Exclusive: German engineering maestro Loewe has been offering up Freeview inside its recent wondervision panels, but we’ve found out it’s going one step further, planning on packing in hi-def Blu-ray in a year’s time.

Loewe was promoting its new chain of Gallery shops in the UK and we took the chance to talk to the company’s CEO, Frieder Löhrer, on his plans for the future. Currently, all of Loewe’s line use LCD screens, so we asked him if there were plans to make use of OLED, as Sony has in its recent XEL-1 TV, but Löhrer was reticent, only stating that “we watch all the techniques that are on the market, almost on a daily basis. We believe that in 2-3 years, this technique could become part of the future.” He dismissed Mitsubishi’s recent efforts with laser imaging out of hand however: “it’s not effective enough, the efficiency is not there.”

Löhrer was much more optimistic though when we quizzed him on the prospect of Blu-ray built into Loewe’s boxes. “I cannot say no,” he said. “Its a technique that we forsee not for the year 2008, but I would assume for early 2010.”

Loewe’s been playing with Blu-ray players for a while, but having an integrated one could almost make the four figure sums it charges almost affordable. We’ll bring you more when we hear it.

Out 2010 | £TBC | Loewe