Has astounding resolution of 10 bits per pixel, jaws drop

Jan 13, 2012 10:00 GMT  ·  By

We may have spoken of Sharp's 80-inch TV, the one at the 2012 edition of the Consumer Electronics Show, but it so happens that the item in question is actually a gnat compared to Sharp's 85-inch panel.

One would probably be tempted to say that, with 80 inches being already massive for a TV, adding five more isn't that big a deal.

After all, even if the final product ends up costing more, such large panels can't be afforded by anyone but the rich anyway.

Sharp's 85-inch Super Hi-Vision television offers more than a larger screen size.

Basically, it has 16 times more pixels than Full HD panels, even if the aspect ratio is the same (16:9).

That is because the native resolution is not 1,920 x 1,080 pixels, but 7,680 x 4,320 pixels, UHD (Ultra High Definition).

That is the equivalent of 10 bits per pixel and is the closest thing there is to a perfect image quality.

To offer some perspective, an uncompressed broadcast of 30 minutes would need about 6TB of data.

The default framerate format of the 85-inch Super Hi-Vision television is 60p, quite different from the 24p, 30p or 60i of HDTVs.

What's more, since this is the ultimate high-end TV solution, Sharp went all the way and tossed in 7.1-channel surround sound as well.

After all, it wouldn't do to let that NHK-developed support for 22.2 multichannel sound systems go to waste.

Unfortunately, there is one big problem that prospective buyers will be faced with in their quest to buy one of these monsters, and that isn't the still unknown but surely gargantuan price.

Quite simply, there will be none of these things on sale until the next decade, between 2020 and 2025.

Sharp could very well be said to have gone ahead of its time with the 85-inch Super Hi-Vision TV. Blu-ray disks can only store 7.5 seconds (single-layer) of uncompressed UHDTV data and TV broadcasters aren't anywhere near the UHD resolution yet.