Canon Abandons SED TV Hopes

angry tapir writes "Canon has decided to liquidate a subsidiary developing a flat-panel display technology called SED, effectively bringing to an end once high hopes that the screens would replace LCD panels and plasma displays in living room TVs. Development of SED (surface-condition electron-emitter display) screens began in 1986 at Canon and was joined in 1999 by Toshiba. SEDs combine elements of both CRT (cathode ray tube) and LCD (liquid crystal display) technologies. As with CRTs, electrons hit a phosphor-coated screen to emit light. But instead of being shot from an electron gun, electrons are drawn out of an emitter through a slit that is only a few nanometers wide. The result is a picture that is as bright as a CRT and does not suffer a time lag sometimes seen on LCD panels with rapidly moving images."

Damn...

[mcgrew]

This display sounded good until I read TFA. Bottom line: they cost too much.

In 2007, Canon said it would further delay commercialization as it sought to bring down production costs. It was to be the last announcement on the technology until this week, when Canon said it would bring development back to its central labs.

Work is expected to continue on SED for use in specialist displays but its days as a living-room technology appear over.

Re:Why not LED?

[A Friendly Troll]

There is no such thing as a "LED screen". What you are talking about is LED-backlit LCD panels. They pretty much do nothing important compared to regular CCFL backlighting, apart from having somewhat lower power consumption and more correct colour temperature. Everything else is more or less the same, including the black level and the contrast.

Re:Why not LED?

[annex1]

Not entirely true. LED backlights are controllable and switch off in banks. This is significant because the backlighting can turn off in areas where there is very dark "black", increasing the contrast ratio quite a bit. With a CCFL backlight it is always on, so you have a backlight bleeding through the dark areas on-screen.

Re:how thick are the TV's?

[Surt]

Good news: the 3d tidal wave is forcing all of the LCD makers to switch to 120 or 240 hz.
And after that, the next differentiator is going to be resolution again, e.g., you'll get sets with 2160P advertised as 'twice as smooth as HD' etc.

Re:Crap

[A Friendly Troll]

I just bought a 22" LED-backlit panel and the blacks are very black.

Only because your monitor is cheating and turning off the edge LEDs completely when it detects a black screen.

Try this: open your image editing program, create a fully black images, and add a couple of white pixels to it. Then display it full screen and see what happens. There are two possible scenarios:

1) You find out that your blacks aren't as black as you thought
2) The monitor decides to disregard those white pixels and turn off the LEDs anyway

Re:how thick are the TV's?

[nschubach]

And I'll still be unable to physically drive my display at various resolutions?

If I understand SED properly... that's no different. There's still a matrix of emitters, but they are driving less screen space... like 1 emitter per pixel.

Re:how thick are the TV's?

[Shadow of Eternity]

SED was basically a CRT with something smaller than a linear tube.

Re:Crap

[thegarbz]

I still miss my old 22" CRT in terms of display acuracy... I've yet to see any LCD that compares to it in that regard.

See this is exactly what the GP was talking about. 99% of displays on the market won't out perform it do to cheap technology. Go have a look at NEC's spectraview series of monitors, or the high end monitors from Eizo and you'll never miss your old CRT again. These monitors have wide gamuts, perfect viewing angles, and internal colour lookup tables to ensure the data displayed is simply right.

Re:how thick are the TV's?

[Anonymous Coward]

And I'll still have to deal with dead pixels?

As opposed to ghosts from screen burn in? Or how about the huge power draw of a CRT? Or what about buying a new $400 lamp for your "big screen" every 2000 hours?

And I'll still have to deal with shitty shitty shitty processing delays?

When is the last time you used an LCD? 1995? That hasn't been a problem in a very long time. I guess you probably think that viewing angles are still an issue with LCDs too?

And I'll still be unable to physically drive my display at various resolutions?

And be unable to physically damage your display by using non standard modes. Here's a brilliant idea that I'm sure nobody's thought of before, why don't you run the LCD at native resolution and SCALE the contents of the screen?

Re:Crap

[mattack2]

I still get pissed off by the damn thing glowing grey when the screen saver kicks in

If you have your computer actually power down the screen, you'll save energy AND hopefully lower your blood pressure at the same time.

Re:Why not LED?

[subreality]

-1, Wrong

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OLED [wikipedia.org]

They're rare and expensive for anything more than portable devices, but LED displays certainly do exist, and the contrast is much better than with LCDs.