LG to market with 105in monster TV

BEHEMOTH: The LG 105UC9 Curved Ultra HDTV boasts a 105in curved ultra high definition screen. — ©LG

If you liked the look of Samsung's living room-filling 105in curved screen ultra-high-definition television set but were put off by its US$120,000 (RM382,662) asking price, there's good news. 

On Tuesday, LG launched its own equally curved, equally large and equally ultra-high definition TV, the LG 105UC9, and at current exchange rates it will only cost US$117,000 (RM373,095.45). 

And while it's a lot of money, it will buy you an awful lot of television. Thanks to the sheer size of the screen it boasts 11 million pixels, so technically speaking it's a 5K, not a 4K set (as it has five times the number of pixels found in a HD TV screen), something LG is very quick to point out. 

It also comes with a specially designed sound system co-developed by premium audio brand Harman Kardon so the listening experience should be as immersive as the viewing — with an aspect ratio of 21:9, LG claims it is the same as that of a multiplex cinema screen. 

"The vision behind LG's 105-inch 21:9 Curved Ultra HD TV was to bring the movie theatre into the living room," said In-kyu Lee, senior vice-president and head of the TV Division at LG's Home Entertainment Company. 

"Featuring a curved 5K CinemaScope screen and a 7.2 channel speaker system, the 105UC9 is LG's most spectacular Ultra HD TV yet. This product pushes the envelope in home entertainment innovation and demonstrates what is possible when you bring today's most advanced TV technologies together." 

However, not everything broadcast on television, available on cable or as a viral Internet clip comes in the same aspect ratio as an effects-laden blockbuster. So rather than stretch and distort the image in order to fill the screen, when something is in a more typical 16:9 aspect ratio, areas of the screen are left dark instead and can be used to display programming information or to access menus. 

And, like all televisions that market themselves as 4K UHD, the LG set can take SD and HD content, like a Blu-ray for instance, and upscale it to UHD format. 

Available to order now in South Korea for 120mil won (RM372,628.74), LG says that it will be rolling out to other markets before the end of the year at which point it will announce international pricing. — ©AFP/Relaxnews 2014