LG announces world's first 8K OLED TV on sale now

All the 8s - 88-inches and 8K!

by Andy Bassett
First revealed by LG Electronics at CES in January, the world’s first 8K (and also largest) OLED TV is now going on sale.
Although the South Korean company has not been first out of the blocks is getting its flagship 8K TV model to the showroom, lagging behind Samsung with its Q950R and Sony with its recently announced Z9G/ZG9, LG can at least boast that theirs is the first 8K TV based on OLED technology to be made available to the public. It's also the largest OLED TV to date.

The 88-inch OLED88Z9 is available for preorder in South Korea starting this week at an early offer of 40 million Won (around $34,000). LG has confirmed that it will launch in the US and Europe during Q3 of 2019.

Boasting 33 million self-emitting pixels which deliver OLED’s trademark deep blacks and high contrast, at 7,680 x 4,320, this is equivalent to four times the number of pixels of 4K UHD.

The panel is powered by LG’s Alpha 9 Gen 2 8K processor which uses access to a database of visual information and deep learning to optimise the image quality. It does this by checking the onscreen image against the information held in the database and using AI algorithms to make any necessary adjustments to obtain an optimal picture. The 88Z9 supports Dolby Vision HDR in order to produce the best possible detail in areas of brightness and shadow on a scene by scene basis.

A similar process is used to make sure the sound quality also reaches peak performance. Sound sources are analysed and adjustments made to ensure the most suitable audio processing is used for whatever is being viewed on screen. Therefore, news programmes have dialogue enhanced, music events have improved bass and movies are optimised for speech and effects. The 80W speaker system can also upconvert stereo audio to virtual 5.1 surround sound for improved immersion, as well as supporting Dolby Atmos natively.

The Alpha 9 Gen 2 CPU also has processing capabilities for taking a non-8K source and upscaling it, along with analysis of ambient lighting conditions to achieve the best level of screen brightness.

LG announces world
The 88Z9 features the latest HDMI 2.1 standard, which enables 8K content to be viewed at 60 frames per second and which also supports automatic low latency mode (ALLM), variable refresh rate (VRR) and eARC, which allows non-compressed surround sound formats to be passed to devices such as soundbars.

Certain territories will feature voice control of the TV and connected smart devices using built-in digital assistants, Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa.

Brian Kwon, president of the Mobile Communications and Home Entertainment companies at LG, said, “Being the first to market with the world’s first and largest 8K OLED TV shows our commitment to leading the ultra-premium TV segment and delivering the ultimate viewing experience.”

He added, “LG was a pioneer in bringing OLED to market and we will continue to introduce state-of-art TV technologies that push the boundaries of what’s possible in home entertainment.”

Source: LG Press release, www.flatpanelshd.com
Image Source: LGnewsroom.com
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