Just when you thought CES was going to be all about 4K TV’s and content LG has dropped a curved ball by shipping a 55″ 8K TV for display in January.
The secret mission codenamed ‘Mabinogion’ is designed to outdo arch rival Samsung who are also tipped to show a curved 8K TV.
The LG model which is believed to be based on OLED technology delivers a resolution of 7,680×4, 320 pixels which in plain English is 33.2 million pixels packed into one display.
More than 20 display drivers are needed to deliver this resolution however the big drawback is that there is little if any 8K content.
According to CNet LG recently amped up the brightness of the Mabinogion to 500 nits using a new method of controlling the aperture ratio. “Unlike conventional displays that use RGB sub-pixels, LG added a W sub-pixel to increase the brightness,” one of the sources said.
A PC with strengthened display was used during the development process claims CNet. The Korean Company also used 3D images generated by an unnamed high-quality Nvidia GPU during development, the insiders said. Nvidia’s South Korean office also cooperated making the display and its driver ICs.
Mabinogion was not just developed as a showpiece to show off technological prowess but as a test-run to aim for mass production. “With the know-how acquired from making the prototype, if LG finds good grounds to commercialize the display for mass production, it will do so. LG has already finished up approving the technological viability of the 55-inch, 8K display, and is now starting preparation to commercialize it to make it a product.”
LG Electronics, LG Display’s biggest client, is also rumoured to be adding an 8K TV to its Full HD and 4K UHD TV models in next year’s line-up.
An LG Display spokesman confirmed that it was developing 8K and other high-resolution displays that met the market trend, but declined to comment on specifics CNet claimed.
