Sharp's Quattron presentation

The new commercial, featuring actor George Takei of "Star Trek" fame, not only makes little attempt to demonstrate the product difference, it comes within a whisker of self-consciously pointing up the absurdity of attempting to demonstrate the product difference. -- adage.com

We first heard about Sharp's Quattron technology at CES 2010, when every other manufacturer was talking about 3D TV. On April 29 we met with Sharp's representatives to get an in-depth presentation on the technology, which adds a fourth subpixel, yellow, to the standard red, green, and blue arrangement used on pretty much every other flat-panel TV (and monitor, and projector, and smartphone, etc.) ever sold. Besides assuring us that they, too, were working on a 3D TV and would have one "available later this year," company reps did their best to overcome our skepticism that the addition of yellow would improve picture quality.

Though the company did have some demo models on-hand, we won't render a verdict until we get one to review in the lab, something Sharp assures us will happen "soon." In the meantime, however, we feel the innovation is unique enough to merit some preliminary explanation, so here's Sharp's story in Powerpoint form, with our initial thoughts sprinkled in.