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Samsung spills some details on its 2018 QLED TV lineup
Sure, Samsung showed off its MicroLED wall and 8K consumer TV at CES this year, but what about TVs for the rest of us? Those details were scant in Las Vegas, but now the company is ready to talk about its QLED lineup. There are some similarities across the entire range, like Ambient Mode where the display will mimic the wall color or pattern behind it (like a chameleon) so the TV blends into your living room rather than looking like a black mirror when there's no programming running to it.
Samsung has a 43-inch version of its Frame TV for smaller spaces
Samsung has announced that its art-inspired Frame TV, which launched this past June, will soon come in a 43-inch version. The new model could be a good alternative for people who may not be able to fit one of the existing 55- or 65-inch Frame TVs on their wall, or for those who simply think the others are too large for their taste. As part of today's reveal, Samsung also said that it has partnered with Spain's Museo del Prado, aka the Prado museum, on an experience that will let Frame TV owners display about 1,000 of its pieces. There's no word on pricing or availability yet, but you can expect the 43-inch version to cost around $1,500 since the 55 and 65 are $2,000 and $2,800, respectively.
Samsung's The Frame TV blends in with the art on your wall
In 2015, Samsung took a minimalist approach with its Serif TV, a 4K television designed to blend in with your furniture at home or office. That product is part of the company's efforts to make TVs look and feel less obtrusive, all without losing their main functionality: letting you watch your favorite movies or TV shows. As of March, this now includes the "Frame TV," which was created with the idea to double as an art piece. The concept is made up of and LCD, UHD panel, Tizen OS smart TV features and a wall-mounting system that, Samsung says, doesn't require you to hire anyone to set it up.
Panasonic's OLED-fighting LCD is meant for professionals
Panasonic's salad days in the consumer TV space are in its past, but today the company announced a new IPS display technology that might help it win back some of the professional market. Essentially, it's making an LCD panel with the precision backlighting capabilities of an OLED. Thanks to a new backlight technology, these panels can turn off the backlight on a per-pixel basis, granting them an advertised " over 1,000,000:1" contrast ratio. Meaning that blacks will be absolutely black while whites could be eye-searingly bright — within the same image — and HDR and colors should look incredibly life-like.
The first 8K satellite TV broadcasts are live in Japan
Just as we were getting used to Ultra HD 4K, Japan's NHK has kicked off its Super Hi-Vision broadcast tests, sending out 4K and 8K video via satellite. Unfortunately, there's no way to watch the super high res feeds and 22.2 channel sound at home -- even with a $130,000 8K TV -- but interested Japanese residents can check out tests of the feeds at several public locations in Tokyo and Osaka. NHK is using the Rio Olympics as a testbed for technology that it hopes to roll out first in 2018, and have ready for the public time for the 2020 Olympics in Japan.
LG's spending billions to make more OLED things
LG's OLED 4K TVs are jaw-droppingly gorgeous, but the price still isn't anywhere near the level it needs to be for mass consumer adoption. Hopefully the company's new manufacturing plant can help that a bit thanks to economies of scale. A Reuters report says that the South Korean firm is spending some $8.71 billion (around 10 trillion Korean won) on a new manufacturing facility for the display panels in Paju, South Korea. Perhaps this can make up for some of the losses the tech giant suffered by halting production at one of its TV plants due to a gas leak earlier this year.
What it's like to use Samsung's Tizen-based 4K TV (in a non-4K world)
It's not easy getting a massive 65-inch TV inside a Brooklyn apartment. But, oh, is it worth the trouble. In this case, I'm talking about the Samsung JU6500, a 4K (3,840 x 2,160) smart TV powered by the company's newly minted, homegrown Tizen OS. Unless you were dead-set on Android TV, the set comes with most everything you would want in 2015: support for Ultra High-Definition media, access to entertainment apps and an actually reasonable price point. Although it's listed at $2,800, you can get one for around $2,100 from retailers including Amazon, Best Buy, Newegg, Adorama and Samsung's own site. Unfortunately for the company, its JU6500 seems expensive compared to Vizio's cheap 4K series -- which makes the buying decision harder for people who want a UHD TV.
