Post-4K OLED TV: Where does picture quality go from here?

Now that there are 4K OLED televisions, can picture quality get any better? Have we achieved perfection? If so, where do we go from here? Here's a list of next steps.

LG (Screen Image: Geoffrey Morrison)

We've been saying for a while that OLED TVs offer the best picture quality ever, with infinite contrast ratios and perfect black levels that put plasma and LCD to shame. We'd worried that 4K/Ultra HD OLED would be too expensive to bring to market, but LG did it anyway.

So now that we have 4K OLED TVs available for sale, albeit for fiv figures, what's next? If this marriage of contrast and resolution creates such a perfect image, is the race over? Has the picture quality Holy Grail been discovered?

That's a pretty good question, actually.

Reader Caleb Munyasya asked it like this: "Is 4K OLED the end of the road for improving our TV experience? Because realistically speaking, there must be a limit to TV quality. If we combine 4K and OLED will it truly ever get better than that?"

I've gotten similar emails over the years, a bunch around the launch of Blu-ray for example, unsure why we needed BD when DVD was clearly the best we'd ever need. Caleb's question is a fair one, though. We've been saying contrast was king for years, and OLED's contrast IS king.

Mix that with the excessive pixel density of 4K, which exceeds the limits of human visual acuity at standard seating distances, and it's quite an attractive combo.

So let's take a look at a few of the ways our TVs (and TV system) can improve for an even better picture. A wish list, if you will, of our picture quality dreams.

Right now we're still pretty light on the OLED front. Only LG is making a serious push. We'll hopefully see more at CES 2015, but for right now, LG is it. We want more companies, and bigger, cheaper, better TVs... you know, the usual.

Excerpt from:
Post-4K OLED TV: Where does picture quality go from here?