- Samsung's The Premiere 8K projector is the first to get 8K certification
- But you still can't actually buy it
- We're expecting it to finally launch at CES 2025
Samsung's The Premiere 8K projector has just achieved a world-first: it's the very first 8K certified projector.
It's not the only 8K projector; far from it. But it's the first one to get a gold star from the 8K Association, aka 8KA.
The 8KA is the industry association for, you've guessed it, 8K technology. It previously set the performance spec for 8K TVs at the beginning of the decade, and Samsung was one of the first firms whose TVs were certified as meeting that spec. And now it's happening again with projectors.
So what does that actually mean?
Why you should care about Samsung's specs appeal
The 8KA specifications have been agreed by the organisation's technical committees, and those committees feature representatives from across the TV and projector industry: Samsung, of course, but also TCL, Panasonic, Intel, MediaTek, Hisense and others.
The specifications are set out in six categories. As you'd expect, display resolution is at the top: an 8K projector needs to deliver 8K, which is 7,680 x 4,320 pixels.
The standards also require 8K upscaling for lower-res media, set out requirements for brightness, contrast and color gamut, include HDR and also mandate certain sound standards. We don't yet know the detail of these specifications but they'll apply to any product that requires certification.
Although The Premiere was unveiled at CES last year, you still can't actually buy it. We're expecting it to become available at CES 2025, which is in January, with a price tab believed to be around five figures.
