Ultra HD TVs price collapse
October 30, 2012
By Chris Forrester
Forget the much-hyped price reports of $20,000 each, at least if LG’s debut 4K Ultra-High Definition sets are any guide.
LG’s massive 84” U-HD sets are on sale now in California. Rumoured initially to be costing $19,999 the first displays actually went on sale this past weekend at $16,999.
Lawndale, a town on the edge of Los Angeles, had its mayor declare the event “U-HD Day” as he opened the ‘Video & Audio Centre’ electrical retail store, and some 1000 eager visitors – including some who had queued all night – viewed the unit (84LM9600) and six were sold by 2pm.
At the moment there’s very little content to view, and zero official programming, other than some enthusiast’s home video material on the web, but Sony has also just introduced a pair of 4K cameras suitable for movie-making and TV production (PMW-5F and PMW-F55) with the F55 unit capable of outputting 4K as well as 2K and HD video, and capturing content at an impressive 240 frames/second. The cameras will be launched in February, and probably in the $50,000-$60,000 range.