VIDEO: George Takei Blown Away by 4-color TV
Sharp claims that more yellow is what you need in your next TV.
During CES 2010, Sharp introduced its Aquos LED LCD TV series that adds a fourth color to the standard RGB (red, green, blue) setup: yellow. Called QuadPixel, the technology supposedly makes for a better picture, enabling more than a trillion colors.
"This four-primary-color display employs a four-color filter, for the first time in the industry, that adds the color Y (yellow) to the three colors of R (red), G (green), and B (blue)," the company said back in January. "This combination expands the color gamut, faithfully rendering nearly all colors that can be discerned with the unaided human eye. Four-primary-color technology enables the display to reproduce colors that have been difficult to portray using conventional LCD displays, such as the golden yellow color of brass instruments."
Just over two months later, Sharp is now introducing its 4-color technology to the general public, re- branded as "Quattron." Sharp hired Star Trek's George Takei ("Mr. Sulu") in a recent commercial to explain the difference between an old-school RGB TV set and the new technology, however because everyone still lives in the dark ages, we can't really see the difference unless we're face to face with the RGBY TV. Takei demonstrates the difference in an over-the-top, comical OMG manner that will surely make its rounds on the internet.
Eight of the eleven Aquos HDTVs will be available this month, ranging from $1,799.99 (LC-40LE810UN) to $3,999.99 (LC-60LE820UN). The LE920 models are slated to hit the market in May.
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Worth checking out. I'm still using my Sharp Perfect PAL 32" LCD from about 5 years ago.
It has a 960x540 screen that fits a PAL SD signal and half downscales a 1080 signal perfectly. Looks really good actually. Many folks have remarked on the very smooth picture quality.
I wont be getting HD services for a while so no biggie.
RGBY and 3D? I'm game. I just hope Vizio can offer it and take the prices down. (I may make a lot of money, but I don't intend on wasting it.)
I'm strangely reminded of ex Arizona governor Evan Mecham's crack about Japanese businessmen getting "round eyes" when they saw how many golf courses the state has.
Off topic: why does Tom's articles comment count cap out at 31? Bug?
Ive seen this commercial a few times but I still dont get it. I was told that with RGB, tint, and hue you could create over 16 million colors... youre telling me yellow isnt one of them? Why is this new pixel needed?
WhOOOw!
LOL
For someone who spent time viewing the original large flat screen on the Enterprise he sure does impress easily.
Very funny. I like Sul...I mean Takei.
Shatner says the screen has great KHAN!!!-trast.
That's much mony >.
I call bull.
R + G = Y
Even if this did somehow increase the color gamut of the display, it doesn't change the fact that there still isn't content out there that would actually take advantage of said color space.
It's a gimmick. R and G make Y; there's no need for a yellow pixel. The human eye has rods and cones. The cones are color sensitive with 3 types: red, green, blue. That's why we use R, G, and B pixels to represent all of the colors. The human eyes and brain absolutely can not tell the difference between yellow light and the appropriate mix of red and green light. You need a spectrometer for that. See http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.e [...] dcone.html
sounds interesting, since im in the market for tv's ill check it out but it looks a bit more expensive.
HaHa awesome ad... didn't expect the "whooooooow" at the end.
Trust him guys. Takei knows his rainbows.
It's a gimmick. R and G make Y...
I agree in principal, but I believe the issue is that the red and green that the current LCDs produce is not a perfect red and green, so when you add them you get a poor yellow. This new tech is just taking some of the error out of producing yellows by producing it directly. Its not that different from laserjet technology where the good printers use 6 or more colored inks because the mixing of just 3 always creates imperfect results.
I call bull.R + G = YEven if this did somehow increase the color gamut of the display, it doesn't change the fact that there still isn't content out there that would actually take advantage of said color space.
Red and Green do NOT make Yellow. Red Blue and Yellow are the THREE primary colors - just not that TV's and Monitors use (standard ones besides this one)
As for Sharp's TV - that looks pretty sweet, hope it turns out to be an awesome product!
