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Displays Media Television

40" OLED Television Revealed at SID 196

Posted by CowboyNeal from the screens-of-things-to-come dept.
deglr6328 writes "Seiko Epson has unveiled a massive 40 inch OLED display prototype at this years Society for Information Display (SID) symposium in Seattle. The display was printed on to a backplane containing the drive electronics with a specialized inkjet process using Phillip's PolyLED technology. Samsung and Phillips also showed large scale OLEDs they say can also be scaled up to 'television sizes.'"
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40" OLED Television Revealed at SID More

40" OLED Television Revealed at SID

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  • And only 3 to 5 years before I can buy one... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jilbert ( 520628 ) on Friday June 04, 2004 @04:16AM (#9332910)
    They've still got development to do. 260,000 colours aren't enough!
    • True, that is only 6 bits per color.
      It will not look very good as a TV screen, I think... as an information display it is OK.
      • How many bits per color are stored on a DVD. Yep, only 6, so I guess it's good enough.

        • Re:And only 3 to 5 years before I can buy one... (Score:5, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 04, 2004 @06:12AM (#9333203)
          Sorry, but completely wrong.

          MPEG compression uses YUV color space, not RGB. Y is the luminance/intensity and uses 8 bit per pixel. U and V specify the color tone and use 8 bit each, but for groups of 4 pixels. So 4 pixels need (4*8)+8+8=48 bits, 12 per pixel. (This is useful because the human eye's has more luminance receptors than color receptors).
          In this YUV model, every pixel can have one out of 2^24 colors, because it has its own intensity, it just needs to have the same color tone as the other 3 neighbours. To reproduce the colors on a RGB screen you need 24 bits per pixel, because you can't use the intensity trick with RGB.

          See also http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url= /library/en-us/dnwmt/html/yuvformats.asp
    • LCD-TFT Monitors can also display only about 252000 colours. They create more colours by alternating between two colors every refresh. That's why displays who are manufacturer rated at 12 ms have a real refresh of more than 20ms.
      • A little OT, but here goes:

        My dad was telling me about some of his work on old custom computer equipment back in the 70s or 80s. Basically, people were saying you couldn't do regular text along with graphics on the video equipment used, but he showed that you could; he switched video modes in the middle of screen refreshes.

        Talk to an old timer who's past jobs combined electrical engineering and software engineering. You'll hear some fascinating stories about overcoming assumed limitations in resources.

        • My dad was telling me about some of his work on old custom computer equipment back in the 70s or 80s. Basically, people were saying you couldn't do regular text along with graphics on the video equipment used, but he showed that you could; he switched video modes in the middle of screen refreshes.

          That's how Elite for the BBC worked. Mode 1 (hi-res monochrome) for the spaceship vector graphics and then it would switch to mode 4 (low-res 4 colours) for the instrumentation about 4/5ths of the way through t

    • Re:And only 3 to 5 years before I can buy one... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Lord Prox ( 521892 ) on Friday June 04, 2004 @07:44AM (#9333389) Homepage
      They've still got development to do. 260,000 colours aren't enough!

      They will do 24 bits in no time and you will see them in laptops PDA's [pocketpcwire.com] cameras [kodak.com] and cell phones [gsmarena.com] sooner than you think. [geek.com]
      for more info on LEP/OLED displays try these...
      Universal display [universaldisplay.com]
      cambridge display tech [cdtltd.co.uk]
      high efficency [universaldisplay.com]
      transparent [universaldisplay.com]
      flexible [universaldisplay.com]
      stacked hi res [universaldisplay.com]

