Panasonic has today announced two new OLED TV ranges for 2018. FZ950 and FZ800 are the first OLED TVs to offer support for HDR10+. 

Panasonic 2018 OLED
Last year’s 77-inch flagship EZ1000 will carry over into 2018 but FZ950 and FZ800 are entirely new models for 2018. Both of the OLED ranges will be available in 55 and 65 inch sizes.

Panasonic says that the 2018 OLEDs have 4K resolution as well as the newest generation of the Hollywood-tuned HCX video processor as well as ”significant under-the-hood advancements”. Panasonic will continue its collaboration with Hollywood colorist Deluxe to ensure very accurate picture quality in order to present the picture as the film creator intended.

- ”Furthermore, a growing number of Hollywood film industry’s post-production studios, in addition to Deluxe’s, choose to use Panasonic’s OLED TV screens as large-format client reference monitors as part of their creative process. With those same screens also available to consumers, Panasonic’s well-established mantra bringing ‘Hollywood to your Home’ has never rung more true,” the company said.


First OLED TVs with HDR10+
FZ950 and FZ800 are the first OLED TVs to support HDR10+, the premium HDR format built on dynamic metadata. While Panasonic will offer an UHD Blu-ray player with Dolby Vision, the new OLED TVs will not support Dolby’s format.

In addition, FZ950 and FZ800 will support the baseline HDR10 format and HLG (Hybrid Log Gamma), and are expected to obtain UHD Premium and THX certification. Furthermore, the company said that FZ950 and FZ800 will offer ”our quickest-ever response times” via a Game mode. The input lag number was not revealed.

Panasonic continued to say that the HCX video processor is further refined in 2018. Two other new systems are ’Dynamic Scene Optimizer’ that uses ”AI to mimic dynamic metadata when playing an HDR10 source on its new 4K TVs” as well as ’ HDR Brightness Enhancer’ that aims to ”preserve the creative intent perceptively by adjusting manually or automatically how HDR content looks in a brighter room” by using a built-in brightness sensor.


- ”The biggest under-the-hood change to the HCX processor is the introduction of a completely new ‘Dynamic LUT’ system. LUT (Look Up Table) technology is used extensively in professional post-production and broadcast circles in Hollywood and beyond to ensure colour accuracy. Until now, LUTs were fixed according to the colour space used by the source; with this innovation, the HCX automatically monitors the average brightness level of a scene and uses AI to dynamically load an LUT appropriate to that scene. This brings significant improvements to mid-brightness scenes, making them look much more natural.”

The company added that FZ950 features a ”Tuned by Technics” Dynamic Blade speaker first introduced in last year’s EZ1000 model. Both FZ950 and FZ800 also include an ’Absolute Black Filter’ to minimize reflections in bright environments.

The difference between FZ950 and FZ800 is design and speaker system.

Launch and pricing details and specifications were not announced but Panasonic will host its annual convention in February so expect more information soon. FZ950 and FZ800 will launch in Europe but not the US.