This is part 2 of our IFA 2006 coverage. In part 1 we talked about Samsung, Philips, Toshiba and HANNspree.
You’ll find part 1 here: IFA 2006 part 1

In this part 2 Flatpanels will look at LG, Sharp, Pioneer, Hitachi and JVC.

LG

LG had a very big area on IFA and it was crammed with monitors, TV, mobile phones and other gadgets. The first thing I ran into was the TV section with this 42PC11RR EISA winning plasma TV. It has a resolution of 1024x768 and a contrast ratio of 10000:1


LG 24PC1RR plasma


Almost every LG TV was on display. Here you see the LB2RF series in a 47 inch version. It’s based on an EEFL backlight that is said to reduce backlight bleeding. The LB2RF is Full HD.


LG LB2RF series


I also saw the LC3 models. Here is the 37 inch. 


LG 37LC3R


LG did have a presentation of a LED project too. For now it’s just a prototype, however. 


LG LCD LED panel


And here is a comparison of a LCD panel with a conventional CCFL backlight and a LCD panel with a LED backlight. 


LG CCFL and LED

There’s no doubt that the LED technology was impressive but it isn’t yet ready for the consumer segment. 


LG LED


Like the other big manufacturers of TVs LG used IFA to brag show a new 120 HZ (100 Hz) technology and here’s a comparison.


LG 120 Hz and 60 Hz

LG had some big-ass TV son IFA too. Here you see a 70 inch plasma TV.
 

LG 70 inch plasma

Only one inch separates LG and Panasonic with LGs 102 inch plasma TV and Panasonics 103 inch plasma TV. That didn’t make LGs 102 inch any less extraordinary though. 


LG 102 inch plasma

LG also had a 100 inch LCD panel just like Philips. LG and Philips have a joint venture called LG.Philips that produces LCD panels so that’s probably the reason for the almost similar LCD panel. For some reason it was turned off...
 

LG 100 inch LCD-TV

Let’s take a look at some of LG’s new monitors. Here are some of their designer monitors. 


LG design monitor


They also come in different shapes and colours. 


LG white monitor

LG have another designer monitor named L1960TQ. It has a response time of 4 ms (g2g) and a contrast ratio of 2000:1. 


LG L1960TQ

LG L226WT is another new edition. It’s a 22 inch widescreen monitor with a resolution of 1680x1050 and a dynamic contrast ratio of 3000:1.


LG L226WT

You probably remember the L203WT and if you do you know what the new L204WT is about. It’s a new 20 inch widescreen monitor based on a TN panel. 


LG L204WT

Widescreen monitors are ”in” and LG presented a such one. It’s the L194WT with a resolution of 1440x900. 


LG L194WT

A new 24 inch was also showcaased. It has a LG.Philips S-IPS panel with a response time of 8 ms (g2g) and a contrast ratio of 1000:1. It has excellent vieweing angles and has a very nice picture. The monitor is called L246WP. 


LG L246WP

Most of you recall the L1980U/Q which was very, very popular because of the very slick design. Here is the successor named L1982U. It has an unique black, piano look.
 

LG L1982U


Sharp

Sharp had a very nice booth with a lot of amazing products including a lot of new ones. A lot of new technologies were shown too and I actually spend a lot of my time here.

At the one entrance Sharp had an 8. generation substrate from which you can cut a number of smaller panels, for example eight 46 inch LCD panels.


Sharp 8G substrate

Sharp had – like many others – some HD versus SD demos. Here you see one with a HD signal from a Blu-Ray player.
 

Sharp HD and SD

The difference was huge.
Here you see Sharp’s new Blu-Ray player that provided the HD feed. 


Sharp Blu-Ray


Another head-to-head demonstration was a response time comparison of a 4 ms panel and a 6 ms panel. 
The difference was very clear.


Sharp response time


Sharp availed themselves of the IFA fair to show their new GE1/GD1 series. Here you see the 65 inch model that is the largest on the market. 


Sharp GE1, 65 inch


Another screen with even better picture. It’s a prototype with a contrast ratio of 2500:1 (12500:1 dynamic) and a Full HD panel. The response time is 4 ms and it accepts 1080p feeds. 


Sharp TV


Another almost similar model was positioned next to the other one. It has the almost same characteristics. 


Sharp TV


Sharp presented their new HD1 series too. It’s not ready for the consumers yet but it will be soon. It has 2 HDMI ports, a contrast ratio of 2500:1 and 1080p support. 


Sharp HD1

The XD1 series was presented too. It’s a brand new Full HD line from Sharp with a contrast ratio of 2000:1 and a response time of 4 ms. It has an integrated digital DVB-T tuner and had a very impressive picture. 


Sharp XD1 



Mega Contrast is the phrase. It’s Sharp’s prototype contrast technology that exhibits amazing blacks. It’s a fact that LCD panels don’t have perfect black reproduction but this fact is changed with this technology. 
Here you see a picture from a completely dark room


Sharp Mega Contrast


It was hard to take pictures in here and it was hard even to navigate without bumping into other people. My camera didn’t really catch it but it will help me show you just HOW black it was. It was amazing!
 

Sharp Mega contrast


I stood in here for some time and observed. The blacks were close to perfect and it was impossible to tell where the TV ended on the wall.  In this last picture the black frame around the airplane is actually the wall – you just don’t see the transition from monitor to wall.


Sharp Mega contrast


Mega contrast isn’t ready to sell yet though. It needs a lot of work but Sharps says it has a contrast ratio of 1.000.000:1 at the moment. If the brightness is 400 cd/m2 then this means that the blacks are 0,00004 cd/m2 . The best panels today deliver blacks at 0,3-0,2 cd/m2.
 
