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We discuss wallpaper TVs, roll-up TVs, and OLED canyons with LG’s Tim Alessi

Digital Trends sat down with Tim Alessi of LG product marketing at our CES 2018 in Las Vegas booth to discuss what LG is showing off at this year’s show.

LG’s novel OLED designs and Google Assistant

The big issue at hand is, of course, LG’s 2018 TV lineup. LG is releasing a new version of its seriously impressive wallpaper TV, known as the W8. While the W8 looks a lot like its predecessor, the W7, there are some big enhancements to the hardware inside. Specifically, the W8 wallpaper OLED will be packing LG’s new Alpha 9 processor. This new processor is designed to not only deliver the best picture possible right now, but in the future as well.

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“You can start out with the same panel, but you still have to make the picture on it,” Alessi said in the interview. “With 4K, HDR, and the coming generation of higher framerates, it’s a lot of power required to process all that data. The Alpha 9 is designed to be ready for anything that comes down the pike. It’s the most powerful processor we’ve created to date; it’s got up to 50 percent more power for not only graphics and processing, but also memory to handle all that.”

We’ve also heard about how Google Assistant integration will make LG’s TVs, like the W8, the centerpiece of a smart home environment. And then there’s LG’s mind blowing rollable OLED, which curls up into its base to hide away.

Alessi said we can expect the W8 to drop in mid-to-late March, but there’s no word on pricing yet.

Super UHD TVs, Technicolor HDR, and more

Also at CES is LG’s line of 2018 Super UHD LED-LCD TVs, which use nano display technology. These displays purify the picture, widen the color gamut, and reduce glare. Plus, because the displays are IPS panels, you can watch off-center without losing any picture or color quality.

All of LG’s T’s will be benefiting from its partnership with Technicolor in the form of picture modes specially tuned by Technicolor experts and support for Technicolor’s new HDR format, HDR by Technicolor. As Alessi explains, HDR by Technicolor “is similar to HDR10, but it has some benefits for backward compatibility and very efficient delivery of SDR and HDR content to the screen.”

Watch our full interview above to hear more about LG’s TVs, smart home ecosystem, its 4K laser projector, and the remarkable entrance to LG’s CES booth, which features a 256-panel OLED canyon.

Brendan Hesse
Staff Writer, Home Theater
Brendan has written about a wide swath of topics, including music, fitness and nutrition, and pop culture, but tech was…
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