Sharp revives Elite TV brand (Pioneer TV owners sigh)

Elite, Pioneer's step-up TV brand that actually lived up to its name, is coming back—but this time from Sharp, which will market a series of high-end, large-screen LCD TVs using the Elite badge. The company, which markets TVs under its own Aquos sub-brand, says the new Elite TVs will outperform any current LCD TVs on the market.

Initially there will be just two models: A 60-inch, $6,000 set (PRO-60X5FD) that ships next week, and a 70-inch model (PRO-70X5FD) that will arrive later this month with an $8,500 price tag. Both are THX-certified 3D models that come with two sets of active-shutter 3D glasses.

Both sets are 1080p LCD TVs with full-array LED backlights with local dimming, "better-than-240Hz" technology, and full Internet access, including streaming movies from several video services. The Internet connection can also used for remote diagnostics of the TV or to allow a technician to optimize the TV's settings remotely.

The big question is how the idea of an LCD TV bearing the Elite brand will sit with consumers. When it exited the TV business two years, Pioneer exclusively offered plasma TVs, and its Kuro models were regarded by many enthusiasts as the premium HDTVs on the market. (Consumer Reports used a Pioneer Elite plasma TV for several year as one of its benchmark sets, especially for black levels.)

At a press conference in New York City this morning, executives said engineers from Sharp and Pioneer collaborated closely to develop the new sets, which will be sold exclusively through authorized Elite specialty retailers and custom installers. Sharp became the largest shareholder of Pioneer four years ago.

For example, the brains of the new video processing system is a proprietary circuit called Intelligent Variable Contrast, which works in conjunction with all of the other Elite technologies to automatically control brightness and backlight operations to optimize picture-quality performance, especially color, detail, and black levels.

Another Elite feature is RGB+Y, a customized version of Sharp's Quattron color technology, which adds a yellow sub-pixel to the standard red/green/blue color palette. The company claims this helps produce not only a broader range of colors—especially yellows and gold—but also boosts overall brightness using less power. With the four sub-pixel technology, the individual dots are smaller, which Sharp claims can produce smoother, more detailed images, although this isn't something we've seen with the Sharp Quattron sets we've previously tested in our labs.

The Elite TV anti-blur technology is called "FluidMotion," and it achieves the equivalent of a 720Hz effect, presumably by combining frame-quadrupling 240Hz technology with a scanning backlight. The full-array LED backlight can produce brighter, more uniform lighting across the panel, and the local dimming has "hundreds" of zones that can be individually controlled for better black levels.

The TVs, which feature a brushed aluminum finish and a 2-inch cabinet depth, come with built-in Wi-Fi and access to online content, including streaming movies from CinemaNow, Netflix, and Vudu. The TVs are also Skype ready, for use with an optional videocam. The set's built-in Internet capability can also be used to access Sharp's Elite Advantage Live service, where a personal adviser can remotely connect to the TV to help with setup or basic calibration. In addition to THX certification for both 2D and 3D, the sets are ISF-certified for calibration by a qualified technician, who can create separate settings for day and night operation.

During the press event, we got a short look at an Elite prototype TV in operation. While we'll reserve judgment until we get a set in our labs and thoroughly test it, the model we saw had impressive black levels, at least on the limited program material we viewed. And despite it not using an IPS panel, the viewing angle seemed fairly wide. We look forward to putting one of these Elite TVs to the test once they become available.

Given the relatively high prices of the new Elite TVs, Sharp is clearly not targeting the average TV owner, but rather a smaller discerning minority looking for the absolutely best TV they can buy. We'll have to wait a bit longer to see whether Sharp has delivered on that promise.

—James K. Willcox