stats including whether the set had any problems right away and its ease of daily use. Panasonic finished #1, with “better than average” grades on “overall satisfaction with reliability,” “significant problems” and “severe problems.”, which should make Panny quite proud indeed.

The remaining top five in order: LG, Sony, Hitachi, Olevia (the last two are a bit of a shock really). The LG part certainly is not a shock, as we’ve always praised LG for their quality and reliability.

The bottom five of shame: View Sonic was the worst. 2nd to worst: Mitsubishi (a surprise), then comes JVC, Westinghouse, and Toshiba, in reverse of order of badness.

Hulu has just revealed a movement to get Hulu Plus stocked with more content and onto more devices, STAT. Making sure those words aren’t empty, we’re learning that all 2010 Sony BRAVIA HDTVs will today have access to the subscription programming service, with it bleeding over to Sony’s various Blu-ray players, home theater systems, network media players and even the Dash — yeah, that Dash — in due time. In related news, Hulu will be soon yanking the invite requirement to get Hulu Plus on the PlayStation 3, and as of next week, any ole PlayStation Network member (as opposed to PlayStation Plus, as it stands today) will be able to grab it. ‘Course, even those freeloaders will be forced to pony up $9.99 per month if they’re interested in using it.

Easier accessibility is the key to any product’s success, so we’re quite happy with this development.