Audio Video News

Sharp to Launch 8K TV in Japan

SV Staff  |  Sep 28, 2015

Sharp has announced that it will begin limited sales in Japan of the 85-inch“Super Hi-Vision” 8K TV it demonstrated at CES in January.

The TV (model LV-85001) boasts a resolution of 7,680 x 4,320 pixels—16 times that of a standard HDTV and four times that of 4K models—and is based on a variant of LCD technology Sharp calls IGZO; it will sell for about $125,000 when it becomes available at the end of October.

Public broadcaster NHK, which announced plans to test 8K broadcasting in 2016 and broadcast the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in 8K, has ordered dozens of the super high-resolution monitors, according to the Japanese newspaper Nikkei.

Sharp anticipates demand from surgeons, who can use the displays to check microsutures, which are hard to see with the naked eye, according to Nikkei. 8K monitors could also be used by museums to display high-definition images.

Sharp plans to sell 8K TVs to consumers by 2018 in an effort to start building demand for the new display technology in advance of the 2020 Olympics.

COMMENTS
trashmanssd7's picture
Submitted by trashmanssd7 on September 29, 2015 - 5:54am

I they trying to scare everyone into never upgrading. We just got the general public up to speed with HD 1080P. Now they are trying to get them into 4K but wait here comes 8K already. I love my tv and movies, I have a dedicated theater room and yet I dont have a single 4k tv yet because I refuse to flush the money I spent on 1080P tv's 2-4 years ago and I am into the "Videophile thing".

I think I am lucky, not sure when it happened but at some point I grew immune to the upgrade bug. I got burnt out chasing that next great audio or video format. I am very happy with my system and never find myself wanting while I watch a movie.

TheJoBoo's picture
Submitted by TheJoBoo on September 29, 2015 - 8:34am

Not all the kinks have been worked out of UHD and this comes along? Sharp's line of thinking must be something like,"We make mediocre TVs. How do we compete? Improve our UHD sets? No, that's silly. Why, we haven't made a great looking, Sharp-branded TV in years. Hey, why don't we take our mediocre pixels and do a lot more of them? That sounds great!"

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