In the HDTV world, 1080p is currently king. The recently completed CEDIA Expo featured boatloads of 1080p projectors, plasmas and LCDs. But at CEATEC is Japan, Sharp showed off a 64-inch LCD monitor, sporting a 4096 x 2160 resolution, featuring 8.84 million pixels. 1080who?

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.

And TV personalities thought current HDTV resolutions made them look bad.

This isn't the first beyond 1080p screen we've covered -- back in June, we talked about three German companies developing technology capable of displaying a 5000 x 2000 resolution image -- but it's the first by a major HDTV manufacturer.

Following up on the news that Samsung, a Blu-ray supporter, would be releasing a laptop computer with a built-in HD DVD drive, comes an in-depth look at the companies getting involved in both formats from Home Theater Blog.

So here we have four of the biggest companies in consumer electronics working with other companies on next generation optical disc projects, companies that again to the uninitiated may have given the impression they were unyielding in their support of the other format.

While these partnerships may indeed appear to make for strange bedfellows they're really not all that surprising. All of these companies share [at least] two things in common, the pursuit of financial gain and a reliance on stockholder satisfaction.

It's hard to say what exactly these cross-allegiances will bring to the consumers table in the coming months/years, but one thing's for certain; in the world of consumer electronics the bottom line trumps pride.

There's no doubt about that.

Speaking of HD DVD, RegHardware is reporting that the DVD Forum is planning on introducing a region-coding system for HD DVD next year.

[color=blue]CEPRO[/color]

Face it, 1080p just isn't bleeding edge anymore. By the end of the year we're sure to have a $50, 1080p iPod from Apple, and then what are we going to do? Friends, we must move onto greater resolutions now before we miss the proverbial boat, and leading the way is with their new 65-inch prototype LCD which sports a 4096 x 2160 resolution. They're not the only one playing the ultra HD game, Westinghouse was showing off at CES in January, and Japan's NHK has been prepping a 7680 x 4320 "Super Hi-Vision TV standard for a while, but Sharp looks to be doing a pretty good job of things all the same. The display, which is still in development, will be initially targeted at film and television producers, along with medical imaging purposes, but we're sure we'll find a good enough excuse -- and the nefarious means -- to squeeze one of these into the Engadget HQ within a year or so. Along with the 64-incher, Sharp was showing off their new manufacturing methods that allow them to get six 52-inch LCDs out of a single glass sheet, along with a "Mega Contrast" display that boasts of a spanking 1 million-to-1 contrast ratio.


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