Samsung and Hisense Fly the Flag for 8K at IFA 2024
We went along to the annual İFA event in Berlin as our Editor, Bob Raikes, had been invited to contribute an ‘Expert Talk’ on ’The future of the TV’. The event used to be very important for TV brands, but the importance of TV for the show has declined. While CES has moved towards automotive as TV and PCs have become less critical to brands, İFA has move towards ‘lifestyle’ and home appliances. To emphasise this, Sony had no presence for end users, with just meeting rooms for dealers while LG had its ‘traditional’ hall space, but was not promoting TVs at all. Philips (well, TP Vision, the licencee for the Philips brand in TVs, had just a small presence in the ‘Summer Garden’ area highlighting its Ambilight’ feature).
Samsung Still Strong at IFA
In contrast, Samsung had a major presence in the ‘City Cube’, its home for the last few years. Samsung was, of course, emphasizing its AI technology but had a good area devoted to TV. There was less emphasis on showing the full range of TVs, but instead the firm highlighted particular features. There was a large area devoted to the Tizen OS and the Samsung TV Plus channel. In 8K, there was a new Premiere 8K ultra-short throw (UST) projector. The unit is not available yet, but will appear in the market ’in 2025’. Three lasers provide the illumination (with 4450 lumens quoted) so there is wide colour and the image quality looked very good to us. Samsung has made the unit smaller and lighter than other makers, and as a result, it can be mounted on the ceiling.
The unit uses the idea of a separate module for input connections, with the image being transmitted wirelessly to the projector head. That’s an impressive feat as it is not easy to transmit uncompressed video in 8K reliably by wireless means. The unit also has surprisingly good audio from the integrated speakers. On our return to the office after the show, we spotted this blog post from Samsung Korea that gives more background to the Premiere range, although it concentrates on the current models, rather than the 8K shown at IFA.
An interesting demonstration by Samsung used a 98” TV that was connected to a dial that allowed viewers to show the image at the same size as 55”, 65”, 75” and 85”. The same display was also used to show Samsung’s image enhancement technology.
An area was devoted to 8K gaming with a Samsung Neo QLED TV and a range of monitors including the firm’s 8K wide (Dual UHD) 57” curved monitor.
In other areas there were very impressive demoes of microLED with a range of sets from 76” to 140” with 89”, 101” and 114” in between. When Samsung first showed its microLED TVs, the seams were very visible, but it was extremely difficult to see the lines at İFA – that is a very impressive achievement. Also very impressive as an extremely transparent microLED demo display. The firm would not confirm the level of the transparency, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more transparent display.
Also on show was the latest, improved, ‘Terrace’ TV for outdoor use and the improved reduced reflectance on Samsung’s latest QDOLED TVs.
Hisense Also Has 8K Projection
The second brand that we talked to was Hisense. A significant part of its substantial TV promotion at the event highlighted the 8K UST laser projector that the firm currently sells in China (with current pricing at around the equivalent of €30,000, we heard). The set was being shown with an ambient light rejecting screen and had good performance. No decision about whether to sell the set in Europe has been made yet, it seems. Hisense had several interesting projection screens including one that rolled down into a containing box (a bit like LG’s short-lived and poorly sold rollable OLED TV). Although the screen is flexible, Hisense claims a reduction in ambient light reflection by up to 90% significantly improving contrast in non-optimised projection environments.
As well as the several projectors, Hisense was highlighting the capabilities of its HV8107 8K video processor and was demonstrating a boost in miniLED performance, ‘Dynamic’ ToneMapping Pro, an AI-assisted Sports mode to improve the clarity of fast motion and an AI picture mode that modifies contrast and color for different kinds of scenes.
Elsewhere, mainly TV disappointment.
Elsewhere at the show, we had hoped to see the JVC 8K projectors, but the firm was not at the show. Changhong was, at one point, the second largest brand in 8K TV globally (after Samsung), but was not showing any 8K TVs as it does not sell them in Europe. Skyworth, one of the other key Chinese TV brands, sells under the Metz brand as it bought that company in 2015, but did not have any 8K sets. TCL had a big booth with a lot of big sets, but its European TV manager has previously expressed scepticism about the demand for 8K in Europe, where TV sizes tend to be smaller than in, for example, the US, so no 8K sets were shown. Panasonic had a very small booth area and the only TV shown was demonstrating the firm’s recent adoption of Amazon’s FireTV OS.
Vestel, which makes a high percentage of Europe’s TVs under its own brand, its licenced brands (Telefunken, Sharp, Toshiba and Daewoo) and to other brands on an OEM basis, as before had an 8K TV on show, but really to highlight that it can make them if needed by its OEM customers.
