With No 4K Content Available, Vendors Stress Upconversion Technology

With the CEATEC Japan trade show taking place next week, Sharp started ramping up its campaign to introduce 4K consumer TV sets in 2012. The company will exhibit an LCD TV set with a display that promises four times the resolution of current HD panels – which suggests a screen resolution of 3840×2160. That's about 8.3 million pixels, which falls a little short of true 4K in the production and post-production sense, but is close enough for marketing purposes.
According to a report in gadget-oriented Japanese-language pub +D LifeStyle, Sharp hopes to start selling the screens in 2012, targeting them at LCD sizes larger than 60 inches. For now, since there are no consumer sources for quad-HD resolution video, the increased picture quality will come from sophisticated upscaling techniques.

Also set for display is a 95-inch Super Hi-Vision (7680×4320) LCD screen developed by Sharp with NHK. Videophiles may bite on the 4Kx2K screens, but news that 8Kx4K screens are somewhere around the corner may inspire some high-end home-theater owners to hold off on investing in higher-resolution formats in the near future.

Sharp will show the new sets in its booth at CEATEC, which runs October 4 through 8 at the Makuhari Messe convention center in Chiba City, Chiba Prefecture, on the outskirts of Tokyo.

Panasonic will be at the show, too, pushing hard at 3D – VIERA televisions, DIGA Blu-ray players and recorders, and a LUMIX twin-lens 3D camera. And Toshiba will likely be promoting its recently unveiled glasses-free displays, which we recently reported on. No word on what Sony will be showing in the video realm; its recently unveiled Tablet S will likely have a strong presence.

For more information on CEATEC: www.ceatec.com.