Xiaomi has a crazy slim 4K TV with pro-level colors
Xiaomi builds various products that have nothing to do with smartphones, and today it revealed two more: a 9.9mm thick 4K TV and a smart water purifier, of all things. So who cares about a 48-inch TV that will probably only be sold in Asia? Well, for $485 (or $645 with a sound bar), the Mi TV 2S is pretty interesting. Samsung made the panel, but Xiaomi built its own LED backlight module. It claims that lets it display a full, uncompressed YUV 4:4:4 color gamut at 4K and 60fps, a trick that only professional grade displays can normally pull off.
A look at Vizio's affordable M-Series 4K TVs
Earlier today, Vizio introduced its latest 4K TVs, the M-Series. In similar fashion to the P-Series from last year, which started at $1,000, this year's models also come with an affordable price tag. But the M-Series ranges from $600 for a 43-inch model to $4,000 for the largest of the bunch, an 80-incher. Vizio says that with the M-Series, it was all about making refinements and not compromising in order to bring the price down even further. As such, most of the tech found on the P-Series has made its way into the new M-Series, like the LED panel and low-latency HDMI port (a feature loved by gamers, according to the company), among other things. Better yet, these UHD TV sets look great in person; they're relatively thin, sport a solid industrial design and, most importantly, have a picture quality that's not far behind its more expensive competitors. If you like what you see, some online retailers in the US are selling them as we speak.
Dolby Vision imaging tech is coming to Warner Bros. movies
Dolby doesn't want to limit its Dolby Vision tech just to Netflix and other streaming services, so the outfits' partnering with film studios too. First up is Warner Bros., where flicks including Edge of Tomorrow, The Lego Movie and Into the Storm are getting the high-dynamic range treatment early this year -- just in time for the launch of TVs with the tech baked in, according to the company. Additional new release movies and catalog titles are en route this year, as well. For the tech to really take off, however, Dolby willl need to expand beyond one studio, but we'd imagine WB is a pretty decent place to start. If anything, the announcement means Edge of Tomorrow's bleak version of the future's going to get a little brighter sometime soon. [Image credit: Associated Press]
Samsung's high-end TVs use nanocrystals for better color, efficiency
Samsung doesn't think your plain old UHD TV will cut it anymore. You know, like the models it debuted last year. Now what's the newest in new? SUHD, with the outfit saying it reserves the "S" designation for its top-tier models we're about to describe. The displays run Tizen and range from 48 inches to 88 inches in size, coming in three different model lines: JS9500, JS9000 and JS8500. Nanocrystal semiconductors are a portion of what sets these apart, with the tech apparently allowing for more accurate colors. The panels offer double the color adjustment points so your calibrator (or perhaps you) can dial the screen in to utmost accuracy and get a better idea of what the filmmaker intended, too.
Ultrakam: Transform your iPhone 6 or 6 Plus into a 4K video camera
4K video is becoming "The Next Big Thing", with screen resolution that is much greater than what you get from that measly 1920 x 1080 pixel display. Since there's not a lot of content available in the 4K format at this time, how do you impress your friends with the incredible resolution? Ultrakam (US$9.99) turns your iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus into a 4K video camera, giving you the chance to capture your own cinema-quality video. You can also download Ultrakam as a bundle with the Ultrakam Remote app. First, let's clear something up: this app isn't truly shooting 4K video. The best resolution possible is "4K mjpeg" at 3264 x 2448 resolution (7,990,272 pixels, 24 frames per second). Not only is that nowhere close to the 3840 x 2160 (8,294,400 pixels) UHDTV standard, but it's also a 4:3 aspect ratio - not the 16:9 we're all used to seeing our TV in. Vizzywig 4K, an iPhone 5s app that at one point cost $999.99 and has since been renamed Vizzywig 8xHD and re-priced at $49.99, can at least create (through software upsampling) true 4K video. Now, this is probably all nitpicking, since even at the lower resolution of Ultrakam you're getting about 3.85 times the number of pixels that you'd get by shooting standard 1080p (1920 x 1080) HD video. The app interface is quite sparse, getting right down to the business of shooting video. Ultrakam's screen (always in landscape orientation) shows you what you're filming, with buttons on the left side to turn on the light, change the filming orientation vertically or horizontally, add a guide to show the "frame" of the video, a white balance button, and exposure and focus locks. The right side of the