Toshiba outs a new 4K, glasses-free 3D TV

Look out home theatre buffs, there’s a new TV in town that you’ll want to buy, with Toshiba announcing a Quad Full HD TV that doesn’t even need glasses to watch 3D.

Released this week in Japan, the Toshiba Regza 55X3 is a new breed of 3D TV, bringing up the regular 1080p Full HD resolution four times to a staggering 55-inch 3840p Quad Full HD panel, a new TV type that’s barely seen the light of day.

Obviously, the biggest problem with having such a high-res screen is the content: nothing is made for this resolution, so Toshiba’s technology brings your content up to the level by upsampling Full HD to the higher spec’d Quad Full HD resolution.

The bigger resolution isn’t the only thing that’s changed, with the Regza 55X3 also supporting 3D without the glasses.

We heard about this technology earlier in the year, when Toshiba Japan made mention of how its face-tracking technology would change 3D TVs by changing the 3D viewing angle for each person in the room.

By using a similar lenticular 3D technology to what’s seen on 3D phones and Nintendo 3DS, the Regza 55X3 allows anyone to watch 3D content without the need for glasses, albeit in 720p.

It’s also loaded with USB recording technologies and apps, though you’d probably expect that on a premium TV.

Bad luck if you want this thing and you live in Australia, though, with Toshiba only releasing it in Japan to start with. At 900,000 Yen – translated to $11,264 Australian dollars – it’s not the cheapest TV you’re likely to buy this year, if you can even ship it in.

But it is the first of its kind and bound to get less expensive as time goes on. We hope.