      and some apps...
      # Low-power, bright, colorful cell phones
      # Full color, high-resolution, personal communicators
      # Wrist-mounted, featherweight, rugged PDAs
      # Wearable, form-fitting, electronic displays
      # Full-color, high resolution, portable Internet devices and palm size computers
      # High-contrast automotive instrument and windshield displays
      # Heads-up instrumentation for aircraft and automobiles
      # Automobile light systems without bulbs
      # Flexible, lightweight, thin, durable, and highly efficient laptop screens
      # Roll-up, electronic, daily-refreshable newspaper
      # Ultra-lightweight, wall-size television monitor
      # Office windows, walls and partitions that double as computer screens
      # Color-changing lighting panels and light walls for home and office
      # Low-cost organic lasers
      # Computer-controlled, electronic shelf pricing for supermarkets and retail stores
      # Smart goggles/helmets for scuba divers, motorcycle riders
      # Medical test equipment
      # Wide area, full-motion video camcorders
      # Global positioning systems (GPS)
      # Integrated computer displaying eyewear
      # Rugged military portable communication devices

      My favorite is the high efficency ceiling mount. Need white light [click] there you are. Want a change of pace go for blue sky with puffy white coulds [click] done.

      These products are supposed to be cheap enough to do these things once mass production has begun.

      • >They will do 24 bits in no time and you will see them in laptops PDA's cameras and cell phones sooner than you think.
        for more info on LEP/OLED displays try these...

        We've all been hearing this since 1999.

        just because something keeps being repeated, it doesn't make it true

        we've seen a single Kodak camera screen... and not much else.

        call me when i can go buy a 19" screen at Best Buy.
    • Also - the 40 inches is made of up of very small tiles. Samsung recently announced [slashdot.org] a 17" single-panel OLED - the world's largest ever. The Epson piece pales in comparison to this. Samsung could tile their device as well and get something equally as large, or larger.
    • " They've still got development to do. 260,000 colours aren't enough!"

      If they develop good dithering hardware, it shouldn't be that noticable. However, I've seen plasma displays that weren't any good at it, so NFI if this will change. Note to the companies that do this sort of work: Solid colors are just that, solid colors, not some pretty sweater looking pattern.

  • purple? (Score:5, Funny)

    by werdnapk ( 706357 ) on Friday June 04, 2004 @04:16AM (#9332912)
    Why is the lady in that picture purple? Is the display that bright that she matches the flowers? Or is there some funky radiation coming out of that thing that has given her a nice glowing purple tan?

    • Re:purple? (Score:5, Funny)

      by davejenkins ( 99111 ) <slashdot@NOSPam.davejenkins.com> on Friday June 04, 2004 @04:19AM (#9332923) Homepage
      Why is the lady in that picture purple?

      She`s an Oompa-Loompa (the movie only showed the men... this is what their wives look like).

    • Re:purple? (Score:2, Informative)

      by inio ( 26835 )
      Whatever it is, she better watch out for any people-eaters in the area.

    • Re:purple? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by miruku ( 642921 )
      either it's a god damn bright screen, or someone has tweaked the colours (esp. blue/red) to make the purple flower standout more. which is annoying, as the clarity of a large screen oled tv is supposedly one of it's main selling points, and if they have to screw with photos of an actual set, that makes me worry..

    • Re:purple? (Score:3, Informative)

      by Wellmont ( 737226 )
      The picture on the website has been altered to give the TV that extra "umph" of advertising glory. Obviously the site or person who took the picture doesn't want to give us a good idea of what it looks like but rather a "souped" up version of it...Thus we have purple asian lady, who looks like a fashion faux pas standing nex to a horribly saturated television in an environment which has had it's magenta's and cyan's tweeked.
    • It was printed on an EPSON Printer

  • Dupe (Score:1, Informative)

    by ByteSlicer ( 735276 )
    This was already mentioned here [slashdot.org]

  • Dithered (Score:4, Funny)

    by Rosyna ( 80334 ) on Friday June 04, 2004 @04:19AM (#9332921) Homepage
    My god, porn is going to look horribly dithered on this thing. Maybe by the time it is market viable they'll have that fixed.

