Sharp to Ship 3D TVs in Japan in July, U.S. by Fall

Sharp will ship 46-, 52- and 60-inch 3D LCD TVs in the U.S. this fall along with a Blu-ray 3D player as it joins a growing field of manufacturers supporting the technology, retailers told us.

The first of the 3D TVs will be released in July in Japan as part of the LV series that will feature 40-, 46-, 52- and 60-inch models with 1080p resolution, the company said in a news release in Japan. Monthly production of the LV series will start at 15,000 units, the company said. The sets use 240 Hz LCDs, the company said. The TVs will feature Sharp’s Quattron technology, which will “gradually” spread across the company’s entire LCD line, the company said.

The pricing for the U.S. models hasn’t been set and it wasn’t clear how they will be positioned with Sharp’s high-end 920 series. Distribution of the LC-LE920 52- and 60-inch non-3D Quattron LCD TVs is being limited to Best Buy’s Magnolia, Sears and regional dealers with commissioned sales. A Sharp U.S. spokesman confirmed the company would introduce Quattron-equipped 3D TVs in the “latter half” of the year, but declined further comment.

"If they try to fit it in beneath the 920, it’s going to be hard to support the 920 if you have a 3D priced below,” a video buyer at a west coast retailer said. “At this point we don’t have the details and all we know is that [3D] is coming."

The TVs in Japan will have 2D-to-3D conversion chips, which have become controversial since ESPN warned CE makers not to build them into their sets (CED March 3 p1). The conversion function can be accessed from a button on the remote control, Sharp said. The converted picture will be a “pseudo-3D image,” the company said. “The perceived 3D effect will vary from image to image as well as person to person,” Sharp said. It wasn’t clear whether the conversion chips will be used in U.S. models.

In using Quattron technology with the 3D TVs, Sharp sets will overcome “the technical challenge” of a set’s screen “not being sufficiently bright,” Sharp said. Quattron mixes standard red, green and blue with a fourth color, yellow, to bring out more of the picture and increase brightness. The screen is naturally brighter because of the fourth color since a brighter screen takes less electricity to run. Quattron-equipped TVs have nearly double the brightness of three-primary color panels, Sharp said. The LED direct backlit LV 3D sets also will employ an optical alignment processor and Sharp’s frame rate enhancing driving (FRED) signal processing for 3D, the company said. FRED processing is used to display images for the left and right eyes at double speed, resulting in low crosstalk.

The 3D line also will have a 2.1-channel eight-speaker system with 30 watts of power, Sharp said. It also has a built-in 1-bit digital amplifier and a Duo Bass low vibration woofer. The 40-inch model won’t contain Duo Bass, the company said. The LV TVs also will support recording programs to a USB drive and have a “frequently recorded” option that can search on the keyword “3D” and give priority to those programs. Sharp said. In Japan, the Internet-capable TVs will have access to Sharp’s Aquos services as well as Yahoo Japan, DoTV Digital Magazine and the acTVila video-on-demand portal, Sharp said.

LV series TVs will be bundled with 3D glasses containing a 3D/2D down-conversion function, Sharp said. A button on the glasses allows the user to shift 3D images to 2D, the company said. The glasses can be powered through the TV’s USB port by using a USB cable, the company said.

Sharp also will ship the BD-HDW700 and BD-HDW70 Blu-ray 3D players with 1- and 2-terabyte hard drives, respectively. Monthly production of the players will be 20,000 units, Sharp said. The models have a video compression technology that allows for extended recording of high resolution video and the recording of two programs at the same time. The U.S. Blu-ray player is unlikely to feature recording given that the technology never caught on with conventional DVD models. The players and 3D TVs are DLNA compliant, Sharp said.