William Cho, president and CEO of LG USA, opened the company’s press conference on the 5th January – traditionally the first display-related presentation of the show. He described LG’s theme this year (‘Innovation for a Better Life’), before handing over to Skott Ahn, president and CTO of LG.
Ahn discussed LG’s “two growth engines”: automotive and IoT. In the automotive area, LG is focusing on four areas: display, safety, cameras and sensors. He mentioned the possibility of a panoramic information display, stretching across a car’s centre console.
In the IoT, LG is working with multiple standards and key partners, to ensure that its products work with those from other makers. One such partner is Google: LG has implemented Google’s Brillo and Weave platforms (Google Exploits Android Versatility) in its products.
Ahn then introduced a new premium brand called LG Signature. This covers TVs and appliances, and the central theme is “purity of essence”: the company has worked to remove any unnecessary features – so, for instance, there won’t be a touchscreen on the fridge. There will, however, be a small sensor at the bottom that can detect a person (not a pet), and can open the door if your hands are full of shopping.
We finally reached the products. The first, which was briefly seen in a video, was the new G6 OLED TV. This unit is very thin, even more so than Sony’s X900C LCD TV from last year. The G6 is 2.57mm thick – roughly equivalent to four stacked credit cards! The display consists of the OLED panel, glass and nothing else. All of the electronics, speakers and woofers are built into the stand (which can also fold flat so that the TV can be wall-mounted).
The TV covers an impressive 99% of the DCI colour gamut and features a 10-bit panel and processing. In addition, it is HDR-compatible. David VanderWaal, VP of marketing, said that it is true that some LCD TVs can achieve higher peak brightness, but OLED’s deep black levels compensate for this.
LG is using the HDR-10 standard in the G6 – and Dolby Vision. Giles Baker of Dolby Labs briefly appeared to talk about Dolby Vision. He said that VoD platform Vudu now carries more than 40 Hollywood titles that have been remastered to use the standard. It will also be introduced on LG’s UltraHD LCD TVs this year. These models will be called ‘Super UHD’ (cue consumer confusion between Samsung’s SUHD and LG’s Super UHD – TA), and there will be four new models: UH9800, UH9500, UH8500 and UH7700. There will be two OLED ranges: the G6 and E6.
Hanno Basse, president of the UHD Alliance, announced that LG’s 2016 OLED TVs will be among the first marketed as UltraHD Premium.