  • I think... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Xrikcus ( 207545 ) on Friday June 04, 2004 @04:19AM (#9332927)
    That the Epson display is not a single display at all (in that it isn't printed in one process), but a combination of smaller ones, more along the sizes of the Philips and Samsung ones.

    I have seen the Philips display and I have to say the quality was good, there is slight horizontal banding where runs of the print head touch, but that's something that can be ironed out. Not quite up to consumer TV standards, maybe, but certainly showing promise.
    • Do you have a clue on why the resolution of it is quite low compared to multiples of Philips's one?
      Considering news value, patching panels to make bigger one won't make a feature as it is.
    • I was thinking this is the case with the Epson display as well. I can clearly see a line running down the middle of the display in the close-up picture.

  • Making use of higher resolution? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by NKJensen ( 51126 ) <nkj@NosPAm.internetgruppen.dk> on Friday June 04, 2004 @04:22AM (#9332932) Homepage
    The particular display mentioned has size, not resolution as its main quality; some of the other displays mentioned have high resolutions.

    Which kinds of UI will benefit from such displays?

    Can we expect something useful from e.g. virtual 3D viewing (remember those books with embedded 3D-items hidden in 2D pictures)?
    • Initially small UIs most likely, they already use very small OLED displays on devices afterall, it's just progress to start scaling that up.

      Another advantage is that you should be able to make transparent displays with OLEDs, mounted on a sheet of glass, say.

      Not quite sure what you mean about 3d though, from that point of view I can't see it being any different from an LCD, unless the display-on-glass concept somehow helps.

    • Well for a television (Score:5, Informative)

      by Sycraft-fu ( 314770 ) on Friday June 04, 2004 @05:01AM (#9333051)
      This is pretty good. That's enough to do 720p HDTV, the second highest resolution. I mean the highest resolution worth having on a TV is 1920x1080, that's the max HDTV goes.

      You also have to remember that bigger costs money as does higher res, and they are independant problems to deal with. That's why a 22" multi-sync computer monitor that does 2048x1536 costs more than a 36" NTSC TV with a tuner, PIP, etc. The NTSC TV onyl has to pull 720x480, makes it cheaper to produce at a given size.

      I expect OLED displays will go the same as any other. You'll be able to get desk sized displays that meet or exceed the resolution of 60" displays. The reason is simple: Computer displays are used up close for precision work, and people will drop $500+ to have a high resolution one. Large displays are susually used for entertainment, and there's just a limit to how much resolution is worth the money. After all, a display that does 4000+ pixels across does you no good if you are driving it with an HDTV signal that is less than half that.

  • inkjet is one thing, but what about on a press (Score:5, Interesting)

    by emorphien ( 770500 ) on Friday June 04, 2004 @04:23AM (#9332936)
    This is pretty cool, and it's actually one thing my research is tied to. I dunno how long it's gonna take but we're hoping to be able to print these things on a variety of press types, at much faster speeds than inkjet allowing the product to be a lot less expensive.

    Right now though it's too costly and inkjet is definitely not ideal for large scale production, but we're definitely headed in the right direction. The biggest issue is finding materials that will work in the product that can be printed. It's a big PITA.

    That and how long with the OLED display they've built last? OLEDs don't like oxygen and the damn things will basically decompose. For large expensive displays like that there's still concerns in that area.

    Either way, awesome approach, using the different colored nozzles is pretty clever, a lot of the current systems require separate coatings to be applied through various means. It'll still be a lot faster and cheaper down the road when large presses can be used.

    Someone here made a calculation, and if we could print at 2000fpm on our Sunday 2000 Heidelberg press, all the displays in the world could be printed in a couple hours. Not like that would be practical or even likely.

    • That and how long with the OLED display they've built last? OLEDs don't like oxygen and the damn things will basically decompose. For large expensive displays like that there's still concerns in that area.

