LG Displays Set To Shake UP CES
Tops among the display maker's announcements this week is the Trumotion 480Hz, an LCD TV panel LG says can refresh at 480Hz per second. The display panel has a response time of four milliseconds, which combined with the 480 refresh rate can clarify high-speed images on LCD TVs that would otherwise appear blurry, the company said in a press release.
LG Display also provides a "scanning backlight" -- a backlight in the panel that turns on and off repeatedly to reduce blur -- and higher contrast between the darkest and brightest images on the screen.
According to LG, the Trumotion 480Hz will begin shipping toward next fall.
"The world's first Trumotion 480Hz LCD TV panel is planned to hit the market in the second half of 2009," said Eddie Yeo, executive vice president and head of LG Display TV Business Unit, in a statement from LG. "LG Display will provide its customers with unique, high-end products while delivering crisp picture quality for fast-moving images."
Elsewhere, LG also plans to unveil what it calls the world's thinnest LCD TV flat panel: the LH95 LCD. The TV is less than one-inch thick, supports 240Hz Truemotion technology and according to various news sites has a contrast ratio of 2,000,000 to 1. Additional details, including pricing, have yet to be released.
The new displays arrive at a time when the economic climate has taken a serious toll on LCD sales worldwide. The most recent numbers from NPD Group company DisplaySearch, for example, put large-area TFT-LCD shipments for November 2008 at $3.8 billion, their lowest level since May 2007. Specific to TV panels, DisplaySearch earlier this month predicted LCD TV revenue would fall 16 percent year over year in 2009 -- the first-ever decrease since LCD TVs were introduced in 2000.