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LG Is “All In” With OLED TVs

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Yesterday (April 8), LG formally launched its new line of OLED televisions at The Garage on Manhattan’s upper west side. In addition to showcasing the 65-inch 65EG9600 ($8,999) and 55-inch 55EG9600 ($5,499) UHDTVs, LG also held a press briefing in conjunction with Netflix’ latest streaming series, Daredevil, which is available starting Friday, April 10.

I had the opportunity to sit on this panel and answer a few technical questions about OLED picture quality. Scott Mirer, VP of device ecosystem at Netflix was also on hand to offer his observations about the new OLED TVs, as was Matt Lloyd, director of photography for Daredevil (which, coincidentally, was shot in the adjoining Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood).

During my part of the discussion, I asked for a show of hands to see how many members of the press were currently using plasma TVs, and better than 60% of the hands went up. While LCD display technology current owns about 95% of the worldwide television market, there’s just no comparison to a late-model Panasonic, LG, Pioneer, or LG plasma set when it comes to video picture quality.

The panel discussion at LG's OLED TV launch event. Left to right, yours truly, Tim Alessi of LG Electronics, Matt Lloyd, DP on Daredevil, Scott Mirer of Netflix, and moderator Shelly Palmer.

The panel discussion at LG’s OLED TV launch event. Left to right; yours truly, Tim Alessi of LG Electronics, Matt Lloyd, DP on Daredevil, Scott Mirer of Netflix, and moderator Shelly Palmer.

Many of us shed more than a tear when it was announced that Panasonic was departing from the plasma TV business a couple of years ago. And we all figured that OLED (organic light-emitting diode) televisions would quickly step into the breach.

That didn’t quite happen like we expected. Even through large OLED TVs have been shown for well over a decade (going back to Samsung’s and Epson’s 40-inch prototypes in 2003), they just never seemed to make it to the starting line.

In the summer of 2013, LG launched a 55-inch curved 1080p OLED TV with much splash and hoopla. Later that year, Samsung followed suit with their 55-inch curved OLED TV, pricing theirs almost $6,000 less than LG. And in short order, a price war ensued – but it didn’t last very long, as Samsung pulled their product off the market for undisclosed reasons.

LG’s OLED imaging panels employ a white OLED emitter and color filters arrayed in an RGBW stripe to provide brighter images. This technology originated in none other than Rochester, NY at Eastman Kodak and was an outgrowth of research and development in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

In 2009, Kodak sold its OLED patent portfolios and business to LG Electronics outright. Ever since then, LG has been working industriously to bring OLED TVs to market. The ‘catch’ was manufacturing yields, which not all that long ago were in the low double digits.

Although subsidiary LG Display won’t disclose its current OLED yields, they are believed to be better than 50%, which is probably why we’re now seeing several models of televisions finally coming to retail. Granted; they’re not cheap – in comparison, you can by a 55-inch “smart” 1080p LCD TV for about $700 now, while a quantum dot-equipped 1080p LCD set will run about $3,000 currently.

However, the market knows what it wants to pay for a television, and you can expect those prices to come down in short order. LG’s original 55EA9800 OLED set started out at just under $15,000, but it can be yours now for just one-fifth of that original price. (For those with short memories, that’s what a quality 50-inch plasma cost about 7-8 years ago.)

The OLED exhibit featured this comparison between a 55-inch LCD with LED backlight (left), a 55-inch oLED TV (middle), and a 55-inch LCD TV equipped with quantum dot backlight (right.)

The OLED exhibit featured this comparison between a 55-inch LCD with LED backlight (left), a 55-inch oLED TV (middle), and a 55-inch LCD TV equipped with quantum dot backlight (right.)

While the rich blacks and saturated colors draw people like flies to OLEDs, it’s worth nothing that those same deep blacks and consistent grayscale and color reproduction at very low luminance levels allow OLED displays to show images with high dynamic range. If we go by an industry definition of HDR as 15 stops of light, OLED is definitely up to the challenge: With full white at 500 nits, for example, the step above black would measure just around .1 nits.

That’s a level of black previously attained only by plasma TVs, as well as LCD TVs with some trickery involved (black stretch, dynamic contrast, APL). But of course OLEDs can go much lower with grayscale reproduction: A more typical low gray (near black) level on an OLED display might be around .05 nits or so.

The clips of Daredevil provided by Netflix really showed off the abilities of OLEDs to handle dark scenes with point sources of high-key light, like streetlights. Another clip showed a fight scene in a dark hallway, with the only light coming from green-tinted fluorescent lamps. Yet, you could see details even in the darkest corners.

The consistent color tracking of OLEDs, their emissive structure, and their low operating voltages make them an ideal replacement – nay, step-up – from plasma display technology, which had to rely on high voltage, pulse-width modulation (PWM) technology to create images. OLEDs are also a lot thinner than any other display, and can even by printed onto flexible substrates.

But enough about technology! OLED televisions are finally coming to market, and that’s something to celebrate. As a bonus, both of LG’s newest OLED models are UHDTV-resolution (3840×2160 pixels) and have excellent 1080p upscaling, based on the Blu-ray clips of Skyfall that I saw at the event. Can’t wait for the rest of the lineup!


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