display features five buttons as well - one to get into the gallery (where your videos are stored), one to go to a help file, a bright red "record" button, another to let you use another device as a remote, and a settings button. The settings include the ability to set the camera up in a number of formats, set film speed, define the video codec used, choose the aspect ratio, define "quality" of the video, and scale the video if you wish. There are also tabs for setting up timelapse and slow-motion video at a higher resolution than usual for the iPhone 6 family. The bottom of the Ultrakam screen always displays the current format, resolution, frames per second, and sound codec. A handy set of meters at the top shows how much storage is available on your device - shooting video can chew up a lot of storage very quickly - and your phone's battery level. Once you've shot your video, moving to the gallery displays all of the video that you've taken. Each clip shows the date and time of creation, the resolution, codec, data rate (i.e., 5 MB/second), duration, frame rate, and the file size. In most cases, the app asks if you wish to create a "reference proxy" preview - that takes the RAW movie and optimizes it for smooth playback on your device. There's also a button that sends you to the Cinekolor app - it's another product by Ultrakam developer Hassan Uriostegui that allows you to design custom filters for video or retouch, and even export those to Photoshop. The idea here is that you can apparently apply those filters to Ultrakam. Also in the gallery is an edit button. Sadly that only allows you to edit a single shot, not put together a complete "movie" like you can with Vizzywig 8xHD. Once you've edited your shots, they can be exported to a YouTube account or to your Photo Library. Those videos - once in your Photo Library - can be exported to a Mac or PC for further editing. When you export, the video is rendered rather quickly - of course, most shots are going to be of rather short duration. Likewise, those videos are uploaded quickly on a Wi-Fi network. Since there's no way for me to create a full "4K" sampler within the app, nor do I have a way to edit video of this resolution on my current iMac, I decided to point you to three short sample videos that I shot using an iPhone 6 Plus that are currently out on YouTube. It should be noted that YouTube does have a video editor available, which might be useful with Ultrakam. Compared to Vizzywig 4K/8xHD, the video is much smoother. There was a lot of jerkiness in the videos from that app, although it may have changed along with the name when Vizzywig 8xHD came out. My opinion after trying both of these apps? Well, if you want to be able to shoot "4K" video on your iPhone 6 or 6 Plus at decent frame rates, you'll want to get Ultrakam. If you want to be able to actually edit your clips, add titles and transitions, and then send the output to YouTube as a complete "movie", spend the extra $40 and get Vizzywig 8xHD. And if you're very serious about doing real 4K UHDTV videography, pass on both of these apps and get yourself an actual 4K camera. Got $500? About the least expensive 4K camera out there is the GoPro Hero4 Black, which shoots true 4K (3840 x 2160) at 30 frames per second.
Vizzywig 8xHD price tag now a very affordable $49.99
Until a few months ago, your choices for shooting 4K Ultra High Definition (UHD) video were to use a dedicated - and very expensive - 4K video camera or DSLR. Then in September, developer Michael Zaletel and his company i4Software released Vizzywig 4K, a US$999.99 UHD app that used an iPhone 5s and a tweak on burst mode to capture 4K video. At the time, I was very impressed with the app, noting that "The app itself is great and does some remarkable things. It has put a 4K video camera and editing suite into an off-the-shelf iPhone 5s -- a truly amazing feat. But Vizzywig 4K could do so much more if it was priced sensibly." Well, if you wanted the ability to shoot 4K video but didn't have deep enough pockets to afford the $1000 to buy Vizzywig 4K, you're going to be very happy with the announcement that the app has now been given a $49.99 price tag. It's also been given a new name - Vizzywig 8xHD - to reflect the fact that each video frame captured by the app contains more than eight times the number of pixels as 720p video. Other new features include compatibility with iOS 8.1, a focus check tool, multi-camera support, improved calculations for transitions and improved lower-thirds titles. Zaletel notes that the company is offering refunds to anyone who purchased the app at the $1000 price point. Vizzywig 8xHD captures video at the highest frame rate (24 fps) on an iPhone 5s; the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus are limited to 10 fps under iOS 8.1. There's also a new 4K demo video available on YouTube so you can see the best the app can deliver -- be sure to set the player resolution to 4K.
