LIVING ROOM LIFESTYLE
LIVING ROOM LIFESTYLE Picture Quality Made in Hollywood Panasonic’s first commercial OLED TV launched at IFA 2015 The release of Panasonic OLED TV at IFA has made a big splash. We asked Fabrice Estornel – General Manager TV Group, Panasonic Marketing Europe GmbH – why the company has opted for OLED. OLED is an interesting technology that suits our quest for the ultimate picture quality. We have been working with OLED for a long time to make it perfect, and now is the time to launch our first product. With our particularly strong experience in emissive technology and picture quality due to our work with plasma, it was natural for us to start working with OLED. OLED has clear advantages compared to other technologies, especially when it comes to watching movies, where black levels and colour accuracy are important for a top quality movie experience. What makes this display different from other OLEDs? Picture quality. We have built our new flagship on the grounds of a great heritage of premium plasma TVs, which is a technology not so different from OLED. We’ve combined this know-how with our latest high-end 4K Pro technology at the core of which lies our 4K Studio Master Processor. It combines a whole raft of technologies to deliver unprecedentedly accurate colour as well as great contrast, brightness and dynamism. Furthermore, during the development process of this product, we have been closely working with Hollywood in order to create a premium TV that would truly display movies the way the directors intended. To fully realise the potential OLED has for recreating pictures at home as filmmakers want you to see them, Panasonic has partnered with leading Hollywood colourist Mike Sowa to first tune and approve the TX-65CZ950’s picture performance. What is your strategy concerning TV marketing in Europe? With our 4K Pro line-up including the CZ950 OLED TV we position ourselves as leader in picture quality. The close collaboration with Hollywood is key to our strategy of delivering the best picture quality you can have, creating the most accurate product on the market. You often might see brands give lip service to accuracy in picture reproduction, but at Panasonic we really mean it. Picture quality is our DNA and this is what we transport with our high-end products. Fabrice Estornel General Manager TV Group, Panasonic Marketing Europe GmbH Panasonic has partnered with leading Hollywood colourist Mike Sowa to first tune and approve the TX-65CZ950’s picture performance Hall 5.2 Stand 101 32
LIVING ROOM LIFESTYLE 4K: What are the Prospects? Paul Gray IHS analyst 2015 sees exciting prospects for 4K TVs at IFA, as we bridge the gap from 4K to true Ultra HD. 4K, when it first appeared was largely a ‘numbers marketing’ play, with little content to view. The uncomfortable truth was also that simply increasing the pixels did little for the overall viewing experience: the human vision system is more sensitive to dynamic range, frame rate and colour. The extra pixels are really most visible only on slow-moving content or still images. However, the past couple of years have seen frenzied activity: broadcasters have been experimenting with shooting UHD content and testing the results on consumers. At the same time TV brands have been working with components suppliers to expand their products’ capabilities beyond resolution. 2015 IFA sees a full range of sets able to display content packed with deeper colour, wider dynamic ranges and high frame rates. Standardisation is moving ahead and broadcasters are poised to launch regular services. Our experience is that when the installed base reaches around 3% of households then the market becomes large enough to interest pay-TV providers. We have now reached that point in Western Europe and can expect a steady progression of launches in different countries. Our forecast for 4K television shipments remains dominated by pushing from the supply chain. We expect that this year will see the first tipping point with more than half of sets 55” and larger will be 4K resolution. By 2018 all televisions of 50” upwards will have a 4K panel. Ultra HD television promises a revitalisation of the product category after the boom five years ago. However it is also clear that it will not have universal appeal: consumers with smaller screens will not see a benefit. UHD also looks likely to work best with certain content types – live sports being especially suited. This provides a great opportunity to work end to end in the industry. However, strategies need to be implemented that recognise that it is not a universal benefit like flat panel TV. www.ifa-international.org IFA International • Monday 7 th September 2015 33
