OLED technology is great, but is it what the AV industry wants? Michael Hamilton looks into where the technology is at now and cuts through the noise.

My offering for this issue is somewhat disparate. First, I invite you to examine the breakneck pace OLED technology has recently undergone, followed by an observation of the potential ethical consequences online “influencers” pose to consumer perception of products you might be selling. Let’s have at it!

Have you taken OLED for granted?

Since their debut more than a decade ago in 2012, OLED televisions have scarcely deviated in outward appearance, retaining an almost credulity-defying, wafer-thin, futuristic yet minimalist look. The technology’s slow initial evolution heralded few and far between milestones, such as an increase in panel size or an uptick in resolution, eventually introducing an 8K set in 2018.

All in all, early OLED advances inched incrementally, as LG transitioned from acquiring Kodak’s OLED patents and foundational portfolio technology through the substantial capital-intensive investment in research and development, facility preparation and analysis of initial production and process optimisation. LG invested billions before the first OLED panel left the production line.

Premium image quality, premium pricing

In its beginning phases, realised OLED panel yields proved low, with some estimates citing 20-30%. Yield averages revealed that only one out of every four panels produced was usable, a contributing factor to OLED TV prices remaining high several years after the inaugural launch, compared to its LCD competition. By 2015, LG was able to significantly increase yields, reaching 80%, providing a slight easing to retail prices and slowly broadening consumer appeal.

Burn-in, image retention’s dastardly sidekick

During this period (and ongoing today), LG probed methods to combat image burn-in, a plasma-era ghost LCD makers channelled to haunt the OLED camp, intending to thwart sales. Due to the panel technology employed at the time, the only possible assistance was software related.

Among the first attempts LG implemented was the Automatic Static Brightness Limiter (ASBL/TPC Temporary Peak Luminance Control), designed to dim static pixels after a two-minute countdown (make a note of this…). While well-intentioned and effective for consumers in general, it was a nightmare for Hollywood, where colourists and editors almost universally used LG OLEDs as client monitors (to complement Sony BVM and PVM OLED “Hero” monitors on which content was created). With ASBL enabled and the content paused for review or comparison with the hero monitors, the LG display would dim significantly and relatively quickly when the two-minute countdown ended.

Calibrators could use a service mode workaround to disable ASBL, which was accompanied by a sharply delivered caveat: Any resultant damage from burn-in was the user’s responsibility.

2018 marked a significant step as LG introduced additional software-driven protections like Logo Luminance Adjustment, to automatically detect static network identification logos, an 11 out of 10 pain in the bum in the USA, particularly with lighthouse bright logos in HLG, such as NBC’s Sunday Night Football (SNF) at screen top right.

Additional measures included screen shift and pixel refresher (also called clear panel noise), working in two stages, first running as a short-term automatically with the set off after logging four or more accumulated hours of panel operation, and long-term after 2,000 hours with an on-screen notice instructing to activate it in the menu.

It should be noted that LG’s first generation of OLED television panels used a white OLED light comprising multiple organic emitter layers of blue, yellow-green and red to create the white light that passed through red, green and blue filters. This panel type was known as WOLED or WRGB OLED.

Hardware ups panel lifespan

Starting with EX panels (EVO series) on 2022 models, LG incorporated deuterium-enhanced compounds into OLED emission layers, especially those emitting blue, to increase heat resistance and slow degradation. LG data showed that including deuterium increased a panel’s operational lifespan by a factor of five compared with earlier designs based on hydrogen. Efficiency improved, enabling the EVO panel to achieve 30% higher peak brightness and maintain the same brightness as first-generation OLED panels while requiring significantly less electrical current.

And we’re off to the races      

A year after the EX panel was introduced, LG announced a new panel at CES 2023 under the moniker META Technology (nothing to do with that Zuckerberg kid). Featuring Micro Lens Array (MLA), it incorporates billions of microscopic lenses aimed at reducing internal light reflection while directing dramatically more light at the viewer. Brightness was categorised as being 60% higher, up to 2,100 nits, with the viewing angle widened by 30%. In addition to the hardware improvement, the META booster, an advanced real-time analysis algorithm, optimised HDR performance, providing brighter highlights and deeper blacks. At the same time, improved energy efficiency enabled the panel to operate at the same brightness level as the EVO panel but with 22% less power consumption.

META 2.0 followed exactly one year later at CES 2024, with MLA+ improving light extraction and efficiency, as peak white luminance increased 42% to 3,000 nits, and peak colour luminance skyrocketed up to 1,500 nits, a 114% increase over the EVO panel. Micro Lens Array Plus, as LG Display defines it, emulates the eyes of a dragonfly, increasing the micro lenses per pixel up to 5,117, or 42.4 billion on a 77” panel. META 2.0 on-the-fly detail enhancement further optimised contrast ratio and featured Vanta Black surface treatment.

Remember ASBL/TPC? Higher brightness with these new panels and a modified algorithm has given ASBL/TPC an elevated threshold before it is triggered and a less aggressive response when activated. There are still some workarounds done to more permanently turn it off, which the content-producing community does with the understanding of the potential consequences, but that isn’t the purpose of this article. The takeaway is that LG Display’s panel durability, compared to the first generation, underwent dramatic improvement and continues to do so.

Wait for it, wait for it…

On cue, LG upped the ante at CES 2025 earlier this year, introducing its fourth-gen panel with META 3.0 technology. Adopting a new “stack structure” with two layers of blue emitters and, for the first time, a red emitter layer and a green emitter layer, this new four-stack OLED design is called the Primary RGB Tandem structure. This new panel, LG G5, is 33% brighter than just one year ago, with a maximum peak brightness of 4,000 nits. The Tandem also increases colour purity, with colour brightness increasing 40% (again, since last year, not from the first OLED generation) up to 2,100 nits. Energy efficiency is improved by 20% (based on a 65” panel).

