Sharp unveils $31,400, 60-inch UHD TV, 85-inchers on the way

Rick

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Boasting an "Ultra HD" resolution of 3840x2160, the 60-inch ICC Purios LC-60HQ10 will certainly turn heads -- but so will the price tag. Weighing in at a hefty $2,625,000 Yen (or about $31,400), it's obvious Sharp's latest UHD (ultra high-defintion) offering isn't intended for your average consumer. It appears TV-maker is counting on the ICC Purios being outside the reach of most mortals though, as the television will be made-to-order only. 

And if you don't think that's impressive, a number of companies are also planning to launch 85-inch UHD televisions in the near future. We don't know what the price will be for those just yet, but one thing is for sure: they won't be cheap.

UHD (3840x2160) doubles both the width and height of 1080p (1920x1080p). As such, UHD is nearly equal to the "4K" video footage typically stored on masters by professionals. Instead of video footage spanning 4096 pixels across though, the industry has settled on 3840 pixels being the next standard for consumer equipment. The reason? 3840 is a nice, even multiple of 1920 (a common width for 1080p). Numerically speaking, this makes 2160p an ideal successor to 1080p.

Although UHD is very cool (tech enthusiasts typically love big numbers, right?), there's one major caveat to owning a UHD television though: finding UHD content. 

Blu-rays are still universally stamped out at only 1080p, although a UHD Blu-ray standard seems to exist. Current digital broadcast signals don't have adequate bandwidth to deliver UHDTV content, so don't expect to see any native UHD broadcasts for awhile. Additionally, although HDMI cables are physically capable of delivering UHD video, there isn't an HDMI standard for it yet. In other words: early adopters beware.

Despite the holiday announcement, the LC-60HQ10 isn't expected to hit the shelves until February 20. Time to start saving!

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No wonder why they're losing money and nearly out of business. Nobody can afford their products.(n)
 
So... what display technology is this? OLED? Doesn't really look like it from the picture. If they are going with LCD, then why bother? OLED will probably/hopefully replace LCD production within 10 years. Does anyone still manufacture plasma displays?
 
Do GeForce or Radeon GPUs support this resolution?

Also, I think "settling" on a lower resolution as an industry standard is the same thing that happened when 720p was released as a hd alternative to 1080.
 
All companies are losing money in the TV business. Only one real exception, Samsung. Sony has been saying for awhile they will likely get out of the TV business within the next couple of years. Samsung is just dominating to much and Sharp make the biggest tv's. That's keeping them around for now.
LCD will be a thing of the past 3 years from now as Samsung is investing a billion dollars in OLED. Other companies are also going to move forward with OLED and other tech, rather than keep using LCD.

As for the the comparison to 3840x2160 being 720p is just ridiculous. 720p is much further away from 1080p than 3840x2160 is to 4k. So there really is no comparison since 3840x2160 is real close to 4k. That means there wouldn't be much of a difference, if any. There is a difference between 720 and 1080p especially since at bigger sizes.
 
No, UHD Blu-ray standard does not exist and quite likely never will. One has not even been proposed to Blu-ray Disc Association which governs the standard. The 4K media player mentioned in the article you linked to is a media server which plays 4K media files located on a hard disc drive.
 
Not really a great time to be introducing larger, expensive televisions to the world. Maybe 10 years too early.
 
This is probably similar to LG's 80" 2160p display in that they just upscale 1080p - no way to hook up PC to it and expect it to work as a 2160p monitor.
 
"Do GeForce or Radeon GPUs support this resolution?"

"This is probably similar to LG's 80" 2160p display in that they just upscale 1080p - no way to hook up PC to it and expect it to work as a 2160p monitor."

What? 4K has been supported for a year now on HD7000 series natively, no upscaling.

HD7000 can drive 4K from any of its DP/HDMI or 2 mini DP and 1 fast HDMI port (standard configuration):
4096 x 2160 (HDMI)
4096 x 2160 (mini DisplayPort) x 2

Same story for GTX600 series: 4096x2160 resolution is natively supported through a single HDMI or Displayport connector.

Who is going to drop $20-30K on a 60 inch TV though? By the time 4K is affordable on the PC in 30 inch size, it'll be 5+ years.
 
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