Offers visual access to recorded programmes
If a picture can say a thousand words, then Toshiba's multi-thumbnail display is a full-blown novel.
Once footage has been recorded to your Cell TV's hard drive it can be accessed through a whole lot of visual thumbnails. Up to 40 thumbnails can be shown for each thing you record, giving you an awesome visual bookmark to the stuff recorded.
Uses the might of a 3TB hard drive
The Cell TV doesn't just consist of a television panel but a magical black box too. This plays host to the Cell processor and a mighty 3TB hard drive too.
A good whack of this is used for time-shifting up to eight TV channels (2TB) but this leaves 1TB to play around with.
Brings visual search to the EPG
Electronic Programme Guides are pretty stuffy at the moment, with words making way for images and search pretty much non-existent.
The Cell TV changes this, incorporating a unique visual search tool within the telly. Essentially, if you like a film with, say, Angelina Jolie in, then you can search for other films with her face in it. The way it works is you choose a thumbnail of a film or show you like, then other programs are shown circling the thumbnail, either nearer or further, depending on relevancy.
Revolutionises web-browsing on a TV
The Cell TV isn't just about viewing footage from terrestrial TV or a satellite but getting video from the web too.
Using an Opera-based web browser, the TV supports 1080p web viewing, as well as the ability to upscale things like YouTube to near Full HD levels.
Couple this with DLNA and what you have is something pretty special.
Takes LED backlighting to another level
It's all about brightness with the new Cell TV. Toshiba has incorporated some nifty LED tech which breaks the screen down into 96 distinct areas. The Cell processor then does its work and divides this into 512 areas.
In geek speak this means that there is closer management of image contrast and the LED technology brings out image detail to the full.
It also makes for better backlight control, and sharpens edge detail and the textural effect of adjacent areas of brightness and darkness. So there.
Has the potential for 4K resolution
While we in Blighty are getting to grips with Full HD, Toshiba's Regza Cell TV has the possibility of a native resolution which is four times greater that 1080x1920p. This is called 4K, which equates to 3840x2160.
While we won't see this type of resolution in the first Cell TV line-up, Toshiba has announced that a 4K version is in the offing, as well as a 2K version.
4K resolution is what many filmmakers are recording to at the moment, as it is said to be the digital equivalent of 35mm film quality. One camera filming to this spec is the much-loved RED camera.
The Toshiba Regza Cell TV has a release date of December, and is only available in Japan. It has an estimated street price of 1 million yen - around £6,900. There's no word as of yet of a UK release.