The last picture from Sharp’s booth is a mixed bag of TVs.

Sharp TVs


As you might have noticed Sharp have a lot of Full HD models coming and Sharp really is a major player. They seem to distance themselves from many of the competitors and I’m sure we’ll see much more from Sharp in the future.

JVC

JVC had a dedicated hall only for their products. It wasn’t one of the full-size halls; nevertheless it was a big booth 

I couldn’t avoid the HD-ILA projections TVs at the entrance, especially because one of them had a stunning diagonal of 110 inches. JCV also have a 56 inch model and a 70 inch model. 


JVC HD-ILA, 110 inch model


But even though 110 inches sounds outstanding I wasn’t impressed – not at all. The picture was poor and the coating on the surface of the screen was horrible and deteriorated the picture a lot.

The TV has a HUGE ass too. It’s completely ridiculous in these modern flat screen times. I would never ever disfigure my living room with such an ugly monster.

So let’s hurry on the JVCs flat screen monitor. Here you see the A70 series in a 32 inch version.


JVC A70


JVC recently launched a number of models in the 70/71 series. One of these are the R71BU with a contrast ratio of 1200:1, viewing angles of 178 degrees and a response time of 8 ms. The resolution is 1366x768 and it has a HDMI input.
 

JVC R71BU series



Another new edition is the S70. It has 2 HDMI inputs and a resolution of 1366x768. 


JVC S70


The Z70 is the most prominent new TV line from JVC. It’s a Full HD TV with 2 HDMI inputs, a response time of 8 ms and a contrast ratio of 1200:1.
 

JVC Z70


JVC had a LED presentation too.  It was probably a demo model as not details were announced.


JVC LED LCD
 

And to repeat something I have said before 100 Hz is the new thing. JVC had a 100 Hz system combined with a scanning backlight LED technology. It’s called Clear Motion and was shown on the screen on the picture below. The strange thing is that the picture on the screen was just photographs and nothing was moving, hmm… Nice 100 Hz technology.
 

JVC LED LCD
 

To finish off here you have another picture from the LCD LED panel. 

Pioneer

We walked through Pioneer’s booth on the way in. We needed our press cards and it was a bit confusing. I decided to return to Pioneer later but time was not on my side and I didn’t get to spend a lot of time at this magnificent TV manufacturer. 
Pioneer is in my opinion the best manufacturer of TV’s and the amazing things is that even Pioneer’s old generation is better than almost every other TV on the market and I believe it will be like in the future too. They are very dedicated and that’s a very nice thing.

Here you see the new 42 inch models PDP-427 and PDP-4270 which have been introduced just a few weeks ago. 


Pioneer PDP-427


The models is released in four variants; 427XA, 427XD, 4270XA and 4270XD. The 427 models have two HDMI inputs. The ones names XA have a analogue tuner and the XD models have an analogue and a digital tuner.
The design is different on 4270 and 427 too.

Another new Pioneer TV is the 50 inch PDP-507XD (or XA). You can see it here.


Pioneer PDP-507XA


The picture from my camera is bad but the Pioneer had a stunning picture. It was very balanced and you would notice every little detail. The blacks were fair but not good, however. But easily the best picture on IFA.

The resolution of the TV is 1365x768 and it has 2 HDMI inputs.

The new TVs from Pioneer will be released in September.

Pioneer also had a new Blu-Ray player. You can see it here.


Pioneer Blu-Ray


I ran out of time and had to move on. But Pioneer is an amazing manufacturer. Take a look at their TVs for yourself.

Hitachi

Hitachi is a big player too but they haven’t really cemented their position in every country. They do have some nice plasma TVs though.

I took a quick look at them at IFA along with the new LCD-TVs from Hitachi.

The most impressive demo was this 60 inch plasma TV with a resolution of 1920x1080. It will launch later in 2007 and had a very nice picture.
 

Hitachi 60 inch plasma


Hitachi presented a new LCD-TV series based on their IPS-pro panels. The IPS panels are produced by IPS Alpha which is a joint venture of Hitachi, Panasonic and Toshiba. 

The LCD-TVs are said to arrive in October 2007.


Hitachi LCD-TV with IPS-pro panels


Other stuff

On our journey I saw some other stuff to. Most of it was rubbish but some of the other flat panels and image technologies deserve coverage.

One of these things was this 360 monitor that had a picture on the periphery of the cylinder. The quality of the picture wasn’t fantastic but the achievement is admirable. 


360 degree screen


We found a 3D monitor too with a small camera. The camera will perceive where your eyes look and calibrate the 3D image accordingly. 
This means that only one person can use it at a time but it was quite striking. 

We waited for 10-15 minutes to try it out because a small German geek couldn’t tear himself away from the monitor but it was worth the wait. 


3D monitor


The funny thing about it was that you could interact with the objects on the screen. A skull was shown on the monitor and then you could grab it – in the air – and rotate it. It was far better than any 3D technology I have ever seen and Philips 3D WOWvx can pack up.

We also saw this 90 degree projector. It generated the curved picture with a number of mirrors. The idea is nice but it looked quite expensive and inconvenient.


projector 


Because we are a nice bunch of visitors they let us choose from any of these means of transport for our trip home.


Cars 


A nice Ford GT.


Ford GT


A Kawasaki.


Kawasaki


That was all from Flatpanels on IFA 2006.
I never found Sony and Panasonic and I’m not sure they were here.

We did find this nice IFA garden, however, where A-HA gave a concert.


IFA garden