TVs Made More Clear (and More Expensive) If your 1080p high-definition TV is just not good enough for you, two technologies that were on display at the International Consumer Electronics Show in January may be the upgrades you were waiting for. The first is big-screen OLED televisions, the first that are likely to make it to the market. The second is 4K TVs and DVD players, which have nearly four times the resolution of the best TVs offered today. Two OLED TVs were at C.E.S.: LG's 55-inch LG 55EM9600, and a 55-inch Samsung. Both are expected to be in stores in the second half of 2012. The beauty of OLED is multifold. The screens use little power, give off little heat, and require no backlighting - each pixel lights individually. That means they can be extremely thin, and produce fantastically true colors and rich blacks. OLEDs have been used for small displays in electronics, such as mobile phones, for years. So why haven't we seen them on TVs before? Well, we have. Sony produced an 11-inch OLED TV around 2007 called the XEL-1. It had an astonishingly vibrant picture - and cost $2,500. For an 11-inch TV. And now you see the problem. Large OLED screens are very expensive. Neither LG nor Samsung has announced what its OLED TV will cost (or released any specifications), but a good estimate would be right around "astronomical." Meanwhile, a second technology showcased at C.E.S. also promises crystal-clear viewing: the 4K standard. When you see a TV listed as 720 or 1080, that number tells you how many vertical lines of resolution the TV has. Generally, the more lines, the finer the detail of the picture. The new 4K TVs will offer 3,840 lines of vertical resolution. You'll have to spot them 160 lines to go with the 4K name. That is close to four times the resolution of a 1080 TV. LG introduced an 84-inch LED LCD TV called the 84LM9600, which it said was the largest consumer HDTV flat-panel TV sold, and it offers 4K resolution. Toshiba also brought a 4K TV, this one at 55 inches. The company demonstrated the set next to a 1080 and the difference was apparent, but not gotta-have-it startling, mostly I suspect because the TV was 55 inches. The larger the TV, the more obvious the difference will be. Called the Regza 55X3 in Japan (in Europe, the Regza 55ZL2), the TV is expected in the United States sometime this year. The cost in Japan is 900,000 yen - almost $12,000. If you remember the controversy around the introduction of 1080 TVs, you're asking, "Where am I going to get shows in 3840 to play on the thing?" Well, nowhere. The TV will have to do what the industry calls "up conversion," using digital wizardry to turn 720 TV and 1080 Blu-ray signals into 4K pictures. Sony has already announced a Blu-ray player, the BDP-S790, which will have 4K up conversion. But you might not want to be the first one in line for the 4K technology. As always, the more processing you do to a signal, the greater the chance of picture-spoiling artifacts - visual glitches that appear when the processor makes a goof. Another thing to keep in mind is that unless you are buying a very large TV - like the 84-inch LG - you won't see a big improvement by adding more resolution. Come to think of it, maybe that 1080 TV is sharp enough for the time being.