Philips has confirmed that its 2023 OLED TVs, which are yet to be announced, will be powered by MediaTek’s latest Pentonic 1000 chip. Some of Sony’s TVs will also contain the new chip, but it hasn’t confirmed any models so far.
It means that Philips and Sony will be the first two TV brands to sport the new processor, which was first announced last year. The MediaTek Pentonic 1000 is said to be the first smart TV chip that supports four HDMI 2.1 ports running at 48 Gbps, and it’s also claimed to deliver a solid performance boost. In addition, MediaTek’s Intelligent View technology enables the latest Pentonic chips to support multiple picture-in-picture and picture-by-picture screens, so high resolution displays will be able to show different bits of content at the same time by splitting the screen into sections. In this way, TVs will be able to run multiple apps simultaneously, streaming from different sources at the same time.
The Pentonic 1000 chips were showcased last week at the 2023 Consumer Electronics Show, where it was revealed that they will also be “Calman Ready”, meaning that any TVs powered by them can be more easily calibrated.
In addition to the Pentonic 1000, which is designed for 4K TVs, there’s also a new Pentonic 2000 chip for 8K TVs, plus a less-capable Pentonic 700 chip for 4K models. The Pentonic 2000 is said to be the first-ever 7 nanometer chip for TV displays.
Philips said that all of its 2023 OLED models will use the Pentonic 1000, but refused to say whether or not the silicon will also arrive in its newest LCD models. The company is planning to announce its first batch of 2023 TVs next months.
“Philips TV's legacy in innovative excellence has arrived at a breakthrough in picture quality,” said Ken CM Liao, Senior Director of Global Product Management of the OBM BG at TPV Group. “In collaborating with Portrait Displays and MediaTek, all Philips OLED TV series launched in 2023 will achieve an outstanding level of high-quality picture performance utilizing Calman Ready and MediaTek Pentonic 1000.”
As for Sony, it provided less detail other than to confirm that “some” of its 2023 TVs will use the new Pentonic chips. The company notably didn’t announced any TVs at CES, as it normally does, saying it will introduce its 2023 TV lineup later this spring.
"Designing televisions that faithfully convey the creator's intent is our passion,” Yoshihiro Ono, Head of Home Entertainment Business Group of Sony Corporation, said in a statement. “In addition to Sony’s integrated image processing algorithms, our strategic collaboration with Portrait Displays and MediaTek allows us to take the Smart TV visual experience to the next level. With accurate color calibration, customers can enjoy movies and TV shows precisely how they were meant to be viewed.”
Ono was referring to MediaTek’s recent announcement that its new Pentonic chips are the first to be integrated with “Calman Ready functionality”. All TVs powered by the new chips will therefore come with the Calman Ready app, which enables calibrators and hardcore TV enthusiasts with the right equipment to connect directly to Calman’s software and run automated calibrations for SDR and HDR.
MediaTek said the chips will support a wide range of Calman’s display calibration and profiling tools, including 3x3 colour correction matrixes to 1D/3D-LUT generation for high-precision colour gamut, and grayscale corrections via Calman’s Aurora Colour Engine.
That Philips and Sony are among the first to adopt MediaTek’s new chips is no big surprise, as both brands already use the company’s silicon to power their existing Android and Google TVs. Of the two companies, Sony is the only one that currently offers an 8K model.
