The industry of cables for consumer electronics is truly an industry of its own and often provides controversy. Arguments how digital signal is the same in every cable and mysteries how some HDMI cables can work through years and changing standards (and vast majority can?t) spice up conversations among enthusiasts and consumers worldwide.
However, a subsidiary of TongFang Global, a large conglomerate decided to change the definition of the meaning HDMI Cable. The company wants to build its SEIKI / SEIKI Pro brands by offering competitive pricing for its TVs and naturally, the challenge they found was a very visible lack of 4K content online and off-line. In order to resolve the issue, SEIKI partnered with Marseille Inc., a Silicon Valley firm known for its ?soft hardware approach? to 4K. End result is a very compact and unobtrusive product called SEIKI U-Vision, an HDMI cable with a built-in 4K upscaler.
Unlike many upscalers, this cable comes with Technicolor 4K Image Certification, guaranteeing the quality of an upscaled image. U-Vision takes a signal from your 1080p device (be that mobile phone, tablet, PC, Blu-ray player) and upscales it to Ultra HD resolution for playback on a TV. Every owner of SEIKI 4K TV will receive this cable for free, while other interested customers can purchase the cable for about 40 dollars in retail/e-tail. We spoke with the company representatives and they told us that U-Vision is not vendor locked, so you can use it on other products as well. We watched several pictures and couple of movies and didn?t notice any visual anomalies (TV was running in 3840×2160 resolution at 24 Hz).
The only caveat for the U-Vision HDMI cable is the fact that requires USB power, which should not present a problem for a vast majority of 4K TV?s on the market. Still, before purchase check to see if your TV has a USB port up to around 20cm from the HDMI port. Owners of SEIKI TV?s shouldn?t worry, as all 4K devices have a USB port quite close to the HDMI one.
