CES 2014: Sharp bringing the heat!

With a fair chunk of the CES 2014 coverage wrapped up, I know there’s a number of nerds out there who are also big sports fans. Super Bowl is ramping up and we’re looking at the Seahawks going up against the Broncos! And with any gathering, there’s usually the chance to go watch it at a friend or family’s big screen television. While there are many brands on the market, let my tell you a bit about what Sharp has brought to the table.

Aside from watching high definitions sports coverage, I tend to look at picture quality with an emphasis on vibrant picture quality. I want to make sure that the picture I’m getting, whether I’m playing the newest Assassin’s Creed or watching an episode of Doctor Who is the intended quality and capture available. Last year’s CES promised a lot of the 4K resolution devices, this year delivers on that very promise. While most of what existed last year were demonstrations, we are seeing the marketplace rolling out with this technology.

The 4K resolution is the standard for the film industry. Often times I find myself running into the popular RED cameras. But now it’s becoming something consumers can access and capture themselves. And what better way to view the quality intended by filmmakers than the new television screens.

Sharp is doing something specific. Instead of an RGB pixel mix, they add a yellow subpixel (Y), creating a 4-color (RGBY) visual than your standard 3-color RGB. Although Sharp has been recognized for having this for many years, you can truly see the difference at the 4K resolution. We were shown a contrast between a Quattron+ television and a standard television, with a notable paleness to the visuals of the standard in terms of sharpness. The benefit of the 5-color display is that it can generate 99% of the surface colors that can be determined without assistance to the human eye.

Beyond the new Quattron+ television, Sharp’s SmartCentral is able to tap into various services. Whether it’s pooling the local cable service providers, satellite services or your internet services like Hulu and Netflix, it is able to centralize all these groups and turn it into a master database for your browsing and interactivity. One of the nice features about SmartCentral is the return of Picture-in-Picture. You can have the screen split, where one side is viewing the current show and the other side is browsing. Although some cable box interfaces sport this service in their browsing, it is not a high-definition interface that is seamless to controls.