Exclusive: You may know Dolby best for its surround sound technology, but the company’s on the cutting edge of high-def video rendering too. Its latest system, Dolby HDR, uses LED backlighting to push contrast ratios to the max, and we’ve just heard that the first gogglebox it’ll be garnishing will be out Q1 next year.
Dolby has been working with Italian projector company Sim2 on a prototype TV that uses individual LEDs behind the screen, rather than a uniform CCFL panel to give massive contrast ratios on screen at the same time (50,000:1), but Dolby’s director of sales for Europe and the Middle East, Andy Dowell, told us a consumer version will be out by “Q1 2009″ – before April, folks.
Dowell couldn’t go into any further details, other than to proudly boast that “it’ll be a very sexy product”. Sim2 specialises in high end stuff, so don’t expect an affordable price tag just yet, though Dowell did say he expected “more mainstream brands coming on soon.”
Want to know if HDR really makes a difference? It so happens we’ve got some photos of the high tech screen in action. Below are two of the same LCD panel – one is using Dolby’s HDR tech, while the other has plain old uniform backlighting. Can you tell which is which?
Out Q1 2009 | £TBC | Dolby