      Who cares how long they last? OLED manufacturing should be cheap enough that you could realistically replace your screen every year and still be under the price of a similar LCD screen after 5-10 years. I know I'd be willing to buy a cheap new screen every 1000 hours or so if I could replace my curr

      • Hmm... how about, the environment is kinda messed up already, and having everyone throwing out their OLED TVs annually would really not help? Okay, they're meant to be environmentally more sound to produce, and probably to dispose of, but it's not an idea I'm massively fond of. If someone can come back and tell me the parts are easily recylable that would help...

        Or, skipping that argument, I don't really feel like having to move TVs around annually. Sure, OLEDs are much lighter and smaller than CRTs, and e
  • One word: COST.

    I read a little while ago about how when OLED displays age they loose there color. At the time I thought that while a TV may look nice at first, who wants to spend a grand on a TV that is gonna look bad in a couple of years.

    I was assuming of course that the price point of a large screen OLED would be comparable to a large screen LCD which is comparable to a traditional set.

    Sometimes it is nice to be wrong.

    Basicaly it sounds to me like they create a large circuit board and 'print' the pix
    • Funnily enough you're not simplifying it a great deal. Clearly it's not easy to actually do, but what they're actually trying to do is effectively just that.

      No reason why it couldn't come down in price just like anything else. More importantly though the lifetime of the OLEDs is increasing, it's hoped that by 2008/2009 they'll be good enough to be used in commercial TV sets properly.
    • imagine that eventually the price point would be so that when the colors faded you pitched the old set, bought a new one and thought nothing more of it then if you were upgrading a video game console.

      Great, now we're churning out even more consumer waste to put in landfills.

      How can this make you happy?

      • Maybe if we're lucky it'll be more easily recyclable than a CRT (i.e., it won't have all the lead and stuff), but you're right that going from a long-lasting device to a disposable one isn't good.

        At least it sounds more recycleable; it's apparantly a PCB + organic compound, which isn't that bad, right?
      • Great, now we're churning out even more consumer waste to put in landfills.

        How can this make you happy?

        Because I think about things rather than have violent knee-jerk reactions to words like "disposable"

        What does the "O" stand for? (A: "Organic") WHY does it lose quality over time? (A: It's decomposing) - I'm sure there remain plenty of environmental problems but even if they are insurmountable and the trash is persistent replacing a few or even very many paper thin sheets of OLED once every year o

    • Re:Wow, I now I understand the implications of OLE (Score:5, Informative)

      by Moraelin ( 679338 ) on Friday June 04, 2004 @05:00AM (#9333049) Journal
      "who wants to spend a grand on a TV that is gonna look bad in a couple of years." You're an optimist. With today's OLED technology it will look bad in mere months. These things make plasma TVs seem like they were built to last a lifetime, by comparison. Last I've heard, OLEDs are rated for something like 1000 hours life. At, say, 8 hours a day use, that's 4 months. (And 8h per day is already less than you'll have it in use when it gets shared between you, your SO and maybe a kid using it for the game console.) But that's not the biggest problem. The biggest problem is that the brightness doesn't even decrease uniformly across the whole spectrum. Each of the 3 colour components has its own decay time. So it probably will take less than 4 months before the image starts to get a bit of a wrong hue. I don't know about you, but I'm a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to image quality. I'm one of those nuts who bought a 9800 XT just to be able to play with 6x FSAA and 16x Aniso, and are already waiting for the X800 XT for the same reason. So something which is pretty much guaranteed to slowly go the wrong hue, I just don't need it. Not as a computer monitor, and not as a TV. Even if it was for free.

      • Re:Wow, I now I understand the implications of OLE (Score:5, Informative)

        by rve ( 4436 ) on Friday June 04, 2004 @05:37AM (#9333126)
        When I was still at uni, studying numbercrunching, one of the thing the department (phys. chem.) was working on was trying to extend the lifespan of the blue colour OLED, and to invent a white one (the holy grail as it were), research sponsored by the EU I think. The best they had lasted mere months, whereas red and monochrome (yellowish iirc) lasted pretty much indefinitely.

