Hidden among a bunch of Samsung's product launches in last year's CES presskit was a very brief paragraph on the world's first 8K projector with wireless connectivity. The Premiere 8K is still yet to arrive, but it's already received the first certification from the 8K Association.
The 8K Association is made up of a number of key players in the home entertainment market, including Google, Panasonic, TCL and Samsung – though LG is conspicuously absent from the membership roster despite claiming the world's first 88-inch 8K OLED television in 2018.
One of the body's roles is to develop and set performance and interface standards for product manufacturers to meet. The certification program for 8K televisions was launched in 2019, and now the Association has drawn up minimum specifications for 8K projectors in key areas – including resolution, brightness, contrast, color accuracy, dynamic range, and immersive audio.
Though we've already seen activity in the 8K projector space from the likes of Hisense and JVC, Samsung reports that the 8K Association has selected its still-to-be-launched The Premiere 8K model as the industry's first recipient of the new certificate and logo, with the company noting that the projector excelled across all key categories.
Sadly, we can't tell you too much about the upcoming premium ultra-short-throw projector as Samsung has yet to reveal all, but at least we now have a few official images. When in use a cover up top will rise and allow the laser light source to throw 7,680 x 4,320 pixels at up to 150 diagonal inches. Promising "vibrant, lifelike visuals" even in well-lit rooms, Samsung reports that brightness output is rated at 4,500 ISO lumens.
A One Connect box will serve as the unit's entertainment hub, wirelessly transmitting content from up to 33 ft (10 m) away – to enable "seamless streaming without complex setups" in a similar way to LG's Zero Connect Box and the Displace system.
Cloud gaming will come as standard, the projected visuals can be split into four sections to meet multi-view needs, a far-field microphone caters for always-on voice control, and there'll be a picture-off feature to just stream music through its sound system.
On that last point, the stylish enclosure is home to a massive 100-watt 8.2.2-channel Dolby Atmos speaker setup, plus the company's Sound-on-Screen technology – which employs the top speaker unit and algorithms so that the soundtrack appears to be coming from the screen instead of the projector.
And that's about it for the moment. With CES 2025 just around the corner, we're hoping that Samsung will reveal all – including pricing and availability. But we'll just have to wait and see.
Source: Samsung
