First 4K TV set

The 84-inch XBR-84X900 fulfills Sony's three primary marketing objectives. First, to be the first to the mass market with a 4K-resolution TV set. Second, to be as expensive as a small yacht. Third, to have a name that you have already forgotten.

Sony releases first 4K TV [CNET]

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scatterfingers

Great, I can’t wait for shit like this drive down prices on stuff I can actually afford.
- http://profiles.google.com/keithdtyler Keith Tyler
  
  Might even be able to go above 37” under $300!
  
  When I was a kid, TVs were so cheap that even poor kids like me had one in their rooms.
  
  We seem to have forgotten that TV is supposed to be a public communication service and turned into a high-ticket item.
  
  Hell, I could buy 4 or 5 of my brand new dishwasher for the price of the average 42”. My stepdaughter bought her car for less than a decent sized Sony HDTV for crying out loud.
  - Andrew Pautz
    
    If you’re located somewhere that is at least fairly populated, you can easily find free or very cheap TVs on Craigslist. In college, I’d find one at the beginning of each year and give it away at the end. Very cheap and easy. I never paid more than $20 at a time.
    
    I’m curious, too, how much your dishwasher or your stepdaughter’s car cost. A quick scan of dishwashers at Amazon has the absolute cheapest at $200 before shipping (and tax if you have to pay it). I’ve pretty regularly seen 40-42 inch TVs for ~$300 with free shipping (can get a 40-inch 1080p off-brand for $316.54 with free shipping off Amazon right this moment). Occasionally, a 1080p name brand will drop that low (have a 42 inch Panasonic plasma that was $300 shipped).
    
    Yes, fancier TVs cost a fair chunk of change, but market stratification is a different concept and argument.
    - http://twitter.com/writebastard Ian Wood
      
      A few years ago I found a 42″ Panasonic plasma TV next to a dumpster. Hauled it inside, opened it up, noted a PC board that looked a little toasted, found the part on eBay, and replaced it. I ordered a new remote control online, which brought the total cost of a perfectly fine television to $180. At the time, they sold for around $3500. I still use it.
  - jerwin
    
    You have expensive tastes in televisions, and cheap tastes in dishwashers.
lbigbadbob

Interesting. Just last night I was at an event where a director of photography complained that 4K is awful. The sharpness actually just makes make people look ugly, and filmmakers who shoot in 4K often end up spending money to reduce the unwanted sharpness in post.
- retepslluerb
  
  Yeah, I wonder how we can stand looking at real people.
  - bcsizemo
    
    But there is a realistic point to what “bob” is saying.
    
    A lot of movies are not filmed with a fixed 50mm lens or something even remotely close to the standard human field of vision. Instead you are seeing people’s faces like you are standing a foot or closer to them (especially at the size they are being project at in a cinema).
    
    Think about how in the low quality “shitty” analog days – like the 80′s – all TV shows had that nice soft focus effect. You had a hard time telling if someone was 30, 35, or 40. Now with HD digital broadcasts you can see wrinkles, line, imperfections ect.. Same thing with 4K, now with just more resolution.
- Bob Dole’s Commie Doppelganger
  
  That’s exactly the same thing they said about HDTV.
Toffer99

Picture’s a bit dark. Must be a Film Noire.
- ImmutableMichael
  
  Needs a John Cage soundtrack.
Tribune

“Third, to have a name that you have already forgotten.” Check (already had to scroll back up when I read that part to see what i had forgotten)
Baldhead

obviously I spend too much time with TVs. They ALL have names like that. And before anyone says “bravia” or some other nonsense, ALL sonys on the market and for the last several years have been “bravia ##XX####” often including an “XBR” The first 2 numbers are just the size, even. So I hope an 84″ screen would be 4k because otherwise it would look as much ass as the old 50″ CRT screens did.
- benenglish
  
  Are you sure there were 50″ CRTs? The biggest I can remember was a Sony at 40″ and it weighed close to 300 pounds. A 50″ CRT would have required (not merely suggested) at least two strong men to lift it onto a stand. That doesn’t seem marketable to me.
  - jerwin
    
    Of course. 50 inch projection TVs had little CRTs (7 to 9 inches, perhaps) driving the projectors.
    - benenglish
      
      If we grant that “CRT” TVs include projection TVs, OK. Most people say “projection” when they mean projection and specify “CRT” only when referring to direct-view CRT sets.
      