      • Re:Wow, I now I understand the implications of OLE (Score:5, Informative)

        by mindriot ( 96208 ) on Friday June 04, 2004 @06:05AM (#9333191)

        I think the lifetime is more around 10,000 hours. In one of the recent /. discussions relating to OLEDs there was a discussion about this, can't seem to find it though. This article [pcworld.com] does mention 10,000 hours, and so does this very interesting OLED Technology Roadmap [usdc.org] (PDF). It actually says about the performance targets that by 2004, the lifetime for 300 cd/m^2 should be about 10k hours, while for 2007 and 2010, the aim is 20k and respectively 40k hours. Note: I just skimmed that document, but it should be an interesting read...

        • I think it might be this post [slashdot.org] you are referring to?

          For the rest: This technology isn't even on the market yet. The manufacturers themselves say "we're still developing it" - duh, yeah it sucks BECAUSE IT'S NOT DONE. When the oled display you bought down at the Office Depot starts "losing color" after four months use THEN you know-it-alls might have something to discuss - until then you're just a whisper in the wind.

      • Re:Wow, I now I understand the implications of OLE (Score:5, Informative)

        by Elledan ( 582730 ) on Friday June 04, 2004 @06:17AM (#9333219) Homepage
        "Last I've heard, OLEDs are rated for something like 1000 hours life."

        That was a typo. The real number was 10,000 hours, and this is the time the blue component of an OLED display lasts before fading. The green and red components last about 20,000-30,000 hours. There is still a lot of improvement to be made in stabilizing the organic componenents of OLEDs, so expect those numbers to improve over time.

        Also, don't forget that an LCD display last also about 10,000-15,000 hours, after which the backlight has to be replaced (usually about as, if not more expensive than buying a new display). CRTs don't last forever, either. After about 20,000 hours the brightness of a CRT will gradually degrade.

        Considering that OLED is a relatively new technology it would be quite foolish to label it as being impractical/useless, since there is still a lot of room for improvement (we're looking at prototypes here!).
        • At 8 hours a day of active use thats 7 years for a CRT. 7 years is beyond what most computers last versus 3 1/2 for LCD/ OLED which means you might have to replace the monitor while you still have the computer.

          My Phillips 19" crt does 1900x1440 and cost about $250 new two years ago...so unless you need desk space...I really dont see why LCD monitors are so hot.
          • "I really dont see why LCD monitors are so hot."

            In general, LCD displays are a joke when compared to CRTs. However, aside from the space-saving features and the 'futuristic' look of 'flat displays', LCDs do have one saving (literally) feature: power-usage.

            The CRT you mentioned in your post uses probably around 150-200 Watt whenever it's on and displaying something. This, coupled with the generated heat (some 'broken' monitors are fixed by modding them to include a fan) are the reason why large CRTs can
            • > Only thing I haven't any solid data on is the
              > likelihood of dead pixels with OLED displays,
              > although it can be assumed that this will be far
              > more rare than with TFTs, considering that the
              > production process is far less complex.

              I'd think that 'dead pixels' are caused by having a broken transistor activating or not a pixel, I'd think that for OLED you need the same type of transistor activating or not a pixel, so why the 'dead pixel' problem be different?

              I'd think that it could be diffe
        • > Also, don't forget that an LCD display last also about 10,000-15,000 hours, after which the backlight has to be replaced (usually about as, if not more expensive than buying a new display).

          That may be true for smaller (computer) displays, but not for HDTVs. RP LCD TVs themselves cost about $3000 for a 50" and the lightbulbs are well under $500.
        • Even at 10,000 hours for one colour component and 20,000 for the others, the time before you start seeing a different hue is still going to be mere months.