Perhaps most surprisingly, the micro lens array has been disposed of, replaced by a “special film” LG says blocks 99% of internal and external reflections to improve black level and contrast.

Love is blue

Tracing steps back to Sony’s XEL-1, the world’s first OLED TV in 2008, and a whopping 11” at that, the lifespan for OLED blue materials has always been a manufacturing concern. As pointed out, deuterium helped durability, and two of the four layers in the four-stack Tandem panel are blue.

Recent research has led to the development of phosphorescent blue OLED technology (PHOLED), which promises to become a benchmark for OLED displays of all types. Red and green PHOLEDs have been used for quite some time. However, technical obstacles have blocked breakthroughs in blue PHOLED development until recently. Partnered with US-based Universal Display Corporation, LG has been able to bring the development of blue PHOLED up to the level needed for commercialisation. Designed as a two-stack Tandem OLED structure, it comprises a lower stack that is blue fluorescence, while the upper stack is blue phosphorescence.

The initial implementation does not target OLED TV as yet. Instead, it is focused on smaller displays such as smartphones and tablets. Blue PHOLEDs have shown they are capable of converting 100% of input electrical energy into light output, compared to about 25% for blue fluorescent. The goal for TV panels lies in a single-stack full blue PHOLED, which is still anticipated to be a few years out. Given LG’s breakneck pace with panel development, an introduction at CES 2026 should come as a surprise.

Why no LG Quantum dot-OLED hybrids?

Samsung and Sony continue to marry quantum dots and OLED to achieve greater colour accuracy and additional brightness without the loss in colour saturation witnessed in older OLED designs. LG has ably demonstrated that internal company improvements have resulted in image fidelity equal to the addition of a quantum dot appliqué, and the new G5 Primary RGB Tandem OLED panels address head-on the improvements QD can accomplish.

The circle of OLED life

Years off but showing promise as a significant development for OLED display technology, is circularly polarised OLEDs (CP-OLEDs). Current OLED technology emits unpolarised light, requiring external polarisers that siphon away a portion of the display’s brightness, while necessary filtering lowers energy efficiency.

CP-OLEDs can potentially be fabricated to use standard OLED architectures with minimal modifications to emissive layers. They can dispose of external polarisers, potentially doubling energy efficiency and extending the lifespan of displays.

(Anti) Glaring improvements

Finally, new anti-glare coatings like the Vanta Black backing that LG uses in the G5 enable the latest generation of OLEDs to be considered for use in environments where even a few years back would have severely inhibited their performance.

While consideration should still be given to judicious placement, non-direct sunlight striking high ambient light environments is no longer off-limits to LG OLED displays new to the market this year, or brands confirmed to be using the four-stack Primary RGB Tandem fourth-generation LGD panel.

Special (8)K 

8K TVs still languish in sales, principally due to the lack of content. While their processing and smaller pixel structure can actually make 4K content look better concerning edge definition on diagonals, perceptible at any viewing distance, until content labelled “8K” is available, nothing is likely to move the needle.

Kaleidescape may be the change agent to jump the needle to life. The company recently announced it has joined the 8K Association, stirring speculation that content delivery may lie just somewhere over the horizon.

I’m not looking for a pat on the back, but I have previously mused that if any company would be well-positioned to do this, it was Kaleidescape and their close affiliation with content creators. Everyone, on the count of three, cross your fingers…

Olé OLED!

If you have not kept pace with OLED and, in particular, LG OLED developments, thinking little has changed since its introduction, hopefully, you will take a second look at the high performance it offers at what might be its most competitive prices in its history. A 2025 top-tier OLED now delivers image fidelity staggeringly close to that of the studio monitors used to create the content it displays. These are not your father’s OLEDs.

Oh brother…

While I promise a personal rant will not conclude future columns (well, never say never), it is time to call out online, especially YouTube, “influencers” who are reviewing products you might be offering for sale and rendering assessments and recommendations based on nothing more than (quite often) their own technological ignorance. Acknowledging litigation these days concerning speech, I will not call out anyone in particular, though some deserve such.

To use it as an example, let’s note a particular “lifestyle” projector that debuted earlier this year, which, in addition to throwing moving pictures against a wall, can apparently perform miracles like a trip to Lourdes. Well, maybe not that last part, but the carnival barkers in their videos certainly equate their impact on your life to such a visit.

You see them comparing it to machines costing ten times the price or more, belittling those companies as charlatans and those purchasing their products as simply fools.

What you don’t see any of these simpletons doing is measuring (forget about calibrating) one of these boxes to reveal what is going on under the bonnet. Or, if they use instrumentation per chance, it is, as Aussie slang might imply, not worth more than a ‘shrapnel’. Their time with the product amounts to taking it out of the box, fitting it to the screen (seldom revealing what the screen material is), talking about the zillion features the unit has, watching a few clips, and voila, it’s back in the box twenty minutes later, with their grandest endorsement.

Clients often search online for reviews of products they seek either before contacting you or after getting your proposal. Some manufacturers are starting to post these reviews on their sites or at least link to them. Are these actually unbiased accounts of a particular product, or paid endorsements? These online propagandists live by the clicks, and it has been pointed out in reports on LinkedIn that some manufacturers subsequently want to be paid by the “influencers” hosting the review on their sites or threaten litigation if they do not remove the review (and the revenue-generating click count) upon demand.

Combined with AI, practices like this certainly muddy the waters for consumers searching for an honest appraisal of something they will invest their hard-earned pay checks into.

Beyond annoying, if you find such instances impacting your sales, bring them to the attention of your manufacturer’s reps. What especially gets their attention is when your opinion is made known via purchase orders, nudge-nudge, wink-wink.