At CES, TV makers show off lighter, sharper sets As always, the Consumer Electronics Show, the world's largest personal technology confab, has been filled with hundreds of new TVs, some as small as a cellphone to others as tall as a basketball player. In fact, there have been so many announcements that it might be tough to keep up with them all if you're actually looking to CES to help you decide what your next TV set will be. No worries, here's a primer to help you cut through the noise. LG Electronics, the South Korean electronics maker, unveiled a 55-inch OLED TV that is just 3/16 of an inch thick as well as a whopping 84-inch TV with 4K-display resolution. What is OLED and 4K? OLED, or organic light-emitting diodes, are more energy efficient, thinner and provide better black levels when compared with standard current LEDs used in TVs today. LG's 55-inch OLED TV weighed in at just under 17 pounds. But OLED is also more costly to produce than LED TVs, which means they'll be more expensive to consumers. Just about every TV maker threw out claims at CES that their displays provided the best picture. Samsung, the other South Korean electronics giant, rolled out its "super" OLED sets, promising that its prototype display offers "the ultimate in vividness, speed and thinness, with true-to-life picture quality, enhanced color accuracy and motion picture quality even in the fastest scenes." 4K TVs have also been a major trend at CES in Las Vegas this year. The promise of 4K TVs is a display whose resolution is much higher than that of today's highest resolution high-definition TVs, which currently top out at 1080p. The 4K TVs will make their way into stores late this year. A bit confused by all the terms? 1080p refers to TVs with a resolution of 1,920 x 1,080 pixels, or about 2 million pixels. The newer 4K standard refers to TVs with a typical resolution of 4,096 x 2160 pixels, or about 8 million pixels. Sharp Corp., the Japanese TV maker, is taking the resolution jump further than its rivals and introduced a prototype 8K TV, which it says will offer double the resolution of a 4K TV set, or a resolution of about 16 times higher than a 1080p TV. So far, not much 4K video content is available (most HDTV channels are 720p), but many filmmakers are moving toward shooting in 4K with newer digital cameras. The bottom line with OLED and 4K (or 8K) TVs is that viewers will be able to see sharper and brighter images on even larger screens that are, counterintuitively, lighter than even smaller-screen TVs currently available. But not all new TVs coming to market will be big-screen sets. Sharp also introduced a line of wireless Aquos Freestyle TVs that are built thin and light and can actually be picked up and moved around a home. The idea is maybe you'd want to take the TV out in the backyard for a couple of hours, or maybe into another room for a bit for a party. Portable? Mobile? The Aquos Freestyle sets were shown off in 20-inch, 31.5-inch, 40-inch and 60-inch models. Controlling your TV Remote controls are also getting a makeover - in an effort to make them more user friendly. LG said it would make its Magic Remote, which acts like the Wii remote used by Nintendo's Wii video game console, usable with more TV sets. With the motion-sensing Magic Remote in hand, a user can navigate on-screen TV menus, settings and even change channels.