Watch baby geese gliding down a cliffside in the BBC's latest 4K documentary
In the early days of HDTV, BBC's nature docs were the go-to showpieces for your new home theater gear. Some time has passed since then, and Planet Earth on Blu-ray doesn't look quite as good as it used to. With Life Story, however, the outfit's jumped into the world of UHD 4K filming for the first time. How's it look? Terrifying. Not for the reason you might expect, though. The teaser clip is of the death-defying journey that Greenland's barnacle geese chicks take to leave their nests. Because they can't fly, the adorable goslings have to glide some 400 feet down a sheer cliffside, to their parents and the feeding ground below. And by glide, we mean enter a controlled fall for a bit and then miraculously survive after tumbling along the rock wall. If the streaming clip over at the source isn't enough for you, the full episode debuts on BBC One at 9 p.m. this Thursday and we've embedded the series' trailer just below.
Netflix is charging new subscribers a bit more for streaming 4K content
Similar to the upcharge to get Blu-rays in the mail over DVDs, Netflix is implementing a higher price for 4K streaming too. New subscribers and folks who already weren't using their UHD screen to watch House of Cards in 4K will have to jump into the $11.99 per-month family plan, according to HD Guru. Following its tradition of rewarding loyal customers though, if you were using 4K streaming prior to early October, you're grandfathered in at $7.99 a month. As Variety tells it, that lower subscription rate will continue indefinitely, and that the price change actually took effect on August 12th. So what will the very specific crowd that this affects get to watch? Well, aside from mainstays like the full run of Breaking Bad, there are a few new additions too including Ghostbusters and its sequel, the nature doc Moving Art, NBC's Blacklist and, uhh, The Smurfs 2 -- you know, for the kids. [Image credit: Photo by AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez]
Vizio's affordable 4K TVs finally arrive
It feels like forever since Vizio introduced the world to its P-Series of Ultra HD televisions, but today is finally the day that the company is bringing them to market. For starters, what caught most everyone's attention back at CES was Vizio's asking price for these 4K TV sets, starting at $1,000 for the 50-inch model and going all the way up to $2,500 for 70 inches of high-resolution goodness. For comparison, LG just introduced 4K TVs that start at $999 -- for a 40-inch version. Aside from the low cost and UHD features, the P-Series also sport LED backlighting and Smart TV capabilities, making these a well-rounded package overall. Vizio's putting the P-Series up for pre-order today on its website, while other US retailers like Amazon, Best Buy, Target and Walmart are expected to carry them at a later point.
Hands-on with the $1000 Vizzywig 4K app
Yes, you saw that correctly. A US$1000 app. One. Thousand. Dollars. Now, before you say that it's a gimmick and something that only rich people will buy, let me explain a little bit about the Vizzywig 4K app and what it does. This app turns an iPhone 5s into a 4K motion video camera, editor and 4K distribution platform. It captures full 4K resolution photos (3840 x 2160 pixels) at 24 photos per second while capturing an audio soundtrack separately. That's a lot of photos being stored very quickly, at a data rate of 576 megabits per second. You'd better have a lot of space available on your device to hold your movies. To view these amazing videos in all of their UHDTV glory, you'll need to have either a computer with a 4K display, a 4K projector of some sort, or access to a movie theater that will let you show your movies. Note that when you watch our sample YouTube video below, you're probably watching a downsampled version at 720p or 1080p. If you have a 4K-capable setup, please let us know what the video looks like. Now, Vizzywig creator Michael Zaletel has a lot of experience using 4K video cameras. He's been a member of the RedUser.net forum (a home for owners and users of the RED 4K, 5K, and 6K cameras) for over 6 years, so he knows just how expensive it is to buy and maintain a 4K camera, not to mention build a full editing and distribution workflow for it. To quote Zaletel, "The reality is the world's fastest full 4K workflow. Pull a small phone out of your pocket, shoot four or five true 4K clips, trim, rearrange, add transitions, lower thirds, titles and credits in 4K and export and upload to YouTube or Vimeo in 4K in 15 minutes without ever touching a data card, laptop, mouse or NLE. We have all spent more than $1K on a single data card and 10 times that on a single lens or tripod. Vizzywig 4K is really