back to article LG pitches £7k 55in OLED TV, again

LG showed off its 55in OLED TV at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January, and despite demo'ing the device again this week, this time over here, it's still vague about the release date. While it will start appearing in showrooms in July, just in time for Olympics footage, and LG will happily take your order, the best …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Wall mount?

    I do hope you can wall mount this thing, not that I can afford the 7 big ones required mind...

    1. Andy Farley

      Re: Wall mount?

      Don't see how if all the gubbins is in the stand.

      Can't see the point really.

      1. This Side Up
        Thumb Up

        Re: Wall mount?

        "The near bezel-less telly is a mere 4mm thick - all the bits that do the actual work and all the ports are in a separate unit at the base of the stand "

        Is the base completely detachable? This is obviously the way to go - you don't need to have all the gubbins stuffed in behind the screen when it's up on the wall, especially if you have a separate sound system anyway. Then you can offer a range of base units including HDD, Blu-Ray, Freeview/Satellite/Internet etc., plus a range of screen sizes, but you don't have to make all the combinations.

        1. Boothy

          Re: Wall mount?

          Reminds me of my first ever flat panel, a 32in plasma back when they cost £2,000 (can't remember the model/brand atm). That had all it's gubbins in a separate base unit. The display itself was essentially just a monitor, it had one custom cable for the image and sound (not that I ever used the sound) and then the mains lead (standard kettle lead).

          The cable to connect to two together was about 2M long, so you could have the TV wall mounted, and only needed a couple of cables from it. Then all your stuff, Set top box, XBox etc. just plugged into the base unit. Was a lovely system.

  2. Pypes
    Thumb Down

    Exercise in pointlessness

    So long as you need to be able to plug cables into these things then making them arbitrarily thin is just an exercise in extracting cash from wankers. The T.V. in the article is only "kinda 4mm thick" in that all the gubbins has been shoehorned into the decidedly ticker than 4mm base.

    Call me back when you can stick them up with wallpaper paste.

    Also, white as a 4th sub pixel, wouldn't yellow have been a better option?

    1. JDX Gold badge

      Re: Exercise in pointlessness

      If you think that beautiful design is pointless then yes it's pointless. But I doubt the target clientele hold that view.

    2. annodomini2
      Thumb Up

      Re: Exercise in pointlessness

      Most of the people buying these never turn them on.

      1. Lamont Cranston

        Re: Most of the people buying these never turn them on.

        Of course not - that's the butler's job.

    3. This Side Up
      Stop

      Re: Exercise in pointlessness

      "Also, white as a 4th sub pixel, wouldn't yellow have been a better option?"

      Certainly not. RBGW is the complement of CYMK used in printing, because you're dealing with transmitted (or generated) light rather than reflected light. The point of the white subpixel is that you can get a purer white than by mixing all the colours, just as Key gives you a purer black in printing. You get yellow by mixing red and green.

      1. badger31

        Re: Exercise in pointlessness @This Side Up

        How do they make the white OLED pixel, if not by mixing RGB? I suppose you could use layered RGB, as opposed to side-by-side, or is there something much more clever going on?

      2. Pypes

        Re: Exercise in pointlessness

        I'd personally be far more interested in a wider gamut than a "better" white, my current TV does white just fine, but there are plenty of shades of orange and violet that it physically cannot display.

        1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

          Re: Wider gamut

          OLED has already has far wider gamut than LCD because it is not filter-based. As the materials for different colours age differently, blue faster, software must adapt the brightness of pixels over time to cope with this. The additional white pixel in LG's panels is mainly for this.

      3. JDX Gold badge

        Re: Exercise in pointlessness

        Clearly they also need to add a black sub-pixel to get a perfect black.

    4. Stu
      Megaphone

      Re: Exercise in pointlessness

      You're one of those people who mount TVs with the top of the display about six or seven feet in the air on their walls right? I've never understood why people mount TVs high on walls, are they trying to create that pub TV feeling!? Are they trying to create neck problems for themselves!? Are they just really chuffed that you CAN mount a set on a wall nowadays?

      7K is of course way too steep for most, me included right now. But that's always how new tech filters into the mainstream. Give it a year or two and I'll take one squarely for putting at low sofa eye level thankyouverymuch.

      It would also mean I can put on my Blade Runner Blu Ray and see Scott's ultra dark noir scenery without LCD technology (at least from three or four years ago like my TV) ruining the experience like how it does.

      1. Bassey
        Unhappy

        Re: Exercise in pointlessness

        "never understood why people mount TVs high on walls, are they trying to create that pub TV feeling!? Are they trying to create neck problems for themselves!? Are they just really chuffed that you CAN mount a set on a wall nowadays?"

        No, they've had their first LCD cracked by their two year old driving a toy tractor accross it and now mount it high enough to keep it out of reach.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Exercise in pointlessness

          "No, they've had their first LCD cracked by their two year old driving a toy tractor accross it and now mount it high enough to keep it out of reach."

          More fun to go round and find the fire guard precariously strapped to the wall covering the TV after the Wii remote has been thrown into it!

