LG Display said on Friday that the company plans to start production of its 55-inch OLED TV (55EM960V) sometime in July. The news arrived during the company’s 4Q12 report which revealed an operating loss of 144.8 billion won ($129.3 million), its fifth consecutive quarterly loss.

Yet despite the loss, LG’s numbers seem to be improving. The company saw a 492 billion won loss in the previous quarter and a 387 billion won loss a year ago. LG is a key panel supplier of Apple’s iPad and iPhone as well as Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet, all three of which helped boost sales during the 2011 holiday season.

But given that LCD demand will remain subdued from now until at least March due to a weak global economy and low seasonal demand, the total shipments for the first quarter of 2012 will be similar to the fourth quarter of 2011. Prices are expected to remain stable, said James Jeong, Chief Financial Officer of LG Display.

“Going forward, LG Display is confident about its ability to maintain its leadership with a host of differentiated products in the global display sector even in a rapidly changing market and well positioned to achieve an early turnaround,” Jeong said.

LG will reportedly invest 4 trillion won (around $3.5 billion) this year into the OLED technology. Once production of the 55-inch OLED TV begins in July, LG expects to initially produce a conservative 8,000 substrates (8G) per month — or around 48,000 OLED TV panels. Plans for a large-scale 2013 production won’t be made until 3Q12 after the company evaluates consumer acceptance and feedback.

LG’s 55-inch OLED TV made its debut earlier this month at CES 2012, sporting passive 3D and a Full HD resolution. It weighed around 16 pounds and had a thickness of less than 4-mm. LG said that it was based on its Oxide TFT (which replaces Amorphous Silicon with a cheaper Oxide) White-OLED (WOLED) panel with color filters (RGBW).

The 55-inch OLED TV is expected to cost around $8,000 USD initially, and then drop down to around $4,000 USD in 2013.

On Wednesday during CES 2012 in Las Vegas, Samsung introduced a new service to be added to select 2012 smart Blu-ray players that will undoubtedly be good news for consumers with a huge library of store-bought DVDs.

Called Disc-to-Digital, Samsung’s new service allows users to register their ownership of physical DVDs with UltraViolet, thus granting them access to the digital version stored in the cloud. UltraViolet movies can be accessed virtually anytime and anywhere — even from multiple locations at once — through the Flixter application now available for Android, iOS and via the Samsung Smart Hub. Consumers also have the option to purchase HD quality versions of these movies, and can share digital library content with other members under the same account.

Disc-to-Digital will be available on two 2012 models for starters: the compact BD-ES6000 3D Blu-ray player and the dual-HDMI BD-E6500 3D Blu-ray player. The former player reportedly measures slightly larger than a Blu-ray disc — using a compact, cubic form factor — while retaining the latest video technologies and connectivity features. The latter model containing two HDMI inputs allows the user to connect a game console and set-top box simultaneously while still using one HDMI output port.

In addition to Disc-to-Digital, these two flagship Blu-ray players will provide a full web browser and built-in Wi-Fi connectivity to prevent users from draping Ethernet cable all across the house. Both DLNA and WiFi Direct will be supported, and powerful video processors will up-convert DVDs, older non-HD content and low-resolution streaming to full-blown 1080p.

“Building on Samsung’s legacy of innovation, the new additions to the Blu-ray player line offer consumers increasing options to enjoy an outstanding home entertainment experience regardless of the content sources,” said Sangchul Lee, Senior Vice President, Visual Display Business at Samsung Electronics. “Consumers now have an endless list of connectivity options and services for a true multi-screen experience.”

These two specific Blu-ray players are currently on display at Samsung’s booth #12004 in the Central Hall at CES 2012. Actual pricing and availability was not provided, so stay tuned.

The leader in plasmas TVs keeps stepping up its game with 16 new 3D models for 2012 and one lonely 2D set. At the top of the line is the VT50 series — 4 is unlucky in Japan — featuring the new Infinite Black Ultra Panel with blacker blacks then the 2011 VT35 and 24,576 steps of gradation, which should provide more detail in dark scenes. It’s too early to tell if this will officially dethrone the king of blacks, but we were able to appreciate the improved performance in a side by side demo.

