Sharp Makes a Million-to-One Shot

Electronics maker Sharp has announced it has developed an LCD display with a mind-blowing one-million-to-one contrast ratio.

Electronics giant Sharp has announced that its newly developed "Mega-Contrast" LCD display has a contrast ratio of 1,000,000:1 (one million to 1) with a brightness of 500cd/m2. According to the company’s release, the display measures 37 inches and supports a 1920 by 1080 pixel resolution. Sharp will ship the units under the name Advanced Super View Premium LCD.

In (ahem!) contrast, most LCD displays available to consumers today have contrast ratios from 1,000:1 to 3,000:1. Previously, the highest contrast ratio available on a commercial LCD display is 100,000:1 on the SED TV, from SED Inc., a joint venture of Canon and Toshiba. SED stands for Surface-induction Electron-emitter Display.

According to Sharp, the Mega-Contrast display uses a combination of unique "one-of-a-kind" technologies developed by the company in its years of designing LCD displays, and exceeds contrast ratios possible with CRTs or either plasma or organic EL displays while offering low power consumption and a now-standard slim LCD profile. Sharp is currently aiming its high-contrast displays at broadcasting and movie production professionals which tend to use high-quality monitors in darkened rooms rather than bright lighting, but plans to bring the technology to consumer levels (and prices) in the near future.