Sharp releases a new Aquos TV which can produce 8K quality images on its 80-inch display using the company's picture-making technology. The latter is capable of presenting any 4K formatted content in 8K quality.
Sharp said that its Aquos Beyond 4K Ultra HD TV has the capacity to reach a resolution of up to 7680 by 4320. This makes it four times sharper than the current 4K TVs in the market and 16 times greater than the familiar HDTVs.
"We were one of the first players to introduce 4K to the world, and it's time for us to come up with what's next," said Shigeaki Mizushima, executive VP and CTO of Sharp at the CES 2015 in Las Vegas.
Sharp launches its highest-end 4K TVs at Spring which boasts of 66 million subpixels. The number is around 42 million more pixels than the average RGB-focused 4K TV. For the sake of comparison, the company will be placing the new UH30 "Beyond 4K Ultra HD TV" side by side with the 85-inch native 8K TV at its booth. CES attendees can have the chance to compare and contrast the picture quality between the two sets.
It was in 2010 when the release of the Quattron series has started the obsession with subpixels. During such time, a yellow subpixel was added to the traditional arrangement of red, green and blue as a way to increase the color quality. Last year, Sharp boosted further the subpixel count with its Quattron Q+ units in order to produce 4K-like sharpness on a 1920 by 1080 display. Using the Q+ technology, each row of RGBY subpixels are divided in half with each cluster being uniquely addressed. It resulted to having 1080-line set with 16 million subpixels which works with 4K video sources.
Sharp is bringing the subpixel counts a little much further with the "Beyond 4K Ultra HD TV."
Consumers should take note that subpixels and pixels are not similar. This notion could explain why Sharp does not refer to its new TV as an 8K set.
Sharp is offering its 4K TVs in over five screen sizes. The prices will begin at $750 for the 43-inch model.
Mizushima understands that the TV industry is already crowded. In order to remain competitive, he believes that inventing new technologies and introducing such to customers ahead of the competition can just do the trick.
"No one is making profits in the industry, so in order to become profitable, doing something that others haven't done is the only way and that is something we are being asked to do," said Mizushima.
