Jordan O'BrienLG’s flagship offering at CES 2016 was its new range of ‘Signature’ OLEDs; although this year the company is kicking off CES in Las Vegas with brand new LCDs utilising unique ‘Nano Cell’ technology.
Utilising all the pieces of technology that people loved about its flagship OLEDs, the new LG Super UHD TVs (models SJ9500, SJ8500 and SJ8000) boasts features such as Active HDR with Dolby Vision and the latest generation of the company’s webOS smart TV platform.
With the TV market becoming more competitive than ever, CES 2017 will likely see a whole range of new sets coming from the likes of LG, Samsung, Sony and Panasonic. LG is first out of the gates however, and its Nano Cell LCD displays are taking aim at Samsung’s Quantum Dot technology.
LG says that Nano Cell LCD displays offer a technological advantage by employing uniformly-sized particles approximately one nanometer in diameter to create more subtle, accurate colours that can be viewed from wider angles than other TVs. With its new technology, the company is promising consistent colours at wider viewing angles with virtually no colour difference for viewers sitting directly in front of the screen and those watching from a 60° angle.
Nano Cell technology works by absorbing surplus light wavelengths, which LG says enhances the purity of the colours displayed on the screen. The company claims that these light absorbing capabilities allow LG’s new LCD displays to filter distinct colours with much greater precision, rendering each colour exactly as it was intended by the original content producer.
For example, the colour green on conventional TVs can blend with other colour wavelengths – such as yellow or blue – causing the colour to fade and take on yellowish or cyan hues. LG Nano Cell reduces instances of colour fading, image instability and other colour degradation issues. Nano Cell technology also reduces on-screen light glow to maintain high picture quality even when the screen is surrounded by intense ambient lighting.
LG partnered with Technicolor to develop its new TVs. The partnership was designed from the start to get the most out of the new sets, including more accurate colours and better image quality. Home movie lovers will benefit from Technicolor’s renowned colour science, applied in the majority of Hollywood premium content, through Technicolor Expert Mode, which is designed to deliver the most accurate colours possible in LG’s SUPER UHD TVs.
The new line-up also supports a variety of HDR technology, including Dolby Vision, HDR10, Hybrid Log Gamma (HLG) and is ready to support the Advanced HDR by Technicolor. This versatility is compounded by the new HDR Effect feature which raises image quality for SDR content. With the HDR Effect feature, SDR images are processed frame-by-frame to improve brightness in specific areas, enhance contrast ratios and render more precise images.
Continuing the trend towards ever thinner TVs, LG’s latest Super UHD models boast a thickness of around 6.9mm at its thinnest point. As for release dates and pricing, LG has yet to reveal that information.