14 DAY TRIAL // Westinghouse must not have meant it, but when it set the price of its 100-inch UHDTV at $300,000 / €228,000-300,000, it was bound to chase people off to look for alternatives.
One of the more popular alternatives, it turns out, is LG's 84LM9600. Sure, it is smaller, but 84 inches is still a lot in any case.
That the price is of only $20,000 / 15,000-20,000 Euro definitely helped its chances.
Indeed, LG has actually managed to sell 300 of these monsters in the time between the launch of the UHDTV and the present.
Then again, Westinghouse hasn't been a factor in the fate of the LG display for very long. There has been quite a bit of time between August 2012 and now.
Nevertheless, 300 is an impressive shipment figure for a TV that doesn't have any 4K content to play, or nearly none.
A testing TV broadcast service in 3840 x 2160 pixels resolution has been launched in Europe. That doesn't help these customers much, since they live in South Korea, but the broadcast isn't the only thing.
There is also the certainty that 4K films will be sold on Blu-ray disk. With that in mind, the purchases of LG's 300 customers could be considered preparations for the future.
The number also suggests that there is actually a chance, however slim, for 10 million UHDTVs to be sold this year (2013).
LG most recently showed off its 84-inch UHDTV at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2013) in Las Vegas. There were 55 and 65-inch panels there as well.
It isn't very likely for 4K to do any better, sales-wise, than 3D panels, but the latter did manage to scrape a pass on the marketing viability test, so the new TV type should as well. It definitely isn't lacking support.