We've been talking about 4K TV for quite some time, with TVs from both Toshiba and LG showing up at CES towards the beginning of the year, new image sensors to enable affordable 4K filming and most recently, the new MPEG H.265 standard, intended to provide twice the quality-to-compression ratio over H.264, enabling higher-definition broadcast.
Despite all of these developments, aside from Toshiba and its 55ZL2, there are no other 4K TVs on the market and, arguably, could 4K resolutions truly be appreciated on a 55in television? If you think not, then perhaps LG's new 84LM9600 is for you. This TV is, as the product number suggests, a whopping 84in in size and features a 3,840 x 2,160 resolution, with 2.2 channel "3D sound" speakers.
Alas, there's currently very little 4K content available for consumers, though, this TV does also employ LG's passive 3D technology, which is both visually impressive and requires only cheap glasses, however, on current TVs suffers from a loss of resolution as each alternate line on the TV points towards a different eye. At 4K, though, the TV should be able to deliver 1080p 3D films without sacrificing effective resolution, which we suspect will deliver a rather impressive experience.
The 84LM9600 will be available world-wide from next month, however, unlike Toshiba's 55ZL2, which has a RRP of £6,999, it's looking likely that LG's new though, admittedly larger beast, will retail for at least £14,000 (this writer suspects £14,999).
