TV wars dominate tech expo
Battle to be biggest, sharpest, smartest gets a new competitor
● The TV wars resumed in earnest this week at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, as Panasonic joined the fray that had previously been defined by Samsung and LG.
LG took boasting honours with its announcement of the world’s first roll-up TV screen, but it was only available for private, invitation-only viewing, suggesting it is not yet ready for prime time.
LG made up for this secrecy with a spectacular canyon of TV panels that combined to give visitors the illusion of walking through natural scenery.
Samsung answered with a new technology called MicroLED, which allows borderless TV modules to be merged into one giant 146inch screen. It literally can occupy an entire wall and, with 8K resolution, turns that wall into a realistic scene complementing a room or providing the illusion of a vivid view.
It was on public display at Samsung’s massive city-like CES stand but, like LG’s roll-your-own TV, no release date has been announced.
Ironically, these headline grabbers distracted attention from the commercial launches of new TV products from both brands.
This provided the opportunity for the unheralded arrival of a third major player at the cutting edge of TV technology.
Panasonic, which has had a muted presence at CES in recent years, entered the battle with TVs that competed on all the traditional proxies for technology leadership, like biggest, sharpest, brightest, thinnest, and smartest. However, it also took display technology a step further.
While large, thin Organic Light-Emitting Diode screens are almost indistinguishable from each other in quality, sharpness and colour, there is one element that sets them apart: the quality of their black. This means that, the deeper the black colour on the screen, and the more consistent it is, the more lifelike the images on the display and the more satisfying the viewing experience. The quest for the perfect black is one of the hidden battles in the TV war, which is publicly fought on more obvious specifications.
At CES, Panasonic introduced an Absolute Black Filter in its OLED screens, allowing it to claim the purest and most accurate black levels. The TV achieves this by absorbing ambient light to eliminate reflections, with huge benefits when TV is being watched in daytime or a well-lit room. Many OLED screens are so reflective that they can only be watched from certain angles when a room is bright. The filter promises to eliminate this irritation.
It is being introduced in a range of four new OLED TV models: the FZ950 and FZ800, each in 65-inch and 55-inch sizes. They are joined by the 77-inch EZ1000, launched last year.
The four new models will also feature the next big standard in premium content experience called HDR10+. It is an evolution of High Dynamic Range, a technology which allows for a greater and more dynamic range of light levels. Last year, Panasonic and Samsung joined forces with 20th Century Fox to form the HDR10+ Alliance to promote the standard. At CES this week, the three organisations jointly announced the latest update of the standard.
It optimises the viewing experience scene by scene by using dynamic metadata – additional data that is used to more accurately adjust brightness levels, frame by frame. Despite Samsung being intimately involved in the development of the standard, Panasonic is the first to introduce it in its new models.
While this was a surprising first, Panasonic was at pains to make it clear that it was pushing the boundaries across all categories of electronic products.
Its booth at CES was divided into four categories: Immersive Entertainment, Connected World, Sustainable Energy and Integrated Supply Chain.
This, the company said in a statement, was intended “to highlight how Panasonic’s proprietary technologies are helping make daily life a better experience and reflect solution categories within the repositioning of the Panasonic brand”.
The focus on societal solutions brought the brand into sync with another surprising category: automotive. Ford, Honda, Huyndai, Kia, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan and Toyota all showed off concept cars or new autonomous capabilities.
Third party or OEM (original equipment manufacturers) suppliers had a wild time demonstrating how their products could push the boundaries even further.
The deeper and more consistent the black colour on the screen, the more lifelike the images on the display
For the most part, however, it came down to how well they could adapt Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant or the Google assistant equivalent to the car environment.
Panasonic’s answer was a pair of carsized cockpit prototypes that demonstrated the practical implementation of two upcoming phases of what is now formally known as Advanced Driver Assistance Systems.
The first cockpit allowed visitors to experience so-called “ADAS level 2”, when autonomous driver assistance is expected to be widely available in cars, expected to be standard between 2020 and 2023. The second introduced them to “level 3”, expected to be standard between 2023 and 2025, making autonomous driving possible but still requiring a driver to take over in certain circumstances.
To make it clear that these solutions were not about an invitation-only future, the Panasonic stand also featured the new Range Rover Velar SUV, fitted with Panasonic’s Touch Pro Duo dual touchscreen system and a windshield heads-up display. The message? Panasonic technology has journeyed far beyond mere TV sets.