Toshiba pushes 4K REGZA HDTVs at CEATEC 2012

At Japan’s biggest technology trade show Toshiba was demonstrating 4K REGZA televisions with a maximum size of 84″. The company was showing content shot in 4K, but also content that was up-scaled (magnified) from a regular 1080p source and believe me, the demo looked absolutely stunning. Obviously, the footage used during such trade shows is carefully selected and tuned to feature eye-popping colors and contrasts but in the grand scheme of things, it is clear that 4K is much more compelling that stereo-3D will ever be, especially for TVs that are 55″ and more.

The amount of detail on the screen is simply incredible!

But Toshiba wasn’t here to promote its LCD panels. Instead, the company representatives were focusing on CEVO 4K, the internal image processor that can take a 1080p movie and re-scale it to 4K while adding some details on the fly.

Using a simple magnification results in blurry video, so it is critical that any up-scaling of the image is produced with the best possible algorithm so that additional data can be “injected” to visually appear sharper and “4K”-looking. The same thing was done to DVD videos when 1080p first appeared.

With a good up-scaler, Toshiba can argue that consumers don’t need to wait for native 4K content. Of course, we’ve seen that movie before and in the end, sooner or later, 4K will come – now the only question is” how fast will the prices drop?