Nicely placed at the tail end of the Summer, Berlin's annual IFA (Internationale Funkausstellung) home entertainment show gives us a chance to get up close and personal with a whole raft of AV kit after only an hour's flying time. The trouble with CES in Las Vegas is that 1) You have to gamble to keep yourself amused, 2) It's massive and 3) it's too cold to sit outside with a beer.

No such problems in Berlin where, although the show covers a massive 30 halls, it's all in one place – the massive Messe Berlin. And it's showy too, since it's open to the public. Like Hannover's CeBit computing show, things can be a bit German-centric, but it's a big show and all the top names are there, usually in force. As we've said in one of our IFA previews, last year the show was attended by 222,780 visitors, and covered by 6,600 journalists.

OLED the star

For us, the main interest will be in OLED screen tech. I've already got up close with a XEL-1 Sony prototype in London, but Samsung looks likely to join the party this IFA, so watch this site for coverage of its press conference tomorrow. Sony also demonstrated a larger-screened OLED display at CES earlier this year, so we might glimpse that again in Berlin.

3D TV will also be seen around the show, following on from the Samsung demo we saw at CES. There's some speculation the company could even show off a 31-inch model.

There'll also be more of what we saw at CES – thin screen tech. Pioneer showed us a 9mm thick plasma there, so we'll see what happens this time around. That was a prototype, but we'll also see mainstream LCD panels with thicknesses down to the 1.5cm mark. And expect a good dollop of manufacturers making noises about their green credentials, too.