Sony OLED 27" TV in 2007???

[Foxbat]

I saw this over on the Engadget site: Sony: 1,000,000:1 OLED TV on sale in 2007 (There's a link talking about the 27" demonstration model in this link)

Here's some pictures from the Japanese language site:

Even though the base looks pretty bulky, and it's only 11", you have to admit a 3mm-thick display is damn sexy! Big question: how much???

 

[navychop]

Only the 11" model is supposed to come out in 2007. And I doubt even that will make it. But Toshiba is talking about 30" in 2009.

How much? If you have to ask.......

 

[Foxbat]

So what does OLED really stand for? Organic ElectroLuminesence Display? Organic Light-Emitting Diode? I've seen both terms tossed about, but they both seem to agree on one thing: the blue emitter has a much shorter life than the red or green light sources.

You know, it's always got to be something! Here's this drop-dead, gorgeous display technology: wide color gamut, black levels that rival CRTs, 1080p potential in a small package, and thinner than it needs to be. What's that? The blue light level will drop by 50% in 5,000 hours of use? At least with a Plasma the whole screen dimmed somewhat equally; here, the color balance will be constantly shifting towards yellow.

I dub thee "Jaundice TV"...

 

[navychop]

Organic Light-Emitting Diode.

I believe the short blue lifetime has been corrected. Overall lifetime could be improved, although some claim this is also fixed. Scaling up is the main job now, and possibly increasing brightness. You can get long life, or you can make it bright. Both together is the hard trick.

These will start off very expensive, but have the potential to be dirt cheap- like CRTs are today. They will use ink jet technology in manufacturing.

IIRC, OLEDs are current driven, while LCDs are voltage driven. That means that while each LCD pixel can be controlled with a single transistor, each OLED pixel will require something like 5 transistors in a compensation circuit.

 

[Stargazer]

I thought I read that they improved the blue emmitor lifespan to over 20,000 hours. Can one not replace it when it goes out or do you have to buy a whole new television? What would the cost of such an emmitor be?

I was wanting to hold out for when OLED's get cheap or for the laser television if there are enough benefits for having one of those. I may have to buy one before that happens and have a second one when the OLED's a different version comes out when they are improved and cheap. One can keep waiting for the next big thing then find another reason to wait for the next big thing again.

 

[navychop]

The OLED is like a sheet that has had transistors and other components painted on it. No way to replace a part. That would vaguely be like replacing a single transistor that went bad in a CPU.


"One can keep waiting for the next big thing then find another reason to wait for the next big thing again."

Yep. You'll be waiting a long time. Over a year ago I bought a JVC RPTV to "tide me over" while waiting for the technology to shake out. Very glad I did.

 

[navychop]

http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20070417/131028/