Samsung and LG fire broadside at each other in competition for excellence

[Yonhap Photo]

SEOUL -- South Korea's two main electronics companies fired a broadside at each other in a battle to take the upper hand in the global market for super high-definition TVs, which are predicted to become a crucial next item thanks to the rapid development of technologies and networks.

Samsung Electronics and its domestic rival, LG Electronics, have been locked in an unyielding fight over who is better in producing TVs. LG focuses on OLED (organic light-emitting diode) technology while Samsung promotes quantum dot LED (QLED) TVs which use nano-crystals to enhance the brightness and color of its display.

At the center of contention is Contrast Modulation (CM). The International Committee for Display Metrology (ICDM) defined the measurement of CM which describes accurately and quantitatively how distinguishable the neighboring pixels are from each another. For any TV display to deliver the resolution indicated by its pixel count, ICDM requires the minimum CM value to exceed a threshold of 25 percent for images and 50 percent for text.

LG argued Samsung's QLED TVs fell short of ICDM's requirements. LG officials said the stated resolution of a display does not depend on only meeting or exceeding a specific number of pixels, but also on whether those pixels can be adequately distinguished from one another.

LG launched an aggressive attack first by hosting a media event Tuesday to highlight the limitations of QLED TV's backlight. "At first, I thought the microscope was out of focus," Lee Jung-seok, LG's home entertainment marketing communication head, said cynically after lighting Samsung's TV screen with an electronic microscope.

LG claimed that Samsung TVs had lost the clarity of picture quality to improve the visual angle, which was cited as a quality evaluation that shows whether the brightness and color of a TV screen are not distorted, even if it was viewed from either side. LG also disassembled Samsung's TV to show a quantum dot film, saying QLED TVs do not use spontaneous light.

Samsung produced LCD TVs enhanced with a quantum dot film layer placed between the LCD panel and the LED backlight. Quantum dot LCD is a short-term strategy before moving to self-emitting QLED displays which will replace the passive color filters in front of liquid crystal pixels with a quantum dot color filter.

Samsung hit back at its own event on Tuesday, describing CM as an old concept which is not suitable for the evaluation of ultra-high-resolution color displays. Samsung said its QLED 8K TVs meet resolution standards set by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), a standard-setting body.

Samsung officials insist that LG's 8K OLED TV does not properly implement 8K contents, refuting LG's allegations that a TV with a low CM value cannot deliver the real 8K, even though it may have the sufficient number of pixels.

Then the same photo was posted, even small letters were clearly visible on Samsung TVs, while LG TVs were somewhat blurred, Yong Seok-woo, vice president of Samsung's visual display division, said, adding OLED TVs showed an error in 8K videos and streaming contents. "I don't know why (LG's) products are not able to properly implement 8K contents. Probably, they are not ready yet."

Samsung officials blasted LG for stepping up a "blatant and direct smear campaign against its competitor.

Lim Chang-won cwlim34@ajunews.com

Samsung and LG fire broadside at each other in competition for excellence

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