When you hear the name Polaroid, you probably think of old-school photography and not necessarily portable DVD players. But that’s exactly what the venerable company has come out with, a pair of definitely new-tech-age devices, complete with tilt screens and antennas.

The screens are 8.5 inches wide and are TFT LCD, sporting 16:9 ratio on a 480×800 presentation. Polaroid is going out of its way to emphasize the words “flicker free,” so we should believe them.

The broadcast system is ISDB-T, and the usual format is NTSC, both of which are all to the good for most DVDs. However, you also get CPRM and DivX capabilities, which is definitely a nod toward up-to-the-minute formats.

The 5-hour battery life should be more than enough to get through the director’s cut of Peter Jackson’s latest movie, whatever it happens to be, and certainly enough for a small handful of Jackie Chan flicks.

About the only thing we don’t know about these players is the price. They’re out, in Japan, and they’ll be headed across the Pacific soon enough.