LG TVs: Innovation at IFA

By Ian Morris on 31 August 2007, 3:00pm

It was no huge surprise to find LG's stand at the IFA trade show in Berlin divided into two halves, one half TVs and the other mobile phones -- the Korean company has been hugely successful in both areas.

There were two especially interesting things on the TV part of the stand, however, that caught our attention. The first was its new TVs, which feature MPEG-4 HD receivers. This has huge potential if Ofcom allows extra spectrum to be used for high-definition TV services in the UK. And we do hope the communications regulator sees sense soon, or we're going to have to go over to its offices and have a stern word.

The other interesting TV on display was yelling about 60p while everyone else is all about the 24p right now. No, it's not a super-budget set -- LG's idea is that, with suitable electronics, it would be easy to turn a 1080i, 60fps video into a 1080p, 60fps one. It claims this will improve on-screen motion and reduce picture distortion.

The company has also announced it will be producing TVs with buil- in Freeview Playback functionality. That's a pretty handy feature -- we hope the convergence of TVs and PVRs becomes a bona fide trend. – Ian Morris