First Look at Sony’s Brava 84-inch 4K TV

Sony’s 84X900 Bravia 4K TV shown at Sony booth at IFA

I love the 55 inch 1080p TV in my normal-size living room, but if my house had a humongously large living room and I had an equally large bank account, I’d be first in line to buy Sony’s 84-inch Brava 84X9000 4K TV.

The set displays 3840 by 2160 resolution compared to the 1920 × 1080 resolution on today’s HD Tvs.  To put it another way, the 4K set displays 8,294,400 pixels compared to the 2,073,600 of 1080p.

Looks great up close

Admittedly, most people probably wouldn’t notice the difference between 1080p and 4K on smaller sets when watching TV from a suitable distance but when you look at the new Brava up close, it’s hard to see any distance between pixels. It’s almost like looking at the real world vs. a video depiction of it.

Of course, there is a catch. To fully appreciate a 4K set you have to watch content recorded in 4K and, aside from a handful of demonstration videos out there, you’re not likely to find any. And even if such content were available, it’s not clear to me whether today’s cable, satellite or broadcast technologies would be able to deliver it  – at least for the foreseeable future.

Still, the technology does have some applications. I looked at a demonstration of an aeral photograph of a city in both 1080p and 4K and  – on the 4K set — I was able to zoom in to get incredible detail of the streets and buildings.

And, if you’re sitting up close to a 4K set you can really see the difference between it and a 1080p set.

It is also impressive when watching 3D — a feature that’s included in the Bravia set. 3D was once the big rage at IFA and CES and now it’s just another feature in mid to high-end sets. When watching a 3D video on the 4K set, it came to life with a clarity and realism that’s noticeably better than regular HD.

Sony hadn’t yet put a price tag on the new Bravia 4K set but it could be as high as $25,000.  Hmm.  I wonder how many blog posts I’d have to write to pay for that plus the cost of building myself a living room big enough to house it.

Video of video

My colleague Chris Davies of Slashgear recorded a video of this cool video screen.

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