This week Sharp unveiled the 8M-B32C1, the industry’s first professional 8K monitor with a 1,000-nits peak luminance aimed at professionals.
The Sharp 8M-B32C1 is an LCD that relies on a high-end 31.5-inch (presumably IPS/IGZO) panel featuring a 7680 × 4360 resolution, a 800 nits typical brightness (a 1000 nits peak brightness in HDR mode), a 1300:1 contrast ratio, a 60 Hz maximum refresh rate, 9 ms GtG response time, and 176°/176° horizontal/vertical viewing angles. The unit is equipped with a direct LED backlighting.
While there are a number of 8K LCD monitors on the market today, only Sharp’s 8M-B32C1 supports a 1,000-nits peak luminance and numerous HDR transports, including HLG and PQ. There is no word about HDR10 or Dolby Vision. Furthermore, Sharp opted not to obtain VESA’s DisplayHDR badge, which some of the best computer monitors for HDR carry.
Being a professional monitor, the Sharp 8M-B21C1 uses a panel that can display 1.07 billion colors and reproduce virtually all color gamuts that are in use today and for the future, including Adobe RGB, BT.2100 (HLG), BT.2100 (PQ), BT.2020, DCI-P3, and sRGB/BT.709. The monitor can reproduce 85% of the BT.2020 color gamut. In general, the monitor can be used equally well for photo and video editing. The LCD should come factory calibrated, but it can also be calibrated manually.
To meet requirements of photo and video editors, the Sharp 8M-B21C1 supports numerous professional features, such as luminance clipping, out-of-color warning, peaking, and false color.
As far as inputs are concerned, the new professional LCD from Sharp has one HDMI port that supports an 8Kp60 input over an HDMI 2.1 cable (yet the manufacturer does not call the input HDMI 2.1 for some reason, perhaps because an 4Kp120 mode is not supported) from an appropriate source, four HDMI inputs that can get an 8Kp60 image from four ports, a DisplayPort 1.2, and an HDMI 1.4. The monitor also has a 3.5-mm audio output and a USB Type-A port for firmware updates.
Sharp plans to start sales of its 8M-B21C1 sometimes in late June. The company does not disclose pricing of the monitor, but with a monthly output of around 150 units, it is pretty obvious that the product will be expensive.