not for everybody. It's targeted at video professionals who might want to be able to shoot a quick video and get it sent off immediately to a client. I've used the "normal" Vizzywig app in the past, and it's an amazing way to shoot, edit, and distribute video from an iOS device. At Macworld/iWorld 2014, a number of my video pieces were shot with an iPad mini running Vizzywig ($29.99), edited, titled, and then uploaded to our content distribution network and YouTube. All of that was done on the iPad mini, with me standing up instead of sitting at a video editing suite. The app UI will be familiar to anyone who has used the less-expensive HD version of Vizzywig. Settings are a bit different, as you can adjust the session and multi-camera resolution from 4K downwards, adjust the quality of the individual JPG images that are captured, change the frame rate, play with the 4K export quality (default is 75 Mbps), and so on. As with the HD version of Vizzywig, you can then add titles, transitions, scrolling credits, and even background music. One other feature of the app -- when you spend your $1,000 on the app, you get VIP email, phone and text message support directly from Zalatel. So, how did Vizzywig 4K work? Well, I had to downgrade my iPhone 5s from iOS 8 GM to iOS 7.1.2 in order to run it, and decided at that time that it would be a good idea just to leave the device empty except for the app. With that in mind, I had a clean machine all ready to go for this app. I decided that since it was such a nice Colorado late summer day that I'd grab the iPhone and try doing some shooting on one of my favorite walks. I took a couple of shots, then came back to my office to add titles and credits, then render the movie. The rendering took quite a while -- there were 1,500 frames to process, and that took about 18 minutes total. After than, the app generated the video, which took about another 12 minutes. Uploading over WiFi took a while as well, although that was a fairly painless part of the process. Please don't judge the app's capabilities on my lousy camera work -- I didn't have a tripod, a stable mount, or the time to make sure that all my zoom shots stayed in focus. Zaletel recommends that potential users have a Steadicam Smoothee or Swiftcam M3 stabilizer on hand for best results. Here's the video: I've also included a gallery of 4K images so that you can see what the individual 3840 x 2160 pixel frames look like: Finally, if you'd like to see a 4K movie produced by Michael Zaletel that's a bit more stable than mine, you can view it here on YouTube. One other comment -- plan on bringing a large capacity external battery pack with you if you plan on doing a lot of shooting and rendering. My fully charged iPhone 5s dropped to about 38 percent battery capacity by the time I was done shooting, rendering, and uploading the video. I also recommend plugging in your iPhone while you're doing the render and upload. Uploads can be made to YouTube and Vimeo at the present time. The file size for my 1 minute and 33 second video was 587.53 MB. Needless to say, if you plan on doing any sort of long videos using 4K, you're going to want the most storage capacity you can find. I think the iPhone 6 or 6 Plus with 128 GB of storage might be perfect... With that in mind, I asked Zaletel about compatibility with the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, which both run iOS 8 by default. He said that the company has both devices on order and their top priority is to update the app to take advantage of the better camera and larger storage capacity of the new devices. While you may not be able to run Vizzywig 4K on your shiny new toy on Friday, rest assured that you'll see the update soon. I, for one, would like to see if the future Vizzywig 4K could take advantage of the Optical Image Stabilization feature of the iPhone 6 Plus. Zaletel did point out that his company, i4software, is looking at their own Hyperlapse-like stabilization: "We are also working on adding image stabilization by measuring the gyroscope and accelerometer movements for each frame and then rotating and scaling each frame slightly to align for perfect stabilization similar to the new Hyperlapse app from Instagram." Vizzywig 4K apparently works by capturing those big frames using burst capture. There's a known issue with iOS 8 at this time regarding burst capture that will have to be fixed prior to the app going live on the new OS. Now, about the pricing. Is $1,000 a bargain compared to a standard 4K video camera and all of the accessory lenses? Yes, absolutely. But I think Zalatel -- who is offering a Moondog Labs Anamorphic Lens and a Swift M3 Handheld Gyro Stabilizer to the first person who coughs up $1,000 -- would be selling this app like hotcakes if he priced