LG pushes 4K OLED at IFA, demos concept 8K TV

BERLIN -- There are plenty of 4K TVs around, and there are a fair few OLED TVs too. But LG says there aren't many 4K TVs that are OLED as well, and the company is right in the middle of unleashing a bunch of them. Given the wow factor OLED offers and the extra quality and bragging rights you get from 4K, LG reckons it's got one over the competition.

This belief in 4K OLED is reflected at LG's stand at the IFA show in Berlin. For the past few years, 3D has featured heavily on the company's stand, but this year, the focus is all on 4K OLED TVs. 3D is still present, but it's definitely been relegated to the subs bench.

Although 4K is LG's main focus this year, it's looking much further ahead too, using IFA to show off its 8K TV for the first time. A 98-inch 8K TV is being shown behind closed doors, more to show off the company's technology than as something you're going to be able to buy soon.

Although LG could mass-produce it in a year, a representative told me, without any 8K content available, the company will wait until the market is further along in its adoption of 4K before deciding what to do with the technology. The TV on show is an LCD panel with a resolution of 7,680x4,320 pixels.

It uses most of the same tech that's in LG's other LCD TVs, with four of the image processors from its 4K TVs required to produce the high-resolution image (a future model will need just one processor).

LG was playing a pretty basic video when I saw the concept set, with no fast motion or anything too hard to process, but the detail on the image was as rich as you'd expect from something with "16 times the resolution of full HD".

Murphy's Law applies doubly at trade shows than in normal life, so a thin black line running down the middle of the screen spoiled the effect very slightly. But it was a neat demonstration for a prototype.

LG wouldn't be drawn on how much an 8K would cost when they arrive.

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