          After those 10,000 hours, the blue component will have lost half of its brightness, while the green and red are still going decently strong at 75% of their original brightness. I.e., you have a hefty 50% more yellow in that image than you should.

          In fact, copy the following into a file called "test.html", open it in your browser, an that's what your whit
      • As a consumer option, this technology has a long way to go. As it stands now, with their 1000 hour life, uneven color decay, and the potential for waste buildup... no company would ever try to market this as a viable consumer product. The point of this demonstration is proof of concept. To that end I think they have done an incredible job. This is a brand new technology with some admitted faults, but they have sucessfully demonstrated that it has the potential to be commercially viable in the future. N

  • Can't wait (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    mmmmmmm, Baywatch
  • When's the Heathkit coming out??

    Or the inkjet catridge refill kit so I can print them on my Epson Stylus??

  • I call BS (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 04, 2004 @04:29AM (#9332961)
    http://optics.org/articles/news/10/6/4/1/samsung

    This is photoshopped. The image on the screen is more clear that the detail of the stand it is framed in. The detail of the image on the screen and the fram should be on a par. But they are not.

    That is BS. Credit of the photo is samsung themselves, so nobody outside of samsung saw it for real.

    I am not saying samsung doesn't have an OLED display, I am just saying that that picture is a crock of PR shit if ever I saw one.

    I am hoping I am wrong and we get awesome screens in the future.... but I just can't believe that photo.

    You must also be suspicious of me being a samsung astroturfer "I can't believe it".

    tinfoil hats abound

  • This may be redundant.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sinner0423 ( 687266 ) <sinner0423@gm[ ].com ['ail' in gap]> on Friday June 04, 2004 @04:49AM (#9333016)
    But why is it that every single flat panel television is just completely too expensive? I love looking at them when I go shopping, but I fail to see the point in spending between $2000-$5000 for one of these displays. I don't care how many languages it speaks or what O/S it runs. What is the problem here? Is it really that expensive to produce large scale OLED/LCD/plasma displays? It seems regular ol' televisions have gone down in price, why not these larger flat panels? Is it going to be another 10-20 years before I can afford a reasonably priced unit?

    • Re:This may be redundant.. (Score:5, Informative)

      by pe1chl ( 90186 ) on Friday June 04, 2004 @05:21AM (#9333098)
      Probably 2 things:

      1. People want to buy them at that price

      2. They are more expensive to produce than CRTs.

      The picture ain't that good either. The geometry is better than a badly-aligned CRT (standard in consumer TV sets, even of $2000!), but the color quality is much, much worse. The responsetime is usually not good either, and while the viewing angle is getting bette, there usually is a blue or green background color when looking at a large angle.

      I am looking around for a new TV set. I checked some different makes of CRT TVs and it amazes me how bad the geometry is on 2000 Euro TV sets, when compared to 200 Euro computer monitors. And it usually is not even customer-settable! Every computer monitor has these 5 buttons that allow you to align many things using an onscreen menu, but on TV sets this is hidden in a service menu that is only accessible when you know the secret code.
    • Is it really that expensive to produce large scale OLED/LCD/plasma displays?

      Yes.

      It seems regular ol' televisions have gone down in price, why not these larger flat panels?

      Completely different technology.

      Is it going to be another 10-20 years before I can afford a reasonably priced unit?

      No, more like 3-5 years. Just like rear-projection HDTV's used to be super expensive, now you can get them for $2000.

      But I wouldn't look for a big price drop with flat panels until OLED starts cranking...
    • >I fail to see the point in spending between $2000-$5000 for one of these displays. I don't care how many languages it speaks or what O/S it runs.

      Hmm... yup, looks like I guessed right. You've only been a Slashdot user for a week, haven't you? First post 7 days ago.

      Give it time.

