Toronto, September 17, 2012 — At downtown Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum today, Sony announces price and availability of Sony XBR-84X900. This 4K TV, at quadruple the resolution of regular HDTV, is Sony Electronic’s first and originally debuted last month at IFA on August 29.
4K in a Nutshell
The 4K image standard is 4 096 x 2 160 pixels. This represents four times the resolution of 2K digital cinema and High Definition (1080p) images. The smaller the pixel size and the greater the number of pixels in an image frame results in the ability to display more detailed and realistic images. An additional benefit of the ultra-high resolution offered by 4K systems is that their on-screen pixel size is incredibly tiny, approximately one quarter the size of pixels displayed by equivalent HDTV. The greater resolution offered by 4K enables more detailed, more realistic, more engaging images to be displayed without a visible pixel structure, even when viewed from 1:1 image distance (or in this case, viewing the 84” TV from 84” away).
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More About Sony XBR-84X900
This TV is also Sony’s first dive into passive 3D. However, because of the 4K native resolution, the passive 3D can be shown in full 1080p resolution unlike its competitions. Furthermore, this TV also allows full-resolution (1080p) SimulView where two gamers can compete against each other using only one screen and each wearing a passive 3D glasses.
Unlike most TVs, Sony utilizes the cavity in the TV to install 10 units of Live Speaker System that produces proper sound without the usually tinny and undefined sound coming from regular TV speakers. More impressively, Sony uses not one, not two, but three X-Reality Pro picture engine to upscale any image source to near 4K quality. From the demo shown, the upscaled 4K picture from regular 1080p Blu-ray Disc look mighty amazing and very convincing. Of course, a native 4K source pushes the TV’s amazing abilities to its limits.
It is rather unfortunate that the TV which will retail at $24,999.99 in November only uses Dynamic Edge Lit as opposed to full-array LED backlighting. On the other hand, the choice of using edge LED lighting is to make the TV slim enough and light enough to be installed virtually anywhere without too much of additional structural reinforcement needed.
Of course, Sony’s usual suite of network connectivity, including the full Sony Entertainment Network suite of services is included with this TV.