OLED TV: Introduction and Industry News - Page 27

A Federal Court in Australia ordered LG Electronics to pay a fine of $160,000 AUD to two consumers after LG refused to repair, replace or refund OLED TVs that exhibited burn in after less than a year of use.

Under the Australian law, consumers who purchased faulty products are entitled to a repair, refund or replacement - even if the warranty does not apply or has come to an end. The two OLED TVs were bought in 2013.

In January 2019 during CES Skyworth demonstrated a 88" 8K (7680x4320) OLED TV prototype, in addition to other OLED technologies. We have posted a photo of the Skyworth 88" OLED, but today this nice video from our friend Charbax was published that shows Skyoworth's CES booth, starting with the 88" OLED:

The TV uses a 88" 8K pane made by LG Display, as used in its own OLED Z9 OLED TV which is now entering the market.

Philips announced its 2019/2020 TV range, with three OLED TVs at the top of its line. All of Philips' new OLED TVs support Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision, HDR10+ and all feature its Ambilight surround LED Lighting feature. All the TVs use LGD's WRGB OLED TV panels, of course.

Philips' entry-level 2019-2020 OLED TV is the OLED+754, which features a 55" or 65" panel and are based on the Saphi Smart TV platform which includes built-in Alexa support. The OLED+754 is now shipping in Europe, the price in the UK is £1,500 for the 55" model and £2,300 for the 65" model.

In early 2019 LG announced its first 88" 8K OLED TV panel, the OLED Z9, and the company now finally announced that it's flagship TV is coming to Europe and the US next month.

We do not know the price of the OLED Z9 in Europe or the US, but in Korea the price was set at around $42,000 when LG launched the TV in July.

LG Display announced today that it started producing OLED TV panels at its 8.5-Gen OLED fab in Guangzhou, China. LG's new fab will have a monthly capacity of 60,000 substrates, which will be expanded to 90,000 by 2021.

LG says that by 2022, it will enable LGD to produce over 10 million OLED TV panels per year by 2022 - in its 8.5-gen fabs in Guangzhou and Paju, Korea (70,000 substrates per months) and its 10.5-Gen fab that it is now building in Paju. IHS expects LG to ship 5.5 million OLED TVs in 2020, 7.1 million in 2021 and over 10 million in 2022. In 2019 LG expects to ship 3.8 million units.

OLED Displays burn-in has always been an interesting topic, with some users and reviewers complaining about serious burn-in issues in some of their OLED TVs, while others report of no visible issues. UK based HDTVTest performed a comprehensive 6-month test on a brand new LG E8 OLED TV and found no sign of permanent burn-in.

HDTVTest says that they displayed varying content for 20 hours a day for more than 6 months (a total of over 3,700 hours). They also suggest to put the TV in standby mode rather than complete power-off so that the compensation cycles can run.

LG Electronics performed an interesting test comparing an OLED TV to an LCD LED TV to analyse the physical and emotional responses of viewers. The test was done on identical twins in the UK (Henry and William Wade), which viewed a Game of Thrones episode on LG's OLEDE9 TV and an 2013 LG LCD LED TV.

LG used Realeye's AI platform to analyse the facial expressions, head movements and body language of the twins, in addition to their hear rate. LG says that the test revealed that its OLED TV held 25% more attention than its 2013 TV, and that happiness was three times higher. The LG OLED TV provided a 15% more intense experience from a positive emotional standpoint.

IHS Markit says that LG Electronics is the leading European premium TV (over $2,500 in cost) vendor, with a market share of 33.3% in revenues and 38.7% in sales in Q1 2019. LG's strong OLED TV sales helped it increase its market share up from 22.9% (revenues) in 2018.

Samsung is the second European TV maker, with a market share of 25.2% (down from 42% in 2018). Sony's market share increased to 25.5% (up from 21.5%). Together Sony, LG and Samsung took up 84.1% of the market.

New high-end audio company Canvas released a new large speaker for LG's OLED TVs (supporting the flat OLEDB and OLEDC models, from 2016 to 2019). The Canvas provides high quality sound and also doubles as a stand for the TVs.

The Canvas connects to LG's OLEDs via HDMI-ARC or via an optical cable, and it also supports wireless audio connectivity. Canvas is launching a crowdfunding campaign, where the 55" model will cost $999 while the 65" model will cost $1,099.

Samsung has been developing its QD-OLED TV technology for a long time, but the company did not yet commit to actual production. Now Samsung Display's CEO officially announced that the company is "making good efforts" to launch QD-OLED panels in the "near future".

SDC has decided to shut down on of its 8.5-Gen LCD lines in Asan Korea, which will be converted to QD-OLED production in the future.