LCDs, Plasmas, and Dick Tracy

If there’s a recession on, somebody forgot to tell LG Electronics.

Kicking off the 2009 CES Press Day in Las Vegas round of press conferences with announcements about nine (!) series of LCD HDTVs, three new series of plasma sets, with additional sneak peaks of other nifty items.

All the info after the jump.

On the LCD front, LG’s range of 2009 models leans heavily on 240 Hz screen refresh technology (theirs is dubbed "TruMotion 240 Hz"), with select models featuring multi-zone LED backlighting to improve contrast and better deep black details, a traditional bugaboo of LCD flat panel TVs.

While their quoted 2,000,000:1 contrast ratio should be taken with a dim view (pun intended), our testing of other LED backlit LCD sets from Samsung and Sony has the technology putting the first nails in the coffin of conventional fluorescent tube LCD backlighting.

With the corollary benefit of reduced power consumption, which is all the rage these days (and indeed was the recurring theme of other CES Press Day "green" announcements).

Streaming video via broadband, including HD, also figured into LG’s new product unveilings, building on their earlier releases of net-enabled HDTVs and Blu-ray players that include Netflix downloads on-demand and adding CinemaNow and YouTube capabilities.

Many of the new sets feature ISFccc calibration-ready functionality, and some also benefit from audio maven Mr. Mark Levinson’s tweaks to extract better sound, a collaboration that began a year ago.

Lastly, they unveiled a true "Dick Tracy" style TV the size of a watch. Not bad for living in the future, is it?