Is OLED TV Technology In Jeopardy? 99
MojoKid writes "Sony recently announced it would halt sales of its 11" OLED TV in Japan, where the panel first debuted. For now, the XEL-1 will remain on sale in the US and other markets, but Sony's decision to kill the unit in its home market and reduce the rate at which it's investing in future OLED TV development has been perceived in some corners as a judgment on the long-term feasibility of OLED technology. In the wake of Sony's announcement, far too many pundits have rushed to declare OLED panels dead, dying, moribund, or otherwise abandoned. However, it seems more likely at this juncture that we'll see development focus shift from large panel sizes to smaller ones, particularly since the smartphone/handheld OLED market is growing briskly and larger screens are inherently more prone to defects. Sadly, this means that your chance of traipsing home with a truly cutting-edge display before 2014 or so could be pretty minimal."
Or maybe ... (Score:3, Informative)
There will be no more variable resolution displays (Score:4, Informative)
but a thin display without native rez, and CRT colour quality is still my dream
The variable resolution of CRT was a technological artifact, resulting from the NEED to scan across the display. We no longer have that need.
Going forward all consumer displays(in foreseeable future) will have a set, native resolution.
You get a sharper display, and you get perfect geometry. I will take that over blurry/variable geometry CRT any day.
Re:Hmmm (Score:5, Informative)
It was state of the art when it was announced, but the state of the art is always on the move. The reason XEV got pulled is that Sony has decided to spend it's money on RnD instead of fighting over razor thin margins in OLED production. Smart move considering the market conditions.
Make no mistake however, SONY is not surrendering the market, just making a tactical withdrawal. They will be back in a few years time with some new state of the art technology.
Re:Jeopardy (Score:4, Informative)
At first I thought this article meant that OLEDs were actually the curved display panels in the Jeopardy TV show.
What's even more confusing is that it would be so plausible, especially because Sony distributes Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune.
Re:So (Score:4, Informative)
um OLED's aren't cheaper to manufacture than LCD's. They will be when full production runs can get going however, the blue problem, and actually mass manufacturing them have proven to be far harder than press release like to say.
It took a good 5 years in LCD's mass manufacturing before dead pixels weren't common.
Re:There will be no more variable resolution displ (Score:3, Informative)
CRTs also had a native rez too, it just wasn't as hard a mark. Any pro CRT, and most consumer ones, would have a recommended resolution. That wasn't for nothing. That was the rez at which is functioned best. You'd get the over all clearest image. Go too much above it, and pixels would get blurry and indistinct. Go too much below it and you'd see scanlines and such.
This is also much less of an issue with today's video cards. They can easily drive high rez displays, usually even cheap ones can handle it. The ability to knock down your resolution was something more useful when graphics memory was at a premium. That is no longer the case.
Rumors of OLED's death are greatly exaggerated (Score:5, Informative)
This is being blown out of proportion.
The XEL-1 was discontinued in Japan because new TV sets sold this year will require a "V-chip" parental control, and a $2,000 11" TV doesn't justify a redesign to add that feature. The XEL-1 is still going to be sold in the US and Europe.
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ja&tl=en&u=av.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/news/20100216_349284.html [google.com]
Also, Sony is still going ahead with their 22B yen ($210M) investment in OLED
http://www.trustedreviews.com/tvs/news/2008/05/22/Sony-Boasts-of-22-Billion-OLED-Investment/p1 [trustedreviews.com]
Moreover, at the 2010 CES Sony just finished showing off a 24.5" OLED set that does 3D.
http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/07/sony-oled-3d-tv-eyes-on/ [engadget.com]
As Mark Twain said, can be applied to OLED, "rumors of my death are greatly exaggerated"
Re:There will be no more variable resolution displ (Score:5, Informative)
It is a real issue, particularly for older users or the visually impaired, that a 21inch CRT driven at 800x600, or some similarly low resolution will look pretty much fine, while a 20inch LCD panel will look like a blocky, badly scaled, mess. This is only because resolution independence isn't really Quite There Yet for most software. Sure, you can change the DPI settings; but that will break a host of legacy crap, and have no effect whatsoever on things like certain games that draw their own entirely custom interfaces.
Once the resolution independent vector-goodness finally filters down to the point of being actually usable in real world software setups, "native resolution" will no longer matter in the slightest, except as defining the upper bound for a given monitor.
Re:So (Score:5, Informative)
Active matrix OLED displays are actually really hard to manufacture compared to TFT LCDs.
A major issue comes from the fact that the TFT backplane has to supply an appreciable current to each pixel, rather than just a voltage as in LCDs. This means you can't get away with using amorphous silicon, you have to make the backplane out of Polycrystalline silicon which makes the whole production process a lot more complicated and also limits the size of panel that you can make.
Also, you generally you want to run the OLED elements in constant current mode, so you end up needing a current source circuit in each pixel. This increases the number of transistors you need per pixel from 1 or 2 in TFT to between 2 and 6 with OLED. And if any of them has a fault then you've got a dead pixel.
Re:So (Score:2, Informative)
The Low power consumption isn't all that... When displaying black, they do use a lot less power than LCDs, but when displaying bright, or white colours, they can be using substantially more.
On practical displays like TVs and computers screens, this is a problem, since you've got a lot of bright colour.
On a PC, you've got mostly white for documents and websites- so all of a sudden, you can actually end up using a lot more power.
The other downer, is that OLEDs are rubbish under sunlight, even by LCD standards.
It might be that with proper RnD, these faults can be sorted out, the power consumption can be lowered to what they say it is, reflective brightness improved, etc- but it makes more sense to be on the LCD bandwagon with everyone else right now, than throw money at a technology that's probably going to be obsolete by the time it's matured...