LG chose the Seidler Penthouse for the Australian launch of the TV that many have been waiting for: the merging of Ultra High Definition resolution, and OLED technology. Overlooking Luna Park, with a gorgeous view of Sydney Harbour Bridge just a few hundred metres away, the assembled journalists were at last able to experience the two models.

The good news is that the TVs are not here only in limited numbers, but are now widely available to regular purchasers. The other good news is that LG has set the prices to match that of the same-sized premium models of its major competing brand, with models in 55 and 65 inch sizes.

Ultra High Definition, which has been around now for three years, offers four times the number of pixels of full HD: 3840 by 2160. That allows picture processing electronics to provide a sharper picture with full HD and even SD content, without obvious artefacts. And, of course, it provides for current and future ultra high definition sources. Presently if you’re on a high performance broadband connection, you can get such from Netflix. Later this year the launch of UHD Blu-ray is expected.

OLED is a very different way of producing images. With LCD TVs (including LCD/LED models), the LCD panel acts as gate, allowing the illumination from a back light through, or not, pixel by pixel. The problem is that no-one has yet invented an LCD technology that perfectly blocks the light, so blacks tend to be less than perfectly black. Various clever technologies have been developed to improve on this, but none has better than approximate blacks.

OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) technology is like plasma in a way, in that each cell produces its own light, and so each pixel can, on a pixel by pixel basis, go to full black. The weakness of plasma was that it would not ramp up smoothly from completely off, so a blast of brightness was required to stir each pixel to live. That made blacks imperfect.

OLED pixels ramp smoothly from completely off to full brightness.

LG demo’ed material from the Blu-ray of Interstellar. Lots of parts with stars scattered across what should be a perfectly black background.

And indeed it was, in a way that no consumer technology since the cathode tube has permitted (and a CRT at 55 inches, let alone 65 inches, is unthinkable).

Both TVs get all the other premium LG stuff. The new WebOS2.0 Linux-based operating system runs on a quad core processor for responsive operation. Various apps including Netflix are included. The TVs support FreeView+. The Magic Remote Voice allows easy operation by pointing and clicking at the WebOS2.0 graphical user interface, and by speaking search terms into its microphone. Live TV can be paused, time shifted or recorded if you plug in a USB hard disk, and you can watch one while recording another, thanks to the twin tuners.

And as for TV, if only the incredibly thin panel (6.7mm I think they said) were flat rather curved, I’m guessing there’d be no room at all for improvement.

Article written by Stephen Dawson.