In December 2019, something happened in the home appliance circle that seems to be small but far-reaching: Hisense Electric appliances changed its name to Hisense Video Technology. From the perspective of the time, Hisense's name change was not a big event, and the brand logo and other explicit logos did not change, this move is more just to highlight the attributes of science and technology, but also clearly focus on the track of the future on the display industry.
But after more than 2 years of development, today's Hisense video does show a lot of changes, the renamed Hisense, indeed around the display application scenarios, made a lot of visible technical exploration, such as 2020 Hisense announced into the field of monitors, launched the first domestic monitor products to meet the application of television broadcasting, consumer electronics, Hisense and laser TV this new category, from the "new species" quickly introduced to the mass market.
Whether it is an industrial-grade application or a technology consumer product, as long as it is related to the display, it can basically see the shadow of Hisense, and on January 11, Hisense also released an 8K AI picture quality chip, which has also become the first TV manufacturer in China to have an independent 8K picture quality chip product. It is precisely because of the high design complexity and strong algorithm requirements of the picture quality chip that Hisense is also the second manufacturer in the world to have the complete development capability of the picture quality chip in addition to Sony.
From the battlefield of the "screen" to the war of the "core"
At the press conference, Yu Zhitao, vice president of Hisense Group Holding Company, said a sentence that impressed the author the most: "For decades, Chinese, Japanese and Korean companies have launched a fierce competition around display technology and industrial chain, from screens, chips, scene applications to various algorithm adjustments. Among them, the lowest return on investment is the chip, but in such a track, Hisense still insisted on 22 years, a total of 5 generations of products. ”
In the future, the competition in the display field will also begin to move from a single technology competition to the competition of industrial chain technology integration, especially in the era of low level of film and television content production, perhaps the TV only needs a good screen, and the quality of the chip will not bring much difference in picture quality, just like on a muddy road, the speed difference between tractors and off-road vehicles is not obvious.
But now 4K and even 8K content began to appear, streaming media also began to have support for Dolby Vision, IMAX Enhanced high bitrate, multi-channel content resources, due to the explosion of picture clarity and color information, in addition to the difference between the screen body, the TV related to the quality of other links will also be amplified, at this time it is like tractors and off-road vehicles to come to a flat road, the speed between them is no longer limited by the outside world, the difference between the upper and lower limits of performance will be pulled apart.
Then, back to the newly released Hisense 8K AI quality chip, it uses the configuration of 2 system control cores and 4 picture quality control cores, and the chip also adds modules such as NPU, on-chip network (NoC) and running memory, whether it is basic computing performance or AI computing power, it has been further improved. Reflected in the image quality level, the chip supports the accurate reconstruction of up to 33 million pixels, while also controlling the backlight of 26880 partitions.
In terms of color control, Hisense 8KAI picture quality chip supports up to 48bit color depth, 7897 color dot control, which further improves the control of TV color accuracy, and at the same time, with the help of AI scene and object detection and other technologies, it can be automatically optimized in real time.
Complete the construction of the underlying technology and enrich the display ecology
As Yu Zhitao said: "Chip is the core underlying technology of Hisense's big display strategy", after completing the research and development of 5 generations of picture quality chip products, Hisense can respond to different scene needs through the flexible combination of chip + screen body. For example, entry-level custom display products that pursue stability can use mature 4K chips + screen solutions, and in the face of the latest high-quality large-screen display needs, 8K picture quality chips are combined with ULED, Micro LED and other display technologies.
At the event, the author also interviewed Yu Heng, the person in charge of Hisense chip display, who first talked about the application of chip products, "The Hisense 8K AI picture quality processing chip released this time not only meets the demand for high quality of consumer display products such as flat-screen TVs and laser TVs, but also meets the application needs of professional monitors and medical professional displays for high precision and high reduction of video signals, and this chip has been installed in Hisense 85U9H TV." ”
In 2022, Hisense 8K AI quality chip will fully cover hisense, Toshiba two major brands including a multi-series display products, at this point, Hisense will also enrich its own 8K display ecological layout at the consumer end, with the increase in the number of 8K TV products and options on the market, ordinary consumers also have more opportunities to understand, contact 8K products, especially in the large screen or even the giant screen has become a shopping trend at the moment, in the 80-inch TV products, 8K resolution has a clear experience advantage.
As a "hardware first, content follow-up" technology category, TV will also promote the creation ability of 8K upstream content with the increase of the number of 8K devices, so that the TV field can truly enter the 8K era.
In addition, Yu Heng also mentioned that for Hisense, in addition to product applications, picture quality chip research and development also has more important significance, after completing the research and development of consumer-grade product display chips, Hisense can also continue to commercial display chips, flat panel display chips, vehicle display chips and other plates on this basis, forming the core underlying technology of Hisense's big display product matrix. (This article was first published on titanium media App)