The picture quality isn’t the only thing new, 2012 brings DLNA, a new more anti-reflective screen and a web browser that uses a smartphone app to avoid entering data with an onscreen keyboard. There are also new 3D glasses for 2012 that are much ligher and work via Bluetooth — and of course not compatible with last year’s. We wish there were more details (like price and availability) in the press release, but we’d guess this summer for less than you paid for your 2011 HDTV.

Haier just unleashed several new HDTVs (to go along with the one we saw a couple days ago) and home audio gear here at CES. First up is the EV series of 3D HDTVs that sport a “virtually edgeless picture” thanks to a super thin bezel, and come in both 65- and 55-inch versions. The EV Series also packs 2D to 3D conversion tech, Yahoo Connected TV and the company’s new Smart Home UI to access all of your media content, plus a double-sided QWERTY remote to navigate it. Next is the 23-inch Designer Series that sports an edge-lit 1920 x 1080 LED screen that comes in your choice of black, white, metallic grey or red to fit your every mood (and room color). Price has yet to be determined, but you’ll be able to get a Designer TV of your own in Q2 of this year.

Lastly, Haier is unveiling several new audio products. First, there’s the $400 3D model that has an iPhone dock built in and delivers 230 watts of 5.1 surround sound using Absolute 3D technology. Next is a super slim profile soundbar that pumps out 280 watts of sound through 2.1 channels through a speaker that’s only 1.07 inches deep for $350. Rounding things out is a ViewHD iDevice dock that works with iPads, iPhones and iPods. Priced at $99, it comes with a remote for controlling it from afar and has HDMI out in case your mobile’s meager screen simply won’t do.

Not getting your social networking fix on enough of your devices? Good news, one-time leading social networking service Myspace this week announced the launch of Myspace TV, entertainment stations that will be made available through new Panasonic Viera Connect-enabled HDTVS. The early stations will be primarily focused on music, still the site’s bread and butter, though it plans to add other entertainment options like movies, news and sports. Users will be able to interact, social network-style, commenting and sharing the content they’re watching.

Initial channels on Myspace TV will be music-focused, leveraging Myspace’s unparalleled music rights and leading library of 100,000 music videos and 42 million songs. Myspace TV will expand beyond music, however, to encompass movies, news, sports and reality channels, with a growing lineup of today’s most popular broadcast and on-demand content. Audiences will not only be able to view their favorite television programs, but Myspace TV will also allow them to chat about what they’re viewing while they’re viewing it and invite friends to watch with them virtually. The platform fully integrates social and television in new ways that add a dimension to content discovery and evolve the traditional television experience. A companion app will be available on tablets and smartphones, providing instant sync capabilities for a seamless experience.

It looks like Panasonic’s efforts to open up Viera Connect to more developers is starting to pan out, with new applications coming from bigwigs like Disney and Skype. The new apps were heavily touted in the outfit’s CES keynote as a way to expand viewers’ access to web based content — from rating their favorite movies on Flixster, to putting their kids to bed with Disney digital books. If putting books in your TV and tweeting about your favorite Mickey Mouse moments isn’t social enough for you, Panasonic’s also bringing MySpace to the small screen, just in case you wanted some of that “classic” social networking flavor on your couch.

Samsung has revealed over at CES that it’ll be matching rival LG’s 55-inch OLED TV… when a 55-inch OLED TV of its own. Not surprisingly, the outfit’s trumpeting its terrific color reproduction, the virtual absence of motion blur and face recognition. Sadly, there’s not even a model number to mark down, and a price estimate should be even harder to find. It is, however, expected to ship in the latter half of 2012. There’s no color filter needed here, either, as the self-emitting RGB sub-pixels take care of themselves; since light output on the Super OLED is controlled on a pixel-to-pixel basis, you can rest assured that your blacks will be deep and your whites bright. Other specs include a dual-core processor and 3D support, and more will be revealed when the product is ready for launching.

