Sharp 8K TV Touts Its Own ARM Processor For High Computing Performance

CEATEC 2019 is naturally filled with technological wonders, some of which look too futuristic to be available today. In a sea of such forward-looking prototypes and products that may or may not hit the market, Sharp is bringing a comforting and familiar presence in the form of an 8K TV. Make no mistake, however, as this 8T-C70BW1 8K LCD TV AQUOS does have a special trick inside, an ARM system-on-chip (SoC) that could make it one of the most powerful computer TVs in the market.

Of course, TVs these days have processors, specifically image processors, but you rarely get to hear about them until recently. The mobile market, with its obsession with specs, has made consumers more attuned to the processing needs of the device. They are also now more likely to listen to the marketing technobabble about processors and the like.

The highlight of Sharp's 8K TV isn't just the TV itself but the Sharp ARM image processing SoC built exactly for this purpose. Sharp boasts that it delivers the high computing performance needed by the TV to display not just 8K content but 8K content in 120 fps rates. The chip is also responsible for reproducing high-resolution 8K video without detail loss by actually predicting the shape of the subject.

Thanks to this ARM chip, Sharp's 8K TV is also capable of features like HDR10 and HLG support, reduction of the dreaded "jaggies", and, impressively, mulit-screen PIP (picture-in-picture) functionality when combining feeds from 4 different sources. There is also Motion Estimation and Motion Compensation (MEMC) that interpolates images from the previous and next frames.

There are no availability details yet for Sharp's 8K LCD TV but, given the market trend, it shouldn't take too long to launch. It also marks the start of a trend where, like smartphone makers, TV makers place a heavy emphasis on the computing power hidden inside the slim frames.