[CES 2014] Not content to turn up the heat in the 55” 1080p TV space, Toshiba is charging full-steam in the high-end 4K HDTV segment. Currently reserved to a small group of enthusiast, it is nonetheless the place where each manufacturer is going to introduce its best technology with the hope to trickle it down going forward. Toshiba is bringing its best display technology with a 10-bit color engine driving is 4K TV panel.
To accommodate 4K content, both the L8400 and L9400 are equipped with HDMI 2.0 which supports up to 4K at 60 frames per second (60FPS), HDCP 2.2 to ensure the security of the 4K content, H.265 HEVC which is the latest compression protocol which allows movies to use much less bandwidth. Without HEVC any kind of content distribution would be very difficult, or very expensive – possibly both, so this is a big deal. (HEVC stands for High Efficiency Video Coding).
As usual, this is a smart TV, but unlike lower-end models, they come with a quad-core processor, and support keyboard and mouse via Bluetooth. The L8400 is a 58” TV while the L9400 comes in 58”, 65” and 84”. Toshiba told me that the 65” size is starting to get some real traction in the market and that it was becoming increasingly important. As people switch to 4K, I also think that they will demand larger screens since the image quality over 1080p start to be very noticeable beyond 55”.