I was 31 floors up in Centre Point on Tuesday to witness Sharp’s new line of televisions which, for the first time in tele history, is rocking a fourth, yellow, sub pixel joining its red, green, and blue buddies.
Sharp is waiting before joining the possible ‘fad’ of 3D and is instead looking to make large screen TV’s more economical (40% less power used compared with other LCD’s), brighter, ‘sharp’er and with a larger pallet.
“The revolutionary new four colour technology enables billions of colours to be displayed, providing brighter video gaming, clearer sports viewing and sharper action enjoyment”, says the company.
Sharp actually played around with introducing white and cyan pixels but the yellow pixels had the best match of transparency and usefulness as yellow helps with greens, yellows (duh!) as well as the lighter blues.
As Neuroscientist, Dr Jack Lewis, says: “a key mechanism of perceiving colour involves comparing levels of red versus green light and blue versus yellow light, which all happens in a special layer of neurons within the retina. The addition of the yellow sub-pixel (to the standard red, green and blue) in this product creates so many new colour tones that the new technology Sharp is using to create images is mimicking critical features of the brain’s visual system. This could ultimately make us feel more involved in things we watch on TV, whether it’s playing a video game with your mates, cheering on your team or watching the latest action thriller”.
Be prepared to see the little yellow pixies …. errr.. pixels in new Sony goggle-boxes too as apparently they’ve invested heavily with Sharp for the research that’s delivered this extra shade.
Sharp’s new range; the LC-LE811E, LC-LE821E, LC-LE921E, and LC-LE920 will come in 40, 46 and 60 inch flavours with a range of new tech to boost the appeal even further.
Each model is 1080p HD ready, will come complete with Sharp’s UltraBrilliant Edge-lit panel technology and will have HD Freeview baked in as standard.
You also get timeshift so you don’t miss ‘enders as you make a cuppa or if you wanna skip the adverts in 24. This uses the 8GB internal flash memory which is good for about 25 minutes of HD or a coupla hours in standard viewing.
You’ll be able to shove a USB device into the back of the tele but this will only bring the joys of vibrant pictures and sounds until the firmware update which will allow DivX flicks. This should hit the sets in August.
Pricing will start around £1400 for the 40″ which should be out at the end of April.
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I am hoping that this is a significant advancement in technology. It would be really great if it this new type of viewing is significantly better.
Heya Chuck!
Thanks for leaving a comment and I’m liking the sound of the ‘Ninja Diet’
They certainly looked good and the colours appeared vivid.
The only thing I will say is that at Sharp’s show-and-tell they didn’t have any RGB sets there to compare with.
When these TV’s hit the stores and are sat side-by-side with other ‘regular’ tele’s then we can weigh up the advances
J
If broadcast cameras pickup RGB, where are they getting the Y information from? Sounds like the old upscaleing trick with color.
Hi Steve.
That was one of my questions and whether we’d need to buy new cameras, etc for this to work.
Apparently devices such as camcorders and cameras already ‘see’ yellow as well as the other colours in the spectrum it’s just that the output is made up of mixing RGB presently. So the introduction of the yellow pixel will increase the output pallet.
J
Wouldn’t you know it. I just bought a new 50″ plasma at Christmas. Now… it’s going to torture me not having one of the Sharp Quattrons.
Hey Mark
Don’t you just love tech for that?
That’s always going to be the way no matter what you buy :0S
If we all had throw-away incomes we’d always be bang up-to-date. The fact is that few of us are fortunate enough to use the tech and gadget news press as shopping lists.
If you’ve got yourself a 50″ plazzy enjoy the glory of it man!
J
How much does it weigh?
Hey Ed
The 40 incher weighs in at 23.5Kg including its swivel stand.
Hope that helps.
J
Surely a new RGBY input is now required. Wouldn’t they just make the yellow pixels’ brightness a function (probably an adjusted guassian-like curve) with a maximum centered around yellow, and possibly calculate adjustments to the RGB accordingly.
I meant to say not* required, and that the Yellow’s brightness would be determined as a function of the R G and possibly B inputs.
If our eye only has Red, Green, and Blue receptors doesn’t that mean that “Yellow” source light is broken down by the receptors to yet another RGB mapping?
Sure, I’ve read that Red, Green, Blue and Yellow form the set of “psychological colors”, but I don’t understand how adding a non-primary (with respect to the retina) color will add anything to the image.
Could someone please explain?
Hey Jack.
I’m going to have to let someone with more knowledge field that. I’m just a gadget-loving bassist and not very well versed in ophthalmological matters.
What I can say from first-hand experience was that blues and greens seemed more vibrant – obviously so did yellows.
I’ve still yet to get the chance of a side-by-side comparison with a Quattron and a ‘regular’ HD box.
If anyone out there has more answers please feel free to chip in.
J
Thanks for your answer, Jay. I guess I’ll have to find a store and do a side-by-side comparison for myself.
Does anyone know why the Sharp Quattorn weighs so much more than other 60″ LED-LCDs made by other manufacturers?
Never mind the cameras, where do we get EYES with yellow receptors?
Michael June 12, 2010 at 7:04 pm
Does anyone know why the Sharp Quattorn weighs so much more than other 60″ LED-LCDs made by other manufacturers?
Yeah michael, its because the backing is made completely of metal instead of that super flexible plastic crap. I recently just purchased the LC-52LE810UN model whch is the 52″ led and i will say that compared next to my 52″ philips which has an amazing picture and vivd colors (friends are always jealous of the superior picture quality of the philips i have even compared to higher end models), it makes the Philips look Almost grainy and not as vivid and rich in color and detail, the television Honestly looks Borderline 3D(minus the actual depth differences). Honestly ive never been happier with the selection of a tv, after comparing it side by side in several differant stores next to several differant moel tv’s i decided to go with this. When i brought it home and connected it via HDMI and calibrated it to my standards, it absolutely blew me away. Definately a smart choice…..and the price is right.