      So the answer is “Yes, there were 50-inch CRTs” and “No, there weren’t 50-inch CRTs” depending on how we define terms.
      
      Reminds me too much of high school debate team. I’ll just concede the point and retire.
http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby

The important thing to consider is why you’d add built-in speakers to a TV like this. Does anyone with even a half decent telly actually use the in built speakers? At least on mine they’re not visible; so pointless, but out of the way. On this they’re a visual feature, seems odd.
- Labbit
  
  This! I always found it amusing that TV manufacturers continued to tout nonsense like extra-super-10000W-enhanced-HD-virtual-3D-surround-sound-etc. as the sets got thinner and thinner with no room for anything of substance.
  
  I’d be happy to buy a TV that was just the display panel and had no speakers whatsoever*.
  
  (*assuming one is in the market for something above the lower end of the scale)
- Ben Burger
  
  I find most people I know (including myself) use the built in speakers.
http://profiles.google.com/keithdtyler Keith Tyler

That’s great. What do you do with it? Watch 4 DVDs at the same time? :P
- jerwin
  
  Watch 4k videos from youtube, of course.
  
  (Forget about DVDs– blurays might look decent when scaled up.)
- ChickieD
  
  I work in the medical monitor industry. For a consumer TV, this quality is absurd. For medical, you can now transmit (if you can also do the transmission so the quality is maintained) images of high enough quality that a doctor can use them to diagnose disease. So now a doctor can diagnose an illness via videoconference.
  
  One of the biggest areas of interest of doctors we have shown 4k to is using a 4K system with a 4K microscope.
http://boingboing.net/ The Life Of Bryan

That’s what happens when IT policies go too far. They seem to be going a bit overboard on password strength requirements.
Jellodyne

I was going to ask if there was even a standard interface to feed this thing a 4k signal yet, but I asked Google instead. Turns out HDMI 1.4 supports it, both 3840 x 2160 and 4096 x 2160 flavors. Now to find a native UHD source, and a wheelbarrow full of money.
- Donald Petersen
  
  The article mentions there’s one 4K-native movie available: a 50-minute astronomy picture called TimeScapes, the full-res 4K version of which is available for $299 on its own hard drive.
  
  No word on when your favorite Pixar movies will see their 4K release, however.
  
  Personally, for thirty-one large, I think I’d rather trawl eBay for 35mm projectors from defunct movie houses, or those that lately upgraded to digital projection. At least then I wouldn’t be lacking for content for the foreseeable future.
  - http://theladyfingers.blogspot.com/ Ladyfingers
    
    You know 35mm prints cost tens of thousands of dollars a piece, right?
    - Donald Petersen
      
      I know they don’t, if you know where to get them.
      - http://theladyfingers.blogspot.com/ Ladyfingers
        
        Anything’s free if you “know how to get it”.
        
        Presumably you’d be employing a projectionist to seamlessly change reels?
bcsizemo

Please tell me this thing has a firmware that needs to be updated every fifth time you turn it on….
nicholas1987

Anyone know where I can buy a tv stand like the one pictured above? Thanks.
Stay_Sane_Inside_Insanity

Third, to have a name that you have already forgotten.

Correction: To have a name that I didn’t bother to read. As soon as ya see that it’s a serial number, your eye just drifts past.
Bob Dow

8K has already been done as proof of concept by Sharp and I’m sure Samsung has one too…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9U7e_quvkPQ
hadlockk

You might be able to buy a nice racing dinghy (carbon fiber, etc) for $31,000, even a new J/24, but you certainly haven’t been looking at the yacht market since 1983 or so, when a 30′ yacht cost that much. Nowadays you can plan to spend north of $120,000 for a proper yacht. Roughly speaking, $yacht = $ferrari, both in upfront cost, and long term servicing costs.