  3. adam payne

    Nice looking TV but I wouldn't ever be able to afford it.

  4. Ken Hagan Gold badge

    Infinite contrast ratio

    So either:

    * They have managed to stabilise several million miniature black holes.

    * They have an infinitely powerful energy source driving the OLEDs.

    * They are lying.

    Gosh! I wonder which it can be?

    1. Z80

      None more black

      I guess that since OLED pixels can produce zero light for black as opposed to LCDs which will never block all the backlight, their argument is that calculating the ratio between the on and off states involves dividing something by zero and that produces an infinitely high result.

      1. Malcolm 1

        Re: None more black

        That was my immediate thought. Which makes the value somewhat meaningless as it could be really really dim and still have an "infinite" contrast ratio.

    2. Kristian Walsh Silver badge

      They're almost lying.

      By definition, image contrast is the difference between the amount of light coming from a "black" patch, and that coming from a "white" one. If there's no ambient light, then an OLED display *may* have infinite contrast in an ideal world, but in the real world it doesn't (like all LEDs, OLEDs emit a tiny, tiny amount of light in their "off" state).

      Add ambient lighting, and the screen material comes into play. Now the "black" level depends on the amount of ambient light reflected back off the screen. Use a glossy screen, and you can redistribute this reflection, to make it look better when shadowed by the viewer (like in a shop, for instance), but you're only rearranging the problem, not solving it. [I'm typing this on a glossy-screened Apple product, with just such a stupid shiny screen, and I absolutely hate the display.]

      Other manufactures using LED/OLED just quote insane contrast ratios, like 10,000,000:1, which are about right for an OLED panel.

      Also, the reason for the fourth, white pixel is that this is most likely to be a Pentile display matrix (not the same one as used in phone panels). Here, the large white subpixel deals with the baseline illumination of the whole pixel, with the RGB trio there to colour it. A true RGB set gives better colour reproduction, but is susceptible to more noticable colour shift as the cells age.

      I remember the first plasma sets coming in at this price, but then, they were competing against CRTs, which were utterly impractical at sizes over 30". Still, we have to start somewhere -- I'll look at them when my LCD set needs to be replaced, in about seven or eight years.

  5. I think so I am?
    FAIL

    At that price point you can buy a very good projector and have 300" HD picture and paint your screen on the wall

    1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

      Sure. Horses for courses: projectors are loud, use more energy, have lower contrast and bend the picture. The higher contrast of OLED is similar to glossy LCD screens in adding depth of field but without the reflections.

      You really need to see the same images using the different technologies in like-for-like settings. Sales of these TVs will pick up once people can see the difference though at the prospective prices you can see their initial use limited to people with loads of money or special display environments. Power consumption might be a consideration for anywhere that runs displays for more than a couple of hours a day.

  6. Joseph Lord

    Maybe the white takes some of the strain from the blue

    And helps it last longer before fading.

    1. Kristian Walsh Silver badge

      Re: Maybe the white takes some of the strain from the blue

      I guess it's this, or a variation of it: Pentile RGBW -- http://www.nouvoyance.com/technology.html

      Fewer subpixels = bigger OLED cells = longer display life.

  7. Usually Right or Wrong

    Technology just marches on

    I am reading these comments on a 22 inch LG OLED screen, all the gubins behind the screen, about 6mm at the top, lower half about 12mm and a 20mm curved out bit at the back for speakers at the bottom. Freeview TV, 1080p, 3D, PC RGB input, 2 HDMI, USB port for recording to disc, £250.

    5/6 years ago I had a Sony CRT 32 inch, about 700mm deep and never likely to be stolen because it weighed 100kg with stand. When bought about 15 years ago it cost £600.

    The more I look at the march of consumer electronics, the more it amazes me to find so many features packed into such a small space and at affordable prices. The LG 55 inch TV will soon be down at the £1500 mark, and when it is, I will not be able to resist buying it.

    1. BamBam
      WTF?

      Re: Technology just marches on

      > I am reading these comments on a 22 inch LG OLED screen

      Really? Are you sure you mean OLED?

      1. bluefin333
        WTF?

        Re: Technology just marches on

        I'm thinking some confusion between OLED and LCD with LED backlighting...

  8. Beamerboy

    IWOOT

    My old 28" CRT refuses to die though :o( Don't need the 55" but when i can get one around the 40" mark for about a grand I'm there. Yes wall mounting would be nice, but I already have upward compatible furniture for the day a flatscreen TV arrives.

    TV tech amazes me, there didn't seem tobe much change between invention and the mid-1980s other than colour, since then we'vee had wide screen, digital, plasma, LCD, LED, OLED, internet connectivity, 3D and always at a price point that over time goes from stupid expensive, to expensive, to affordable to downright cheap, can get my TV from a charity shop for £25 and it cost £800 new!

  9. Beamerboy

    My bad

    Forgot rear projection, HD-ready and Full HD, soon to be followed by 2k x 4k!

    1. JDX Gold badge

      Re: My bad

      Apple will patent 4x2k as their retina display.

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