I-cubed Research Center Inc. (Kawasaki City, Kanagawa Prefecture; Tetsujiro Kondo, President; below: I-cubed) and Sharp Corporation (Abeno-ku, Osaka City; Mikio Katayama, President; below: Sharp) have developed a prototype^*1 and will pursue joint research aimed at commercialization of a next-generation ICC 4K LCD TV with quad high-definition resolution (3,840 × 2,160 pixels), four times the resolution of current full HD 1080p TV signals.

Television has continued to evolve in tandem with the development of the broadcast infrastructure— from black and white to color, from analog to digital, and from CRTs to LCDs. Now, full-fledged digital TV broadcasting is becoming increasingly prevalent thanks to the transition to digital terrestrial broadcasting. Although the large screens and high resolution of LCD TVs have played a key role in facilitating the spread of digital video, the pursuit of new modes of representation in visual space, such as depth and textures, etc., can be expected to broaden the enjoyment of TV even further and lead to the creation of a new digital video culture.

The ICC 4K LCD TV will integrate ICC visual creation technology^*2 developed by I-cubed, with large-screen, high-resolution LCD technology nurtured in the development of Sharp AQUOS TVs. This involves not merely enhancing the image quality in video signal processing. Rather, a new signal processing technology combined with panel control technology reproduce the “cognitive” process by which the human brain interprets light stimuli as natural scenery or an object using a TV video display to re-create the equivalent light stimuli. Landscapes in perspective, the realistic appearance of human figures, textures, etc., are displayed on the screen with a true-to-life quality approaching that of the real world, providing viewers with a new visual experience.

In the future, the two companies will be working to commercialize next-generation high-definition large-screen LCD TVs, and by integrating their respective technologies, collaboratively pursue the creation of new digital video markets.

Background Information

ICC:

		Conventional TVs aim to reproduce the electrical signal output by the video camera known as the HDTV baseband signal from the broadcast electrical signal. ICC does not reproduce the electrical signal, but by maximizing LCD panel performance, re-create the light information entering the camera to create a visual space. This results in a viewer experience with a feeling of actually being present in that place.