really intelligent flat screens?

Artificial intelligence is on the rise. We are starting to find AI almost everywhere: in certain smartphones, certain computers, but also in new flat screens presented as AI TVs, like Samsung’s 2024 range. But what’s the point of having artificial intelligence in a flat screen?

In the case of a flat screen used as a television, artificial intelligence is used primarily to improve the so-called useUpscaling in English: Convert lower resolution images – low or high definition – to higher resolution 4K or 8K images – and upscale. Samsung claims to have basically integrated around a hundred different treatments and filters depending on the type of images (sports, cinema, video game, etc.). AI and machine learningSo self-learning allows you to go much further.

Sharp images that fill the entire screen

The challenge is that low resolution images, such as B. Full HD, on a 4K screen with a resolution 4 times higher – on an 8K screen it is 16 times higher – taking up the entire screen without lacking sharpness, without appearing washed out or worse, blurred. Therefore, to convert from Full HD to 4K, you have to go – artificially – from 2 to 8 million dots in each image. And on an 8K screen the challenge is even greater, as you have to go from 2 to 32 million pixels in each frame.

Let’s take the example of the new Samsung screens and state that the processor of the high-end model, the Neo QLED 8K, has eight times more neural networks. And let’s stick with converting Full HD to 4K. 25 times per second, the AI ​​creates three more points from each of the 2 million points present in the Full HD image.

How ? By examining neighboring points and taking into account – also – the previous and subsequent images, to produce as much detail as possible, increasing sharpness and reducing visual noise. This scaling technology is not new: it existed before AI, but in a much more basic form.

20% less energy?

Artificial intelligence will also improve the sharpness of moving objects: football, tennis ball, etc. This will increase the spatiality of the sound, resulting in an even more immersive experience. And it will optimize energy consumption, with Samsung estimating that electricity demand will decrease by 20%.

The last problem is obviously related to marketing. All arguments are in favor of flat-screen brands, even in a year that is already as extraordinary as 2024, with the Olympic Games in Paris and the European Football Championship in particular. Samsung is not the only manufacturer that relies on AI: we also find it at TCL, Hisense and at LG, Samsung’s Korean rival, which is pushing its ThinQ AI technology. As for Sony, the Japanese brand highlights the 4K X-Reality Pro, but this time without mentioning artificial intelligence.