back to article LG to show 55in, 4mm-thick OLED TV at CES

LG will be showing off its largest OLED TV at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) next week having taken the telly tech to 55 inches. Once heralded as the successor to the LCD panel, OLED has struggled to achieve the screen sizes other display technologies can manage. For a long time it seem OLED TVs wouldn't get any bigger …

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  1. Craig 12
    Meh

    The C in CES is consumer...

    I'll be disappointed if this isn't in Dixons come the summer.

    1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
      Holmes

      Re Craig 12

      "I'll be disappointed if this isn't in Dixons come the summer"

      Always assuming that they are still in business then?????

      1. Anthony Chambers

        They're not?

        News to me

        On the subjects of OLEDs and blacks; my phone has one of these "HD Super AMOLED" screens and when I power it on it has a completely black screen with a white "Google" in the middle. You can't easily see the edges of the screen, but there's a massive glow around the white. It's a lot better than the LCD on the wife's Sony Ericsson Arc S, but it's certainly not pure black when it has high brightness in the adjoining pixels.

        Oh, and IIRC the Samsung Series 9 TVs (at least the BIG ones) have the connectors in the base and run up to an incredibly thin panel. As mentioned by other people here, it does seem like the most likely solution on such a thin panel.

        Lastly, I want one. Now

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Looks amazing.

      I fear the price, though. I suspect it will cost, to quote Dr Evil:

      "One... Million... Dollars!!"

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Infinite?

    Unless they've managed to make the pixels perfectly black when off, I don't think so.

    1. King Jack
      Facepalm

      OLED and it's derivatives do have perfect blacks, as there is no back light. Try reading the article.

      1. Steven Jones

        Still not infinite.

        It's only perfectly black if it doesn't reflect any incident light. Even in a completely darkened room with black walls there will be some incident light from other parts of the screen, even if it's only very small. Once manufacturers start using terms like "infinite" smell marketing hype.

        1. Luther Blissett

          I can abide the smell of marketing hype in the morning

          Less acceptable is physicists clambering on the backs of mathematicians (both attached to the public teat) and using terms like "infinite" to try and sell us metaphysical black holes. Do you have something against OLEDs, television in general, or just having to pay for a product?

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Suggest reading this page I studbled across a few days ago:

            http://www.maximumtech.com/display-myths-shattered-how-monitor-hdtv-companies-cook-their-specs

  3. chipxtreme
    Meh

    I want one, but chances are will be crazy expensive so won't be able to get one.

  4. Fuzz

    border

    It looks impressive but I think I want to have some kind of frame around my TV. For the same reason that pictures are put in mounts inside frames it helps block out anything distracting immediately next to the screen.

    1. Steve Ives
      Paris Hilton

      "anything distracting immediately next to the screen." - like a girl in a mini-skirt?

      1. Munchausen's proxy
        Pint

        There's a screen?

    2. LaeMing
      Happy

      I was thinking the exact opposite - no (or tiny) border would look great against the section of blank wall I would hang it on.

  5. janimal

    HDMI?

    So have they invented some new sub 4mm thick connector tech then?

    1. soddit112

      chances are, the connectors and the actual electrics for the screen will be on the stand. no way they could fit them on the back of the panel without some sort of negative space trickery.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Up

      fair point

      That is indeed a very accurate observation. Indeed this cry of thinner screens, how long until they have to have a seperate box to cater for the interconnections. Maybe they will get some optical interconnect to it's input/output box that sits on the floor! Maybe it's a wireless only affair, maybe there on the back and your expected to drill large recesses into your wall!

      But given how things usualy go I suspect they will have a even smaller connection cable akin to how USB has gone with it's micro,mini style connectors. But if you can afford this you could also afford a spare room behind it to cater for the connections, though if you want a screen flush with the wall it's going to be cheaper to plaster around it making it look slim on a cheaper TV than this will cost. But I'm still waiting for my laser projector :0.

      1. Boothy

        Separate boxes for connectivity have already been done.

        My first flat panel TV, bought about 8-9 years ago, back when they were £2-3k each, had a separate tuner/connection box.

        The display panel itself just had two cables, one mains and one custom connectivity cable that linked to the connection box.

        The idea was that it saved on having lots of cables visible, as your DVD, Sat box cables etc just stayed next to your other devices. Made for a very neat and tidy wall mount, which once put up, never needed to be touched again.

      2. Ian Michael Gumby
        Thumb Up

        Separate componets is already old news...

        You can go back to Sony monitors back in the 70s. You had the picture tube and then the tuner in a separate box. RGB coax to connect the two.

        If you look at the first gen Sony flat panels, PBM series, they were 42" Plasma monitors.

        Why do you want to have an integrated tuner when your cable box is required to get premium content? Sure you can get a cable card, but what about your DVR? And then you have your A/V box for sound along with your blu ray player...

        Sorry, but it kind of makes sense to make the products components.

        With respect to the TV shown. 4mm is damn thin. Probably has Gorilla glass screen, and just a single cable to the base where the components are.

