Quad TV wars heat up with Sony’s 65-incher

Here at KitGuru, we have been predicting for quite some time that this Christmas will see the start of a blood bath on Quad HD TV pricing – but for the massacre to begin, it needs competition. Sony looks to be throwing its hat into the ring with the XBR-65X900A. Amazonian specifications for an Amazonian offer. KitGuru takes a few steps back in order to see both sides.

While the MASSIVE 65″ screen of the XBR-65X900A might be an imposing object in any sitting room, we're more interested in the X-Reality upscaling engine.

Even if Sky moves to deliver a half-decent HD signal for once, it still won't be enough to make a Quad HD TV look good.

In terms of image quality, Sky HD already looks pretty bad – as a direct result of upscaling a compressed signal. And that lack of quality already happens on a 1080p screen. Upgrade to 4x that amount of pixels and you're in serious danger of watching big blotches moving across the screen.

If Sky manages to push out the extra resolution needed to make 1920×1080 TVs look good – then it will help the Quad HD TVs – but not by enough. The dedicated X-Reality PRO Picture Engine from Sony will allow even Sky's weak signal to look OK on a 65″ screen.

The full tech spec for £4,500 reads like this:-
– 4K Ultra HD resolution gives 4 times more detail than Full HD 1080p
– 4K X-Reality PRO Picture Engine with up scaling to 4K
– Front-facing speakers with 65 Watts of powerful sound
– TRILUMINOS display for brilliant colour reproduction
– Dynamic Edge LED backlight for increased contrast

You can expect a load more launches in the £2-5,000 price range through to November.

Somewhere around the end of the year, we fully expect price competition to kick in and for the prices to trumble.

We have already seen Toshiba dip under £3,000 – the next milestone is for a Quad HD TV screen under £2,000 – with the possibility of £1,499 by Xmas.

Looking FAR into the future, there might be more than one way to deliver Quad HD etc.

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KitGuru says: The magic number for this kind of product is £999 – but we're not likely to see that by 31st December 2013. We may well see £1,499 for a 50″ Quad HD TV – which isn't bad. Not bad at all.

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