      Soon you won't even care what it does; as long as it runs Linux or has a Transmeta CPU in it, you'll want one. $5000 will seem completely acceptable for a TV set, so that you can play a pointless but cool-looking eye-candy demo

  • A question (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ThinWhiteDuke ( 464916 ) on Friday June 04, 2004 @04:59AM (#9333046)
    Can any knowledgable slashdotter answer a simple question: Why is it difficult to produce large OLED display? I understand that it more or less amounts to printing the pixels onto a substrate. If one can make 17" OLED display, where is the engineering complexity in making a 40" display?

    • Re:A question (Score:4, Funny)

      by LiquidCoooled ( 634315 ) on Friday June 04, 2004 @06:15AM (#9333208) Homepage Journal
      Thats an easy one to answer!

      they have only got an A4 printer...
    • If one can make 17" OLED display, where is the engineering complexity in making a 40" display?

      It probably has to do with manufacturing yield. For every pixel and/or unit of area on the display, their is a certain probability that there will be a defect in that pixel/area. Say your process is known to produce one defect per 10-million pixel-sized areas on a 17" 1024x768 display. For each screen, you have about an 8% chance there will be at least one bad pixel. If you scale that up to a 40" display,

  • it's spelled philips (Score:2, Informative)

    by wdebruij ( 239038 )
    it's spelled `philips', not phillip's or phillips. Just look at the URL.

  • Durability? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I thought OLED's still had issues with durability.
    Red & green lasting for 20.000 hrs, but blue for only about 2.000 hrs. They probably solved that problem, but I can't find any info on it.
  • Given that analogue TV sets/monitors can effectively do a virtually infinite range of colours how exactly is this an advancement? But then again , lots of things in the digital domain pretend to be great when they first come out but are actually a step backwards compared to the analogue alternative (eg 14 bit CD players vs Vinyl, MP3 vs CD, DAB vs FM) and people swallow it hook & line...
  • Go with the tube, its more reliable, cheaper, and the picture is great. Plasma/LCD can't even display true 1080i anyway, which requires 1920 x 1080 resolution, which a lot of HD broadcasts are in - your shiny new Plasma TV has to downsample the image. If you're just looking to get in the HD game, a 30" tube is an incredible upgrade and its pretty affordable.
  • OK, I'm not a chemist or anything like that, so I'm potentially stupid when it comes to stuff like this. However, I did get from the article and other discussions of OLED tech that one of the primary barriers to working with them (or rather one of the things which causes problems over time) is that they're unstable when in contact with oxygen. So my seemingly obvious question is, after you print the OLEDs onto the screen, why not put a layer of clear sealant or something over it? Would that not work, or
  • Does anyone here have an idea about the lifetime of OLEDs? I wouldn't want to have to buy a new TV every year or so...
  • The OLED industry should have been fully commercialized 4 years ago. However, for whatever reason, the industry didn't take a clue from the semiconductor folks and, as a result, has been reinventing the wheel the silcon industry invented 30 years ago. Time after time I hear the OLED manufacturers having problems with black spots on the screen (i.e. OLED device failure), resolution problems, and short display lifetime. I just shake my head because the silcon industry did the exact same thing 30 years ago.
  • Organic Light Emitting Displays are MADE OF PEOPLE!
  • If one of the things that contributes to the early death of OLEDs is oxygen, why not just build them in a closed-type system? Existing monitors are already built with a vaccuum, any reason an OLED diplay couldn't be stuck against a glass/clear-plastic screen inside an airtight enclosure?
  • I was just reading Philips' Research page [philips.com] on PolyLED technology. It's very informative for a layperson, though written before color OLED was shipping - I think in 2002. It has a nice graphic of some typical polymer molecules used: "poly(p-phenylenevinylene), and poly(fluorene". Apparently they're small molecules based on benzene-type rings (IANA organic-chemist). It also has a diagram of the device and descriptions of how it works, talking about electrons and holes and such.

    It also talks about using dyes to modify output color, and mentions that efficiency (as of the time of writing) is about 4%, which is not high. Improvements have no doubt occurred since then.

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