it at $49.99 or even $99.99. While the average professional videographer who can drop $50K on a top of the line camera without blinking might not consider $1K to be out of the question, the rest of us in the real world do. On the other hand, most of the rest of us don't have the need to be shooting 4K UHDTV, since we don't have the equipment to even properly view the output. Viewing the YouTube output on my really fast 27-inch iMac -- which doesn't have the ability to even fit that 4K stream on the screen -- is not that impressive, with a lot of jerkiness. There's a basic law of economics called price elasticity of demand. In most cases, prices are elastic, meaning that as price drops, the volume of sales goes up and vice-versa. At $1000, I would seriously doubt if Zaletel will get many sales, although he's capturing a lot of attention from the tech press. At $50 or even $100, a lot more people are going to be willing to make the purchase for an app that performs some video magic that can't otherwise be accomplished without spending a lot more money. A straw poll of the team at TUAW and several other blogs showed that nobody was willing to drop $1K on an app with the capabilities of Vizzywig 4K, while many with the need or desire to shoot 4K video would spend $50 in a heartbeat. Another thought -- since Zaletel has now proven that it's possible to shoot and render 4K video on an iPhone, some other enterprising developer will probably create an app that will do so and sell it for a fraction of Vizzywig 4K. I really like the stability and capability of Vizzywig and Vizzywig 4K, and would love to see this amazing technology continue forward. So please, Michael, drop the price. The app itself is great and does some remarkable things. It has put a 4K video camera and editing suite into an off-the-shelf iPhone 5s -- a truly amazing feat. But Vizzywig 4K could do so much more if it was priced sensibly.
Samsung's new UHD TV is the first to go from flat to curved on command
Samsung's new TVs have pressed 4K and curved frames as features, but what if you want one that's only curved sometimes? That's where a bendable TV comes in, and Samsung says it will release the industry's first one on August 1st in Korea. We got a peek at an 85-inch version in January at CES (check after the break for video of the demo unit), but the one going on sale is 78-inches. We're not sure how much it will cost, but we're betting the feature isn't cheap. As usual, Samsung is dueling with its Korean counterpart LG, which showed off a flexible OLED TV at CES. Both recently announced 105-inch Ultra HDTVs for sale, and are furiously chasing the title of "best screen almost no one can afford to buy." If this one gets a US release date, we'll let you know which store window to look at it through.
Samsung's curved, 105-inch 4K TV can be yours for just $120,000
There were so many TVs on display back at CES, that you'd be forgiven if they all blended together. So allow us to give you a recap: The Samsung UN105S9W was, in the company's own words, the "world's first, largest and most curved 105-inch curved UHD TV." Well then! Sounds like an expensive piece of kit, huh? You have no idea. Sammy just put its flagship TV up for pre-order and it's kind of a doozy. The whole thing costs $120,000 -- also known as a mortgage. For the money, you get 5,120 x 2,160 resolution on an unusually large screen, with an unusually wide aspect ratio of 21:9. Additionally, you'll receive a visit from one of Samsung's "Field Engineers" to walk you through all the features, if that's any consolation. It's also a Smart TV, with all the usual built-in apps, and the ability to separate the screen into four quadrants for watching live TV and surfing the web at once. Honestly, though, we'd be offended if a TV this expensive didn't do that. You can pre-order now if you like, but let's be real: Most of you are probably saving $120,000 for your future child's college tuition.
LG's 77-inch curved OLED 4K TV is every bit as expensive as it sounds
How much would you fork out for a 77-inch, curved, 4K, OLED TV? Well, LG hopes you're hovering around a couple of grand per descriptor, having announced it's launching such a gogglebox in the UK for only £20,000. It won't actually be available until October, though, so you still have a few months to fill up the piggy bank. As you'd imagine, the "world's first" curved OLED UHDTV packs a ton of branded technologies that promise a perfect picture, including the necessary upscaling engine that converts lower-res video to "near-4K," as well as LG's webOS smart TV platform. For the thrifty, there's a 65-inch model also launching in October for a mere £6,000, which you should easily be able to scrape together from the change lurking between your sofa cushions.
