New 4K TV Coming

Television manufacturers are always eager to shore up their business with new technology and are gearing up to roll out sets with what's known as 4K screen resolution. These TVs, which should start to hit store shelves in the United States later this year, have about four times the resolution of 1080p screens, the current standard for high-definition sets.

Regardless of the size of its screen, a 1080p TV has about 2 million pixels arrayed across 1,920 vertical columns and 1,080 horizontal rows. Although electronics manufacturers haven't yet settled on a standard, 4K resolutions generally have at least 7 million pixels - and sometimes many more - arranged across about 4,000 columns and 2,000 rows. All those extra pixels allow 4K televisions to display images in much finer detail than HDTVs.

On bigger screen sizes at close distances, the difference between 1080p and 4K is stunning. At a close viewing range, HD video on a big screen can look pixilated, and colors and images can blur into the background. By contrast, 4K video looks super sharp and almost lifelike. At a further distance the difference tends to be less noticeable.

You might want to wait for 4K. The first 4K TVs will likely be outrageously expensive. Toshiba's 55-inch 4K television is already available in Japan for $10,000 or so. Another reason to wait is that no shows are being produced in 4K yet. In fact very few are produced in 3D so far, but ESPN is betting that many will love the 3D sports events it will be producing.

The 4K video processor should only add about $10 to the cost of a TV, but the big cost issue is the display technology. The ability to cram that many pixels into a relatively small space is on the cutting edge of display manufacturers' capabilities.

Manufacturers will only sell about 5,000 4K TVs this year worldwide and won't sell more than a million per year until 2015. 3D TV should be selling more units by then, also.

3D is a Big Deal

Sony is announcing six new 3D ready TVs this year. Some come with the glasses and others require a separate purchase of glasses and infrared transmitters. It is planning for 3D to be ten percent of its TV sales. Panasonic and Samsung already have 3D sets available at Best Buy. Vizio, the number one largest LCD TV seller, is following with a 72inch, 480Hz LED 3D HDTV screaming stunner in August, with smaller 3D sets to follow. The 72inch is slated to cost a comparatively measly $3,500.

At least a dozen 3D movies are coming out this year and a large number of theaters are upgrading to 3D capable screens.

ESPN has been testing it for two years and recently announced it is coming out with an all 3D network June 11, and plans to have at least eighty-five 3D events ready this year. One caveat, the new network will go dark when no 3D is available. Discovery announced plans for its 3D network to begin broadcasting in 2011.

Gamers are also in on the 3D craze and Microsoft and others announced some of their new games in all 3D.

Just when we all have slipped into the HDTV age, another new technology makes it obsolete. Still, I don't see full scale adoption for another 4 - 5 years, but I do smell upcharges coming sooner to a cable network near you.