Jordan O'BrienPanasonic is ditching its own Smart TV interface on some of its 2016 television sets. Instead the company will be utilising Mozilla’s Firefox OS.
Firefox OS already graces some of Panasonic’s 2015 TVs, but at CES 2016 the company has confirmed that it is rolling out the software to its latest generation of UHD TVs.
The Panasonic DX900 that the company debuted at the show will be the flagship TV offering the software, with the sets available in 58in and 65in.
Mozilla has been praised in the past for having one of the simplest Smart TV interfaces currently on the market. The ‘Quick Access’ start screen comprises of just three buttons – TV, Apps and Devices.
Users then have the choice to pin their favourite Apps, channels or devices directly to the start screen for quick access.
While the software is one of the highlights of the DX900, the TV itself also features some key improvements.
One thing Panasonic is keen to shout about is the fact that the DX900 is the first LED LCD TV in the world that meets the standards announced by the Ultra HD Alliance.
To meet these standards Panasonic packed the TV with HDR support and a new HCX+ video processor.
Panasonic says that it built the TV from the ground-up with HDR in mind, rather than simply adding it as an extra feature. The company calculates that its DX900 can hit 1000 nits across a much wider portion of the screen than any other HDR screens launched to date have been able to achieve.
Meanwhile, the HXC+ video processor designed to work even harder and be more accurate than the previous 4K Studio Master Processor to deliver images that faithfully reproduce the pre-HDR Rec 709 industry video standard.
It’s not just the UHDA giving the DX900 a thumbs up either, as THX has also given it its seal of approval for its sound and picture quality.
On the sound front the company says that they have integrated ‘unusually large speaker boxes by today’s skinny TV standards’. It also uses Quad Passive Radiators that resonate in sync with the vibration of the TV’s woofer speakers to boost bass.
Panasonic says that consumers will be able to pick up the DX900 in Spring 2016.
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