CES 2012: 4K TV sets make their debut, minus the hoopla

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With surprisingly little fanfare, the major consumer electronics manufacturers introduced a new category of television at the Consumer Electronics Show this year: 4K TV sets, which cram four times as much picture information onto the screen as the best of the current high-definition models. That’s a little over 8 million pixels, compared to about 2 million in a 1080P HDTV set.

LG showed off an 84-inch ‘ultra definition’ LCD set (pictured above). Sony, which already has a 4K projector on the market, said it would continue to develop 4K TVs and promised Blu-ray disc players that upconvert HDTV to 4K. And Sharp took the wraps off not only a 4K LCD TV, but also an 8K prototype. No details were available on prices or release dates, although most manufacturers said they’d have 4K sets in stores this year.

The LG and Sharp sets offered stunningly good pictures, presenting a precisely defined yet silky smooth canvas of images. Yet with so many consumers more than happy with 1080P (and 720P, a less intensive level of high definition), why bother? 4K TV doesn’t change the viewing experience as fundamentally as the shift from analog to HDTV, or from 2D to 3D. And although 3D sets are selling well, it’s not clear that consumers are buying them because they want something better than HDTV -- they may just see it as a way to future-proof their sizable investment in a flat-panel set.

To some degree, 4K is a natural reaction to the rapid decline in TV prices. Manufacturers are under pressure to offer new capabilities every year in order to push prices back up, at least at the high end of the market. LG spokesman John Taylor added a more practical consideration: On a very big screen, 1080P doesn’t provide enough resolution.

4K probably won’t come to 42-inch sets because it’s not needed in that size, Taylor said. But over time, U.S. consumers have gravitated toward ever-larger sets, attracted by thinner and lighter designs and plunging prices. So while 42 inches may be the sweet spot now for many buyers, especially those who grew up on 25-inch analog sets, the demand for bigger displays is likely to grow.

The nontrivial problem for 4K, though, is that there’s nothing to watch in that format. As bad as the shortage of 3D programming has been for home viewers, the supply of 3D dwarfs the availability of 4K material. That helps explain why the new 4K sets received so little attention during the manufacturers’ press blitz Monday, even though they will be making their debut in 2012.

‘There is no 4K broadcasting,’ noted Panasonic’s chief technology officer, Eisuke Tsuyuzaki. And given that the quality of 4K is equivalent to a pristine copy of a 35mm film print, piracy-conscious studios may think twice before agreeing to let any truly valuable content be broadcast in that format, Tsuyuzaki said.

He envisioned a demand for a few thousand 4K displays for medical use (for example, assisting surgeons) and in computer graphics and design. But for the living room? ‘It’s going to be a while,’ he said. ‘It’s not a technical issue.... The biggest issue is the content.’

Then again, TV stations don’t broadcast in 1080P, either. That format is limited mainly to Blu-ray discs and video-on-demand services. So if upconverted broadcasts have been good enough for 1080P, perhaps that will be enough to justify the purchase of a 4K set -- for those whose homes are big enough to fit one in.

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-- Jon Healey in Las Vegas

Healey writes editorials for The Times’ Opinion Manufacturing Division. Follow him at @jcahealey.