Sharp's hyper hi-def experimental LCD

Anyway you look at it, 8.84 million pixels is a lot of points of light.

Sharp has produced a 64-inch LCD monitor that provides screen resolution two or three times that of normal high-definition screens. Normal HD screens have 2 million pixel points. The new Sharp monitor, which is being shown off by the company at the CEATEC consumer technology trade show in Japan this week, sports a 4,096x2,160 pixel-line resolution -- double the number of vertical pixel lines offered by a 'Full HD' screen (1080 lines)and triple that of an 'HD Ready' screen (720 lines). This comes to almost nine million pixel points.

Small details, like plumes of smoke over an aerial shot of a rural village, can be picked out. The monitor can be divided into quarters and display four high-definition videos at once.

The screen, still in the development phase, will be targeted at film and television producers as well as medical researchers, a Sharp representative said. The exhibit is one of the more popular at the weeklong trade show taking place outside Tokyo. But eventually, these technologies trickle down to the consumer market.

The company is using the show to emphasise its role in the screen world. In August, Sharp formally began producing LCD panels out of its second Kameyama plant. The plant processes eighth-generation glass sheets, which measure 2.16 by 2.46m. Six 52-inch LCDs can be popped out of a single sheet. The smaller glass sheets processed in sixth- and seventh-generation plants can only produce two and three 52-inch panels, respectively, out of a single piece of glass.

Other prototypes being shown include a screen with a technology Sharp calls Mega Contrast. The screen has a 1 million-to-1 contrast ratio. Typical hi-def LCD screens sport a 1,200-to-1 contrast ratio.

In other news, Sharp also showed off its Japanese-English electronic translator, which will come to the Japanese market later this year. If you speak a Japanese phrase into it, the handheld translates it into English text and reads it out in a simulated voice. If you speak English into it, it translates into Japanese text.