4K OLED - Page 15

In March 2014, LG launched their 2014 OLED TV lineup in Korea, which includes 55", 65" and 77" 4K and FHD panels. But today the company officially started accepting pre-orders for the world's first 4K OLED TV in Korea, with two models - the 77" 77EG9700 and the 65" 65EC9700.

The 65" model costs 12 million Won in Korea ($11,700), the price for the 77" model was not disclosed. Those TVs will soon arrive in Europe and the US, with the 65" model's price in the UK set at £5,999 (just over $10,000), and price in the US will reportedly be $6,999. LG is now rolling out their Full-HD 55" curved OLED TV in the US for $3,499.

LG launched their new 55EC9300 OLED TV in the US. This is a 55" curved FHD OLED TV - LG's upgrade to the 55EA9800. The EC9300 features a faster refresh rate (240 Hz) and it seems to be brighter (500 cd/m² vs 350 cd/m²according to some reports). LG also changed the TV's design (gone are the transparent canvas speakers, for example) and the TV is now based on LG's new smart TV platform (WebOS).

The 55EC9300 is now available in the US for $4,999 - it will ship in August 2014. I've read in some places that the EC9300 panels are made in LGD's M2 Gen-8 mass-production fab, but I have no any real evidence that this is true.

Next month it's going to be one year since LG launched their curved OLED TV in the US (for $14,999). LG kept lowering the price of this TV, and today I found out that it is being sold on Amazon.com for $3,299. That's an almost 80% price drop in less than a year!

In fact, LG's OLED TV now costs less than Samsung's curved 4K LED-LCD TV, the UN55HU9000 (which sells on Amazon today for $3,497). So now you can choose - a sharper curved 4K LCD or a FHD OLED with its infinite contrast, better colors and slimmer design.

Two weeks ago LG announced it has developed 18" rollable OLEDs and 18" transparent OLEDs, showing photos of two prototypes. LG now quietly released videos showing those amazing new displays, the largest ever flexible and transparent OLEDs.

The flexible OLED has of 1200x810 (80 PPI), and a curvature radius of 30R. As you can see it really can be rolled up (to a radius of 3 cm). We don't have a lot of technical details on the transparent panel, besides the fact that its transmittance is 30%.

Back in 2012, LG Display was awarded a project by the Korean government to develop 60" UHD flexible and transparent panels by 2017. Later in February 2014, LGD said it is still on target for this project, and that it will show 17" flexible panel prototypes by the end of 2014.

True to its word, today the company announced that it has developed 18" rollable OLEDs and also 18" transparent OLEDs. LG says that it has acquired the fundamental technologies required to lead the large-size flexible and transparent display market. These are the largest flexible and transparent OLEDs ever unveiled!

There's an interesting report from ETNews stating that OLED TV producers (LG and Samsung, at the moment) will focus on UHD resolutions on their OLED TVs. It makes sense because OLEDs are marketed as premium TVs, so they cannot have LCDs have any advantages except the price.

ETNews says that Samsung aims to re-enter the OLED TV market and release 55" UHD OLED panels by the end of 2014. This will be great, if only to show that Samsung did not really exit the OLED TV market. Samsung does face some technical challenges, and even if they do release UHD TVs, they will probably not be able to really mass produce them and so prices will be high.

LG Electronics USA is launching a new-media competition (The Art of the Pixel: Powered by LG Ultra HD 4K and OLED TV) together with renowned digital artist Mark Tribe. LG invites the top art students in the US to apply for this competition, and anyone can vote for their favorite entry. The "canvas" for these digital artworks are LG's 4K and OLED TVs.

There are nine participating schools in the competition, and the top artist from each will receive a $5,000 prize. The winning student will receive an additional $5,000, and the winning school will get a $50,000 grant.

LG launched two new UHD (4K) curved OLED TVs in the UK - the 65" 65EC9700 (£5,999 or just over $10,000) and the 77" 77EC9800 (£19,999, or $34,000). Both TVs will ship in October for UK customers.

LG's new TVs feature the company's Color Refiner which automatically adjusts color temperature for individual pixels, a High Dynamic Range algorithm, True 4K Engine Pro for SD/HD/FHD 4K up-scaling and support up to 60fp (H.264 and HEVC H.265).

As we reported back in February, SEL and sharp unveiled a 13.3" 8K OLED prototype. This ultra high density (664 PPI!) display uses SEL's C-axis-aligned crystalline oxide semiconductor (CAAC-OS) backplane.

SEL's previous 13" CAAC-OS OLED prototype featured 326 PPI. But that lower-resolution panel was flexible. This new panel uses white OLEDs with color filters. SEL adopted micro cavities to narrow the wavelengths. The display features a 84% NTSC color gamut (rather low for an OLED). Each OLED pixel is driven by five transistors and one capacitor (5T+C) - there are almost 500 million pixel transistors in this display.

Update: that panel was actually produced by BOE themselves, at the company's Gen-8 AMOLED pilot line in Hefei

It turns out that BOE had a 55" UHD (3840x2160) WRGB OLED TV prototype on display at SID 2014. The TV features a contrast ratio of over 100,000:1, a color gamut over 85%, a response time of 0.2 ms and a brightness of 120-400 nits. The whole TV is less than 5 mm thick.

It seems likely that BOE is using a 55" 4K panel made by LGD. After all we know that LG already launched such 4K OLEDs in Korea, and the Korean company is happy to offer its panels to other makers (including Changhong, Skyworth and perhaps even Sony and Panasonic).