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    Don’t panic, LGs 8K display isn’t a threat to your 4K TV

    In the lead up to CES, LG announced they were going to be showing off the world’s largest ever OLED panel at a massive 88″. First off, most of us don’t have rooms with walls large enough to support a TV that size, nor the inevitable breathtaking price tag. Perhaps the showstopping feature of this display is not the size, but the resolution. As we continue to push past 65″, through 75″ and now up to 88″ there becomes a point where even the pixels available in 4K lacks the density to look good at this massive sizes. That’s why LG have decided this display would feature an 8K resolution.

    The OLED display boasts a crazy resolution of 7680×4320, or with 33 million pixels, which is a tiny 16x more than FHD (1920×1080) and four times more than UHD (3840×2160). So with the conversation turning to 8K, does that mean the 4K TV on your wall is now out of date, obsolete? No not at all for one simple reason, content. We’re still living in a world in 2018 where some of our broadcast television is still in SD, that which is in HD has little or no prospect of being upgraded to 4K anytime soon, so the 4K content is all coming over IP from places like Netflix and YouTube. As much as their content libraries grow, they won’t be upgrading to 8K for many, many years, so don’t stress, 4K is here to stay for a long time.

    This display is purely for those movie producers who have an 8k video production pipeline and need to see what their product looks like on a big screen and the OLED quality, means they can see it basically in the quality it was shot. About the only other people who are likely to own this display are footballers with too much money. Will it be the best screen you’ve ever laid eyes on? Probably, but you’ll never have it side-by-side your own TV, so rest assured, there’s plenty of value left in your investment.

    Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at LG Display, In-Byung Kang said,

    “The successful development of the world’s first 8K OLED display is a milestone for the 8K era and underscores the exciting potential of OLED,”  “OLED is clearly a next-generation technology leader and for this reason, LG Display is accelerating its research and development into OLED so that we can provide differentiated products to customers and markets.”

    The significance of ultra-high 8K resolution panel development is higher resolution without compromising brightness. Higher resolution is achieved by reducing the size of each pixel and in turn aperture ratio, unavoidably reducing brightness. As OLEDs are self-emissive and therefore less affected by aperture ratio, they are optimal for 8K panels. On the other hand, non-emissive LCDs should improve the performance of their backlight units when achieving higher resolution in order to compensate for the drop in aperture ratio and brightness. This leads to an increase in power consumption and material costs.

    The 8K OLED displays can also maintain their slimmer design, as the self-emissive OLEDs do not need backlight units. LCDs with 8K resolution, however, inevitably get heavier and thicker because backlight units need to be placed directly behind the panels to achieve the same level of brightness and picture quality as 4K products. As LG are the sole large-size OLED display maker in the world, this is basically LG showing the world they have the foot firmly placed on the innovation accelerator pedal.

    The flagship 88″, 8K panel will be showcased at LG Display’s booth at LG Display’s booth (#N 228) in the North Hall Meeting Room of the Las Vegas Convention Center during CES 2018.

    Jason Cartwright
    Jason Cartwrighthttps://techau.com.au/author/jason/
    Creator of techAU, Jason has spent the dozen+ years covering technology in Australia and around the world. Bringing a background in multimedia and passion for technology to the job, Cartwright delivers detailed product reviews, event coverage and industry news on a daily basis. Disclaimer: Tesla Shareholder from 20/01/2021

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