Sony Entertainment announced today a new home entertainment gadget called HDMS-S1D Digital Photo Album. This was designed specifically to allow users to archive, organize, and watch slide shows of their digital photos in high definition.

Expected to launch later this month, HDMS-S1D will cost around US$ 400. We know it's price is quite steep especially when you compare it to a PlayStation 3 console or even two PlayStation Portable Slim & Lite.

But before you shoot down Sony's latest baby, just take a look first at these features and specifications:

• Offers several methods for importing photos: multiple flash memory card formats, CD, DVD, USB, and Ethernet.
• Photo collections can be managed with the supplied remote control and the device's intuitive interface.
• Photos can be organized by date, special occasions such as birthdays and travel (using pre-selected icons), or into as many as 3,000 different photo albums.
• Provides the ability to review, edit, rotate, delete, and arrange photos for a slideshow or digital scrapbooking with Sony's x-Application features.
• x-Pict Story HD: creates professional quality slideshows, eliminating the need for PC-based photo editing. Slideshows can be created by selecting from 30 pre-loaded music tracks and transition styles. For personalization, you can add up to five songs from your own CDs. The software also allows for connection to a compatible printer for making prints of your photos or scrapbook pages directly from the device.
• Uses Sony's face detection technology to locate faces in photographs and adjusts the slideshow transitions around the location of faces.
• x-ScrapBook: uses face detection and event-clustering technology to make scrapbook-style layouts of photos with a common trait like photos of children, or pictures grouped by events such as a party or vacation.
• When family or friends request copies of the photos they’ve seen on your HDTV, you can select and save those photos to CD, DVD, or flash memory card.