The world’s first 8K television is here just in time for the holidays. Sharp’s new TV packs 16 times the resolution of an HD TV and 4 times that of a 4K Ultra HD TV. If you’re thinking of getting your family a Christmas present, it only costs $133,000. Hopefully you can still afford a house to watch your TV in after you buy it.
Sharp says its new TV is targeted at corporate users, and so far little 8K video is available for consumers to watch, anyway. But LG, Panasonic and Samsung all unveiled 8K TVs at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, and the Electronic Times announced that Samsung is working with the South Korean government to develop 11K resolution displays. With the TV industry still pushing for 4K to catch on as a new standard, this has some analysts wondering whether there will be a market for these new ultra-high resolution technologies.
The State of 4K
Today’s TV market is still making the transition from HDTV, which displays 1080 pixels horizontally across the screen, and 4K, which displays 3,480p for four times the pixels and twice the resolution. As Dish’s The Dig explains, 4K is still catching on for a couple reasons:
- You need a large screen to see the difference between HDTV and Ultra HD 4K resolution. This is because a person with 20/20 vision cannot detect resolution about 229 pixels per inch, making a screen size of 80 to 100 inches a prerequisite for viewing 4K resolution (unless you sit extremely close to your TV)
- To take advantage of the higher resolution, you need to watch content produced and broadcast or played in 4K, and so far only a limited amount of content is available
But the TV industry does project that these new developments will catch on slowly but surely. In anticipation of this trend, LG announced the release of the world’s first flat 4K OLED TV at the end of August, just a week ahead of Panasonic announcing its first 4K OLED.
Meanwhile, Samsung has released what it calls an SUHD TV, where the “S” represents a model number code for a new line of 4K Ultra HD TVs employing nanocrystals rather than a new type of resolution. The nanocrystal technology makes color contrasts more vivid, but Samsung’s SUHD line still provides resolution within 4K parameters.
The 8K Horizon
Meanwhile, Samsung and other manufacturers are already looking past 4K to 8K. 8K is projected to catch on most rapidly in Asia, where Japanese state broadcaster NHK has been rapidly developing the technology over the past few years, with an eye toward broadcasting the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, as Home Cinema Choice relates. NHK and BBC used the 2012 Summer Olympics in London as a field test for 8K, and the resulting footage impressed experimenters for its ability to provide an immersive sense of reality.
NHK, BBC, Italian broadcaster RAI, and major American networks have expressed an interest in developing 8K. IHK projects that global 8K shipments will approach one million units by 2019, with Chinese consumers driving demand. As with 4K, the need for large-screen TVs will be the biggest barrier to adoption, but market analysts expect the growth of Chinese big-screen production will overcome this obstacle.
11K or Bust
Samsung isn’t satisfied with 8K, though. The Korean manufacturer is working on an 11K screen for smartphones and is considering experimenting with 3D effects. As with 8K, the Olympics are driving the research push, in this case the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.
Industry watchers aren’t sure what to make of this, raising questions about the practicality of Samsung’s endeavor. Consider that:
- The eye can’t really detect 11K levels of resolution on a smartphone screen
- High-resolution screens drain batteries faster
- 3D screens cause eyestrain and nausea for many users
It’s uncertain if Samsung will prove able to bypass these limitations. But whatever the results, with the efforts manufacturers are putting into 8K and 11K research, screen resolution technology will grow by leaps and bounds between now and 2020.
