NEW TV SETS AT C.E.S.
At this week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, manufacturers will demonstrate their most advanced TV sets. Most of the industry buzz surrounds 4K, High Dynamic Range (HDR), and flexible displays.
4K, also called Ultra HD, is a resolution standard. 4K TV sets display four times the number of pixels in conventional HD displays, hence the name. With four times the resolution, the picture will be much sharper, though you’d have to view from within six feet of the screen to tell the difference. Broadcasters and movie studios are taking their time in providing 4K content, since filming and editing in 4K is more difficult and expensive, and requires encoding four times the information in conventional HD. Downloading 4K video also requires four times the bandwidth of conventional HD.
Still, every major electronics manufacturer now offers a 4K-capable TV set. As more content becomes available in 4K, demand for new 4K sets will explode, and no manufacturer wants its technology to fall behind consumer demand.
High Dynamic Range is one of the more interesting new TV technologies. 4K, by contrast, is brute force, simply stuffing more pixels into a display. HDR is more subtle. Long a staple of the more advanced still cameras, HDR offers much higher contrast ratios and greater color accuracy. HDR TV sets display greater contrast between dark and light, and more detail and subtlety in the mid-range. Most video experts believe HDR will improve the viewer’s experience of TV much more than 4K will. Also, HDR encodes only 20% more information than conventional HD does, so it won’t consume nearly as much bandwidth as 4K.
Despite its obvious advantages, HDR has not been embraced by manufacturers as enthusiastically as 4K has. This is beginning to change, though. Samsung and LG are demonstrating HDR sets at the Consumer Electronics Show, and other manufacturers are expected to follow soon.
The industry trend toward ever thinner and lighter screens continues. LG demonstrated a new OLED (organic light-emitting diode) screen that is just 2.5 millimeters thick. This is about as thick as five stacked credit cards. The screen can even be bent and rolled up without damaging it.
(To get the most out of new TV technologies, make sure you have adequate bandwidth. Talk to us. We can find the internet service that works best for you.)