# LG's 84" Ultra HD TV showcased in nine select stores in the Midwest



## keithlock (Feb 5, 2013)

The Wettsteins store in the small town of La Crosse, Wisconsin was one store of nine elected to display the LG 84" Ultra High Definition (4k) television.

[img]http://www.hometheatershack.com/news/21097224_BG1.jpg[/img]Brian Rooker, electronics buyer for Wettsteins, being in the smallest town chosen, with the largest being Chicago, remarks that this is "quite an honor for LG to consider us above a lot of other markets to be able to display this [TV]."

The 84" big screen features a voice recognition remote control, up-coverts images from 2D to 3D and upscales SD to HD.

Ultra HD TVs have resolutions of 3840x2160 or 4096x2160, with Full HD at a mere 1920x1080 in comparison.

*What is 4k video resolution?*

What many are calling "the next high-def," 4k, or more officially, Ultra HD, offers 2x the pixels and 4x the resolution of today's standard HD. HD, having been around for 10+ years is where most of the content is in terms of Blu-ray movies and HD broadcasting, 4k content just isn't readily available. Upscaling technology attempts to bring SD to HD, but upscaling in TV sets to bring HD to UHD isn't common, or is unavailable. With that said, Sony's Blu-ray player (model BDP-S790) can upscale lower-res content to 4K.

YouTube has a playlist with selection of content captured at 4k resolution. There are five clips available for viewing at the time of this writing.

Red Digital Cinema is attempting to provide "4K For All" with their RedRay 4k Cinema Player, which leverages internet file based distribution, using their own proprietary .RED file format. Sony also has a movie server with 4k films that it bundles with select TVs. In other words, 4k content is coming, and companies are working hard to fill the "no 4k content" gap.

The three versions of high-def include full high definition 1080p (progressive), 1080i (interlaced), and 720p (also called simply "high definition"). Comparing resolutions you have standard definition (SD) at 720x480, full high definition (Full HD) at 1920x1080, quad high definition (Quad HD) at 3840x2160 and 4k/2k at 4096x2160. Of the two top resolutions, Quad HD is the only one to conform to the classic 16:9 ratio for modern TV screens, but both Quad and 4k/2k can be called "Ultra high definition."

The 4k specification has it's roots in cinema which came about some time in 2005. The first cinema release leveraging 4k technology came 2 years later with the movie "Blade Runner: The Final Cut."

[img]http://www.hometheatershack.com/news/LG_unveils_84-inch-3D-TV_with-4K-resolution.jpg[/img]Because of the lack of content to watch in 4k, the biggest benefits one could expect if owning the LG right now, it would seem, is enhancement of 3D quality, and of course, significance, or more realistically... "bragging rights."

While moving from Full HD to 4k might seem like the next logical step, understand that 8k protoypes are being demonstrated.

According to Robert Silva at About.com "8K resolution represents 7680 x 4320 pixels (4320p - or the equivalent of 33.2 Megapixels) and is effectively 16 times more detailed than current 1080p resolution TVs. One of the leaders in developing 8K resolution for television broadcasting is NHK of Japan which has proposed its Super Hi-Vision broadcast format, which is not only intended for 8K resolution video, but also for up to 22.2 channel audio."

It seems it doesn't stop at 4k, but why would it?


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