Al Griffin

When high-definition TVs first showed up in the late 1990s, the arrival of the new sets was preceded by the establishment of a digital high-definition TV broadcast format. In other words, the horse was leading the cart. With UHDTV, however, there isn’t a new higher-rez broadcast format to go with the new displays. What gives?

Bang & Olufsen’s CES press event was held in a comfortable, stylishly decorated room that drove home the company’s message of merging good sound with good design.

Of the three series of XBR Ultra HDTVs announced by Sony at CES, the X950B is the only one it’s calling a “reference standard.” (The one directly below it, the X900B Series, is merely a “statement in picture, sound and design.”) What makes an X950B Series set so good? For starters, it’s got a full-array LED backlight with Sony’s X-tended Dynamic Range Pro processing to dynamically deepen blacks and boost highlights. It also has the same Triluminos tech found in select Sony HDTVs and UHDTVs from 2013.

As promising as the first two OLED TVs to hit the market, a pair of 55-inchers from LG and Samsung, were, there was one problem with both: their screens were curved. That’s why the 55-inch OLED model hanging in Chinese TV-maker Hisense’s booth caught my eye.