In what Sharp Corp. is calling a “revolutionary” breakthrough, the company says it has developed a way to add the primary color, yellow, to the mix. This announcement on the heals of our comments made no less than a month ago, “Other technologies will emerge as manufacturers are driven to shorten the life cycle of the very HD displays you just purchased.”
With its television-market share outside of Japan sinking, Sharp is taking the unprecedented step of introducing the new televisions in the U.S. and Europe before its launch in Japan, where it dominates the market. The sets, to be sold under Sharp’s Aquos brand, will go on sale in March in North America and Europe, and later this year in Japan.
Selling a new TV technology can be very difficult. Educating the market audience is expensive and difficult to do when competing against the relentless price cuts of discount brands like Vizio. They will not be able to count on custom installers and integrators who have basically given up on the display markets because of its heavy commoditization.
Next difficulty, they will be selling technological advances such as frame rates (120/240 hertz) difficult when the benefits are not so obvious. Let us also remember, Sharp will be selling to “stylophiles” whose primary interest center on thinner screens and sleeker looks. ”This is going to require some education and demonstration or else most people will say ‘I don’t know what more color does for me,’” says Paul Semenza, a senior vice president at research firm DisplaySearch.
Lastly, competitors will be quick to downplay Sharp’s technology. The last thing these competitors need is a “differentiator” that might possibly erode their market share.
In this war of technological evolution, Sharp now battles the entrenched basics of displaying color on TVs derive from the same three fundamental building blocks: red, green and blue. Sharps says that it can now accurately reproduce colors difficult to capture on conventional LCD TVs, such as the metallic gold of a horn instruments and the emerald blue of a tropical sea.
Following Samsung which struck gold by creating a new category of TVs branded as LED-TVs and ultrathin LCD televisions, will Sharp prevail? On one hand, kudos for Sharps’ commitment to providing better and better products to the market; jeers for participating in the creation of the very market elements that will prolong market acceptance (or even destroy it). ~ f
Tags: ESC Forward Looking, New Technologies, Technology Ahead, ultra HDTV
Wow… you called it several months back. I saw the ad last night feature “Star Trek,” icon George Takei, as a Sharp engineer. Called ‘Quattron’ quad pixel technology… see link http://sharpusa.com/ForHome/HomeEntertainment/LCDTVs.aspx?view=learnmore