Many want to show-off with their newest TV, and now also Japan shows they want to do this during this year's Olympics. Both sales of flat-panel TVs and DVD recorders were high in the first half of this month and according to research company BCN we can blame the Olympics.

The Tokyo-based research firm said TV sales surged 35.3% in volume and 23% in value compared to the same period last year. With some minor reductions and a huge event on the way many retailers don't find it hard to sell you a 40-inch TV. Liquid crystal display TVs enjoyed the highest growth with 24.6%, while plasma display panel TVs saw a 14.6% rise.

Besides this enormeous sales jump for TVs we also see this happening with DVD recorders, meaning that many Japanese are planning to record the latest action from Beijing. Overall we saw a 25.2% increase in sales volume and a 38.8% increase in value, which already looks different than the country's TV sales. It seems that the retailers have a higher value increase with less volume sales for DVD recorders, compared to TV sales.

A reason behind this could be Blu-ray's high prices and its important share (53.9%) in the total DVD recorder sales.