The future of large screen.

Sharp has unveiled the price of its Aquos 70-inch 8K television at the IFA Global Press Conference in Rome.

Sharp vice president of marketing and sales, Sascha Lange told the assembled journalists at the conference, including Appliance Retailer, that the television will be priced at 11,199 Euros ($A18,000) and will be available in Europe before the end of April.

In his presentation titled ‘Sharp is Back’, Lange outlined the launch of the 70-inch 8K television that was unveiled at IFA last year. Since the Berlin exhibition in September last year, the television has been launched in China (October 2017), Japan (December 2017) and Taiwan (February 2018). There are no other countries confirmed other than Europe and Russia launch this month – the Australian market launch is yet to be confirmed.

“It enables larger screens at home and the consumer wants larger screens at home. Only 0.4 per cent are 70-inch plus, so there must be some limitation why we don’t deliver more 70-inch TVs, and the limitation is resolution. 10 years ago the standard TV was a standard 32-inch Full HD TV at home, by introducing 4K, we allowed by keeping the same distance – 4 times bigger screen and you could put a much larger screen and it is happening, and now for 8K, and we double the diagonal again and put a 4 times screen in the same space, 8K is the condition to enjoy 70-inch screens at home, and 120-inch and 130-inch screens will become reality because 120-inch screen on an 8K TV has the same pixel density as a 32-inch screen, so an 8K large screen can easily replace the 32-inch.

“You may say that there is not enough space in the living room, today a 70-inch or 80-inch cannot even fill a wall. The customer demand is there, the space is there and now the technology is there is as well.

“In relation to content, why do we need 8K? We have to be honest, at the beginning upscaling is the most important part of this television, so to make sure that all 2K and 4K content available today can be enjoyed – we developed upscaling technology.

“Sharp is providing professional 8K cameras to studios, YouTube supports the hosting and playback of 8K content for more than two years and Netflix is shooting Lost in Space in 8K already as well. NHK in Japan is test broadcasting 8K content for one hour a day and we will shoot the French Open in conjunction with France television.”

Product specifications: Sharp LV-70X500E

– 70-inch screen

– 8K panel with 7680 x 4320 pixels

– Peak brightness – 1000 nits

– 8K up-conversion

– 2.1 channel speaker built in with 35W output

– 8 x HDMI inputs (four dedicated to 8K content)