It is a very, very bad time to be selling televisions right now. Having dumped their tube sets for flatscreens, the First World is in no big hurry to upgrade to any sort of new fancy television, especially with the economy the way it is. Sharp lost $5.6 billion dollars last fiscal year and probably will be eaten by a tech company before 2013 ends. Sony believes it’ll only sell 14 million TVs this year.
So what does this mean? Excess! And Westinghouse’s new TV is the new poster, uh, object for this.
Really, the fact that you have to custom order this beast, being shown at CES, pretty much tells you what the market is:
That size will join 50-, 55-, and 65-inch 4K models in the company’s booth. Few other details, aside from a 120Hz refresh rate and shipping information, were revealed. The 110-incher will be available as a custom order in the first quarter, says the company, while the smaller sizes will hit retail shelves around the same time.
So, what’s the problem? More resolution is better, right?
Fun fact: 1080p is, depending on the situation, already higher resolution than human vision is capable of processing. 4K is pretty much like adding polish to a perfectly smooth object: You’re really not going to notice the difference.
Secondly, there’s the fact that there isn’t actually all that much available in 4K resolution and what there is can be awfully hard to find. Oh, and smaller 4K sets will run you twenty freaking grand, for starters, so this might actually cost six figures.
In other words, this is almost purely advertising hype. You’ll never see these outside of a few huge displays. But hey, until then, looks neat, huh?