Even Sony concedes its latest TV is a tough sell.
For the wealthy gadget lover who has everything, or the most eager of early adopters, Sony is prepping to release a Canadian exclusive in time for Christmas: A new astronomically priced TV that represents the first step into a new ultra high-resolution format.
It's called 4K TV, a technology that promises four times the resolution of the HD picture consumers are now used to watching.
For the price of a new family sedan, or a down payment on a condo, consumers can pick up Sony's top-ofthe-line 84-inch 4K LCD TV. That's $25,000 - plus tax.
Much like when plasma TVs were first released and were mostly sold to businesses or the very wealthy, Sony isn't expecting a huge rush on its new model, admits spokesman Michael Neujahr.
"There's not going to be an awful lot of consumers buying this TV," says Neujahr. "But certainly the higher-end customer that wants the best of the best, who's spending $140,000 on a car, or $12,000 on a watch, it's those people we're going to start with." The technology is so new there's not much a consumer can actually view in the full resolution. There's some material online, including on YouTube, which plays in 4K resolution but not a whole lot. Don't expect cable and satellite TV providers to start offering 4K channels any time soon. And there's still no physical disc format that's 4K-compatible, although TV manufacturer LG believes a new type of Blu-ray could be ready by next year.
Neujahr doesn't see that lack of 4K content as a huge barrier, however. Sony claims the TV is equipped with an internal chip that can upconvert any video content to look better on a 4K TV - although Neujahr admits even he still hasn't seen what conventional HD TV content looks like on the new set.
"Will it look better? I'm sure it will, but I haven't seen it with my own eyes yet," he concedes.
"It's not that dissimilar to not that long ago when HD TVs first came out and at the very beginning there was very limited to no content. You have to start somewhere to spur advancements and here with 4K televisions - we're not too sure exactly when - but 4K content will be available."
