HD, what's next, Ultra-HD? Yes!

Photo: The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

Sony CEO Kazuo Hirai speaks during a news conference at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Monday, Jan. 7, 2013. The 2013 International CES gadget show, the biggest trade show in the Americas, is taking place in Las Vegas this week. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Sony Corp. is finally pressing its advantage as a conglomerate that owns both high-tech gadgets and the content that plays on them by being the only electronics maker to offer ultra-HD TVs, and a way to get movies to the new super clear screens.

Ultra-high definition TVs, which quadruple the number of pixels of current high definition technology, have been the talk of the International CES gadget show so far. But only Sony has offered a content solution to go with them.

With the 84-inch (213-centimetre) ultra-HD set it launched in November, Sony threw in a tablet and computer server that has 10 movies preloaded on the device, for $25,000. The movies came from the library of Sony Pictures or its subsidiary Columbia Pictures, like "The Amazing Spider-Man" and "The Karate Kid."

On Monday, Sony unveiled 55-inch (140-centimetre) and 65-inch (165.-centimetre) ultra-HD sets that will sell this spring for an undisclosed price believed to be below $10,000. The Japanese electronics maker said it would launch a download service this summer in the U.S. so buyers of the smaller sets would have access to movies in the clearer format.

For now, it will offer the same 10 movies from its library for download.

After unveiling the service, Sony CEO Kazuo Hirai told reporters that the ultra-HD movies could be made available to other makers like Samsung or LG later. The company is eyeing co-ordination with other movie studios, but not immediately.

"That's a key differentiator from a Sony perspective that really speaks to the advantage of what we have in terms of both the electronics business and the content business," he said. "For the time being, that's something we bring exclusively to our customers."

Sony is betting big on ultra-HD, and is a leading supplier of high-end cameras that shoot in the format, which renders moving images at a resolution of 3,840 pixels wide and 2,160 pixels tall. That is twice the length and width of high definition, resulting in four times as many pixels, or more than 8 million.