Back in late November last year, Lenovo’s Chinese folks teased a certain IdeaTV or LeTV for launch this year, and now we finally get to see it in its full glory. Dubbed the K91, we’re looking at a 55-inch IPS 3D HDTV running Android Ice Cream Sandwich (a first for smart TVs, yet not quite a Google TV), and inside it sits a 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon APQ8060. Dig a little deeper and you’ll also find 1GB of RAM, 8GB storage, SD card expansion, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, 10M/100M Ethernet, HDMI and USB 2.0 connectivity (which is much needed for an external hard drive to store video content). As you can see in the pictures, the K91 will come with some Lenovo cloud services, including an app store (but the TV will have over 100 apps preloaded, anyway) and video-on-demand, along with voice control and facial recognition (mainly for child lock, we presume) using its five-megapixel webcam. As always, we’ll get back to you as soon as we get information on dates and prices.

LG let us know at CES 2011 that it had 4K LCD televisions in the pipeline, but unfortunately they didn’t make it out this year. Expect for that to change in 2012, as the company just announced it’s bringing an 84-inch “ultra-definition” (3840×2160) TV to Las Vegas to go along with its 55-inch OLED. It has all of LG’s Cinema 3D and Smart TV features built-in, including support for that upgraded Magic Motion remote and voice control. There’s no official word yet on when we’ll see these on shelves or at what price, but it certainly looks production ready compared to other prototypes that have been displayed over the years. While we don’t have easy sources of 4K-res video content yet, one of the reasons LG is making the jump first is for 3D. Its Cinema 3D tech uses a Film Pattern Retarder (FPR) screen and passive glasses that result in lowered resolution, but with those extra pixels there’s no question about whether viewers are still getting at least an HD picture. So far 4K at home is the domain of Sony and JVC’s high-priced projectors, but we’ll see if any other companies show off upgrades in size and resolution of their HDTVs this year.

Samsung, Sharp and others have offered to pay $539 million to settle an antitrust lawsuit over alleged LCD panel price-fixing. Earlier this month, Samsung, Sharp and six other LCD manufacturers agreed to pay $388 million to settle price-fixing claims made by direct buyers. The settlement was part of a series of antitrust cases brought by Arkansas, California, Florida, Michigan, Missouri, New York, West Virginia and Wisconsin which were consolidated in federal court in San Francisco.

In late 2006, a probe into price-fixing allegations made by direct and indirect buyers was initiated by authorities in Japan, Korea, the European Union and the United States. Eventually many companies and executives stepped forward and pleaded guilty to criminal antitrust violations. Among them were LG, Chunghwa Picture Tubes and Sharp who reportedly agreed in 2008 and 2009 to pay $585 million in criminal fines alone. A total of more than $890 million in fines was paid out from all guilty parties.

A class action lawsuit thus followed in 2007, claiming that the companies allegedly fixed LCD panel prices, thus driving up prices for direct buyers of LCD panels and related gadgets (HDTVs, desktops, notebooks etc) from 1999 to 2006. Sharp paid $105 million, Samsung paid $82.7 million and Chimei Innolux paid $78 million — the other five paid a total sum of $122.3 million.

However now six LCD makers must pay an additional $539 million to settle antitrust claims made by indirect buyers.

In court papers filed in San Francisco on Friday, Samsung has proposed to pay indirect buyers $240 million, Sharp $115.5 million and Taiwan-based Chimei Innolux Corp $110 million. The rest of the $539 bulk will be paid by Hitachi, Chunghwa Picture Tubes, and Epson Imagine Devices. These companies have also agreed to establish antitrust compliance programs regarding the pricing and production of LCD panels, and to help prosecute other defendants.

Meanwhile, the six settling companies are now disputing the allegations. Other defendants have also yet to settle including AU Optronics, LG and Toshiba. The case is In Re TFT-LCD (Flat Panel) Antitrust Litigation, 07-01827, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California (San Francisco).