Following its preview at CES, Panasonic has unveiled several 4K TVs that will be powered by Firefox OS that will drive the new TVs’ 3840x2180p resolution, 10-bit color, High Dynamic Range (HDR), and a new technology that Panasonic claims outperforms the improvements to LCD color reproduction offered by quantum dots – called the wide color phosphor panel.
This technology claims to reproduce 98% of the Digital Cinema Initiative (DCI) color spectrum on its 65-inch CX850 model. Panasonic claims this surpasses the 92% reproduction that is available with quantum dots, but the wide color phosphor panel’s rating declines with its panel size, as the 55-inch CX850 model has a 90% color reproduction rating.
The technology works using blue LEDs as the backlight, which are then coated with phosphor to produce a white light – a similar approach to the backlight as offered by quantum dots. The CX850’s full array LED backlight means that it can supply the required improvements in contrast, through local dimming, to use HDR technology – but Panasonic is vague on whether the rest of the range, which are all equipped with edge-lit backlights, will be HDR compatible.
Quantum dots are tiny nanoparticles manufactured using the traditional semiconductor process and materials. They emit light when they interact with electrons, and the color of light they emit is dependent on their size. This allows them to be arranged into films that are then used to tune and optimize the LED backlighting of a typical LCD display – which allows the picture to enjoy improved color reproduction, without changing the rest of the TV technology or the digital information encoded in the data stream.
3D content might be supported at 1080p on the new TVs, but Panasonic has not yet announced any support for 3D video at 4K resolutions – especially telling as the new Blu-ray UHD standard does not include any mention of 4K 3D. Given the issues that the majority of consumer last-mile connections current have with supplying the bandwidth needed for a 4K stream in HEVC, we think it’s unlikely that 3D 4K is going to be supplied OTT, as the regular stream appears too strenuous – never mind the additional information needed to create a stereoscopic image.
But away from the hardware and onto the software; where the launch provides Mozilla with another quiet win in the TV market. Back in October, the Matchstick HDMI dongle became the first non-smartphone device to run Firefox OS.
The $25 dongle is at the other end of the device spectrum to Panasonic’s new TVs, but it is gunning after the market that Google’s Chromecast is currently winning over. The dongle market appears to be seriously heating up, as Chromecast was swiftly followed by similar devices from Amazon, Roku, Walmart-owned Vudu, a HEVC reference design from Broadcom, and most recently a Qualcomm reference design too.
Matchstick itself is a small company comprised of developers who said they grew disenfranchised with Google after Google pulled back on development and feature promises. Its dongle uses a Rockchip 3066 CPU.
Firefox OS began as a Mozilla-developed alternative to Android, which has so far targeted the lower-end of the smartphone market. Its UI aims for a really simple layout, with users able to pin frequently used apps to sections of the home screen – allowing the most-watched TV channels to be positioned closely to the TV app for instance. The interface is colorful, with very little going on to distract from the HTML5 renderings of the app-launcher buttons.
As well as its pre-installed apps, the Firefox Apps Market allows users to add extra apps – from the likes of YouTube, Netflix, Hulu and Vudu. It also looks, from a few screenshots at least, that the TVs will support Miracast – as an additional means of getting content from smaller screens onto what should be the best screen in the house – the TV .
The Panasonic TVs that will use the OS are the curved Viera CR850 and CR730, as well as the more traditional CX650, CX680, CX700, CX750, and CX800 ranges.
“Panasonic had been expanding content and services dedicated for Panasonic TVs on our own portal site and our collaboration with Mozilla on Firefox OS will further accelerate various innovations and encourage many new services,” said Yuki Kusumi, Director of the TV Business Division of the Panasonic’s AVC Networks Company at the time.