Hisense will sell 8K ULED TVs in Australia next year

Hisense is the first TV maker to announce new plans for 8K sets in Australia next year.

Hisense has announced that it will sell a range of 8K TVs in Australia in 2020, a year that shapes as pivotal to the growth of 8K throughout the world.

Samsung, LG and Sony already have 8K TVs in the Australian market but next year the prediction is they will be joined by many more.

Hisense is yet to reveal the price of its coming 8K sets, but says it will feature quantum dot colour, full array backlighting, full array local dimming, Dolby Vision, HDR and Dolby Atmos audio.

Premium Hisense TVs are usually branded ULED, which stands for “ultra light emitting diode” and refers to patents that Hisense holds covering resolution, brightness and motion.

Hisense says its ULED 8K TVs use artificial intelligence to recognise and upscale lower resolution content to 8K.

Andre Iannuzz, head of marketing at Hisense Australia, says the company has been trialling, testing and finetuning 8K sets for many years.

The company is due to release more details at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas in January.

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This year Hisense released a massive 100-inch laser 4K TV into the Australian market that comprises a short-throw projector that beams movies and TV onto a special 100-inch screen on a wall nearby.

8K comes into its own on screens above 75-inches where 4K resolution starts to lose some crispness. 8K comprises 33 million pixels, four times the pixels of 4K, and therefore offers a finer image on much larger displays.

The lack of 8K content available in Australia means that 8K TVs will be confined to upscaling 4K and lower resolution to 8K, rather than displaying native 8K telecasts.

Native 8K telecasts do take place in Japan; broadcaster NHK began researching the higher resolution format there in 1995. Test broadcasts in 8K began in August 2016, followed by the official launch of 8K and 4K channels across Japan in December last year, using its BSAT-4a satellite.

8K TVs however are expensive. In Australia, The Good Guys sells Samsung’s 82-inch QLED 8K TV for $13995, and its 75-inch QLED set for $8995. LG’s 75-inch 8K Smart LED TV is $8995 while Sony’s 85-inch 8K LCD LED TV is $21,995.

Small 8K sets such as Samsung’s 65-inch QLED TV ($4995) and 55-inch QLED TV ($4095) are cheaper, but there’s little advantage operating 8K on small sets where 4K resolution is more than adequate.

Manufacturers are expected to unveil more 8K sets at CES in Las Vegas next month.