Future TVs will be ‘indiscernible from real life’

FUTURE television viewing will be ‘like looking through a window’, but consumers will need four times the resolution of current high-definition TVs.

Jim Sanduski, President of Sharp Electronics Marketing Corporation of America, stands in font of Sharp 4K Ultra HD televisions Monday, Jan. 5, 2015, in Las Vegas. Beyond improving picture quality, Sharp is incorporating Google's Android TV software so that viewers can use a variety of streaming apps, such as Netflix and Hulu, without a separate device. (AP Photo/John Locher)

THE future of television will be “like looking through a window” and almost impossible to discern from real life, but consumers will need four times the resolution of current full high-definition TVs to achieve it, it was revealed at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las

Vegas today.

Two companies revealed their work on futuristic 8K televisions, offering double the pixels of the new generation of Ultra HD 4K televisions currently touted as “future-proof”.

Japanese TV maker Sharp showed off its 80-inch Beyond 4K television offering 167 per cent more pixels than current 4K TVs due to launch this year, while LG previewed its 8K prototype television due to go on show when the event officially opens tomorrow.

Trick of the eye ... Toshiyuki Osawa, president of Sharp Electronics Corporation, with the Sharp 4K Ultra HD. Picture: AP Photo/John Locher

Sharp Laboratories America president Dr Larry Meixner said the company’s Beyond 4K television, while falling just short of 8K resolution, would be the “highest resolution television available” when it launched later this year.

The company, he said, would strive to produce an 8K television in future.

“Lifelike picture quality that’s like looking through a window: that is the ultimate goal Sharp strives for in developing technologies that power our TVs,” Dr Meixner said.

“As images approach 8K resolution, it becomes nearly impossible for the human eye to discern the difference between the image and reality.”

LG also foreshadowed the reveal of its own 8K television prototype on the show floor, while promising more than half of its 2015 models would feature 4K resolution.

Despite the focus on TVs with greater resolution, 4K television content has been difficult to source, and is currently only available through overseas streaming services and preloaded to hard drives by makers including Sony.