        If this goes in to production, you can bet that you'll end up with a slightly fatter box. The key here is that they are showing off the 55 in display...

        Yes I want one. While I was waiting for the OLEDs to comeout, my old 1st Gen Plasma died and I ended up settling for last year's 46" Sony.

        Still a Thumbs up because by the time I'm ready to upgrade, I'll be able to afford this type of set...

  6. Gary F

    Seriously hot, thigh rubbing TV tech

    I've really got to get one of these. I'm a huge fan of OLED and borderless screens are pretty much the holy grail for both technology and chic. So this has gone onto my Christmas list for 2015 because I don't think I could afford one until they're common place like the current crop of LCD screens.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    And who said...

    ...innovation in technology is dead? If LG plow substantial R&D into things like wireless power and data transfer tech, wherever next?

  8. Arctic fox
    Thumb Up

    I freely admit that I am drooling - and no it does not have anything to do with........

    ............that young lady by the side of the telly, well not entirely anyway. Four mill thick, blimey! I assume that there will be fixed cable out to some kind of "ports hub"? I don't see how they are going to provide the necessary connectivity otherwise.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Angel

      aye thats the acid test of a good screen

      When you notice the tech first and the pretty lady second; Then and only then do you know it is good tech.

  9. JimmyBobMac

    I imagine the cabling works through the stand. I cant imagine that the TV is wall mountable unless there is some sort of caddy to fit it into first as the screws have nothing to gain purchase on, they would be coming through the front of the screen before it was secured to the mount!

    1. Oliver Mayes

      If it's as light as it looks you wouldn't need screws, just a piece of sticky-back plastic.

  10. Citizen Kaned

    thin TVs are ok....

    but the thinner they get they just make my B&W centre speaker look massive. its 30cm deep! and dont most people have sky boxes etc underneath so they dont save that much space just the space above your boxes

  11. Alan Brown Silver badge

    when TVs are this thin

    You either put the anciliary gear in a cupboard or hang it on the back of the set.

    It doesn't NEED to be on display. It just needs to get a remote control signal somehow (hint: Infrared repeaters are pretty cheap)

    As for a frame: I'm sure your local picture framer can knock up something suitably baroque ;-) At least without borders you can make a nice video wall if you're stupidly rich.

  12. toffer99

    Love to see the BBC/Attenborough wildlife stuff on one of these. I'd never go to the cinema again. Oh. ...I don't go now.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Borderless

    Who cares if you can't go past 55in if this baby is borderless. You can just place 2 or more together side by side and have a 110in screen.

    A little bit wide, (32:9?) but still...

    You can always place 4 together... now that's a home theater.

    Is there a gizmo to do a split- screen job, like a PC, but without actually using one?

    1. Richard 12 Silver badge

      Yep, plenty of them.

      They are used for videowalls, eg the one on the ITV Daybreak stage.

      Matrox certainly used to do a consumer grade one.

      1. PsychoHippy
        Joke

        So it's you?

        So you are their viewer then? I was wondering who it was ;)

  14. Dick Emery
    Stop

    What about the cameras?

    OK film can generate pure blacks. But I am curious as to whether camera sensors can provide the same thing. Does a CMOS sensor have infinite black levels (Or close to 0 IR)? It's not just about the display the source needs to be the same. Easy to do with CGi but not so sure about 'real' life recordings. Unless you just tell the electronics to send 0 IR on anything below a certain level.

    Anyhow. I want to see this thing 'in the flesh' so to speak before judging. I hear a lot of hype about OLED and yet certain OLED displays on phones use trickery that makes them not as good as they claim (fuzzy text etc compared to the fruity offering).

    1. oddie
      Thumb Up

      perfect black

      technically there will probably always be a spare photon or two that hits the CMOS sensor, but R0G0B0 is black as you can go. there are no negative values (assuming we're talking sRGB). Of course, what level of photon capture the camera manufacturer decideds to define as R0G0B0 is up to them... but you can certainly get a picture file from a camera using CMOS technology that contains pixels that are perfect black (specced as perfect black that is).

      Film however being analogue would pretty much prevent it from capturing perfect blacks, digital can only do it because we have a level that is defined as it. Film would approach perfect black on one of those 'getting closer and closer to it but never make it completely there' curves.

      however, reproducing these pixels on a screen of any sort (even from film/looking at a photo) will not show perfect black, as perfect black is the absence of light, so you would be looking for some sort of mini black hole that sucked light away, not just didn't create any (ambient light and 'bleed' will always stop you from getting to perfect lack-of-light levels).

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "so you would be looking for some sort of mini black hole that sucked light away"

        Congratulations, you've just invented ODED (Organic Darkness-Emitting Diodes) displays.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Hurry up!

          Patent ODED (organic darkness emiting diodes), before Apple does! Or fixing... Organic Light Absorbing Diode - OLAD.

          Whatever, rush to patent it.

          Well, if you mix the screen with a solar panel, that is supposed to "absorb" light...

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