Last year, Samsung made Vice President of Home Entertainment Marketing, Dave Das’, life a whole lot easier with four letters: SUHD.
When 4K Ultra HD televisions first started appearing, they were defined by their resolution: 3840 x 2160 pixels, often touted as four times the resolution of Full HD. Then, in January 2015, Samsung made some waves by introducing its SUHD line of 4K Ultra HD televisions, which were meant to be a step above standard UHD TV sets because they offered High Dynamic Range (HDR) and more colors (WCG). Soon, SUHD would become a brand of its own. It stood for premium — the best Samsung made — and they sold like gangbusters; over 2 million units in one year, according to Samsung.
Suddenly, Samsung didn’t have to talk so much about complex technical terms like HDR and Wide Color Gamut. People could see the difference, and they knew SUHD had something to do with it. But in 2016, things changed. The UHD Alliance, tasked with coming up with standards for these new televisions, decided that there should be a premium tier for 4K Ultra HD TVs, so they developed requirements for manufacturers to meet, and the Consumer Technology Association came up with a badge of its own.
SUHD — as a marketing term, anyway — was ahead of its time. That being the case, it’s had a year to sink in with US consumers. Now that people know SUHD is premium, how do you tell them just how premium it is? Especially with a whole new standard for what premium is supposed to be now making the rounds with manufacturers?
We cornered Dave Das for an explanation. In the video above, he essentially tells us that SUHD is offering more of what has before — more brightness (1000 nits), more contrast (HDR), more color (quantum dots, 10-bit panels) — but there’s even more to it than that. Samsung’s developed a refined user interface, made its TVs way smarter, and equipped them to control a huge array of smart home devices.
Samsung has always maintained that the ‘S’ in SUHD didn’t stand for any word in particular. But this year, it’s hard not to see the ‘S’ as standing for ‘Smart.’
Instagram is making its way to yet another screen, and this time, Apple TV is getting a taste of the Reels rabbit hole. The company has launched a dedicated Instagram app for Apple TV, bringing Reels, longer videos, and live shows to the big screen. So, if watching one quick clip on a phone somehow turns into an hour of scrolling, there's now a much larger screen for that.
Instagram brings Reels and more to Apple TV
Audio-Technica, a brand well known for making some of the best studio and professional headphones on the market, has just come out with the ATH-AWX7000, which the company itself claims to be its "finest headphones ever." The new flagship closed-back headphone has debuted at an eye-watering price of $3,799. It combines hand-finished Japanese woodwork with a newly developed 58mm driver.
The earcups are made from Kiso cypress, a prized wood historically used for Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples. Each housing is finished by hand with traditional Echizen lacquer, which brings out the grain and is expected to darken over time. The frame and sliders are finished in a deep navy kachi-iro shade traditionally associated with samurai.
This post is brought to you in paid partnership with Best Buy.
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