I would say there could be two things.
Current flat panels don't handle color levels finely enough, and since the eye is very sensitive to yellow (it's flat in the middle of the rainbow, meaning the center of the spectrum our eye can discern), this lack of fine setting can be seen - adding a 'yellow' channel may just allow the screen to output more precise yellow levels, making the image look more contrasted. That wasn't the case with CRTs, due to the much more precise levels an electron beam could be set at.
Actually, right now the information carried by high definition streams allows the reproduction of colors that the eye can't really see well - so, with proper filters, it should be possible to have images that actually benefit from this process.
The second thing would be (it can actually combine with the first point) that it would allow a better interpolation on the subpixel level: while square pixels require three side-by-side very rectangular subchannels, adding a fourth one may actually allow for a square subpixel grid. Now, any of the three primary complimentary colors could have fit the bill: magenta or cyan. However, magenta is at the lower end of the preceptible color spectrum, and cyan at the higher end. Yellow is flush in the middle. So, back to point one.
It is a good idea. However, the reason why I'd never get one of those screens is because, well, subpixel font rendering would be screwed up by a non-RGB grid...
Don't let that fool you though, one reason for the gig is that, seeing the screen from the side allows us to see how thin the screen actually is...
Red and Green do NOT make Yellow. Red Blue and Yellow are the THREE primary colors - just not that TV's and Monitors use (standard ones besides this one)As for Sharp's TV - that looks pretty sweet, hope it turns out to be an awesome product!
Actually those are artistic primary colors. Red Green and Blue are the primary colors of light, and Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow are the primary colors of pigment (which is why those are the colors in your color printer cartridge). Might want to do some reading on the subject:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_color
The Problem is colour depth per channel, an 8-bit display has 256 gradients per channel in RGB 24-bit displays, most TV's will accept 10-bit input, giving 30-bit input, but the display still only handles 256 levels of red, green and blue colour channels. If lets, say there was 16-bit per channel, there would be 65,536 levels of grey per RGB channel, which would create a far deeper colour depth, but would also create a 48-bit colour space, which is way more data per frame of video. This extra channel is just an 8-bit colour depth work around and I don't think it's worth while.
Fact: Yellow is an ugly color
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How does this work if the input signal is still only providing RGB values? I don't know ANY cameras that record a yellow channel, OR file formats that do.
In theory this could provide slightly more colors by having a square-gamut instead of triangular, but Cyan would probably be more useful for that purpose than yellow. google CIE xyY diagram
Okay, I saw the commercial, and I laughed ("Oh my!"). The science of RGB displays aside...was I suppose to catch a racism joke in the commercial? A Japanese actor spouting the greatness of "Yellow." If so I missed it, and I am a better person for it...I think...am I not racist enough to get the joke? So confused.
Oh My!
I love that at the bottom of the screen it says "Actor Portrayal". Um duh its George Takei.
This is a small step in the eventual adoption to thousands of colors per pixel(for instance mapping each individual color by angstrom in the visible spectrum). What would really be nice tho is some colors for the violet reproduction since we don't really have that with the RGB model however I guess the markeing dpt thinks Y is more popular.
Still, it's definatly the right way to do since to get sufficient amount of indisinguisble color you will need enough unique elements heating to several thousand degrees(ie visible pixel color) that will behave very close to a blackbody(although you never have a perfect blackbody...).
As for actual content, this will take quite some time since alot of color recalibration would have to be done(shot in quad pixel technology). Hopefully some quad pixel computer monitors will eventually show up(crossing fingers).
this will be irrelevent when oleds become commercial
Who you calling yellow?
Fact: Yellow is an ugly color
FACT: thats an opinion(one I agree with but none the less)
If I recall corectly humans eye can only detect 3 colors. RED, GREEN and BLUE. All other colors are combination of these 3, that humans brain interpretates.There are no receptors in humans eye that can detect yellow light.So natural qyestion. How can I tell that qality of picture is better if I cant see it , unless it is a combination of 3 colors.