Could it be...the resurrection of OLED ?!

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

LG announce a 55 inch, 4mm OLED TV that's much cheaper to make:

New record-breaking televisions are compulsory at the Consumer Electronics Show each year, and LG will be among the companies this year staking claim to HDTV sets that go where no TV has gone before. The South Korea-based electronics giant announced over the weekend that it will be showing off the world’s largest OLED TV at CES 2012 next week. With a panel that measures 55 inches diagonally, LG’s new HDTV features an infinite contrast ratio, 4-Color Pixels, Color Refiner and a nearly borderless design with a bezel that is only 4-millimeters wide. ”Working closely with LG Display, we have a product which not only delivers on all the advantages of OLED over LCD but at a significantly lower cost than what could be achieved using existing OLED manufacturing technologies,” LG Electronics Home Entertainment Company CEO Havis Kwon said in a statement. “OLED is clearly the future of home TV entertainment and LG is very focused on making this exciting technology as easy as possible for consumers to embrace.” LG’s full press release follows below, along with another image of LG’s new HDTV.

 

[Davros]

4 colour pixels ?
any price ?

ps: I have an oled watch

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

Well to be honest, OLED is pretty widely used in small forms such as phone screens, but it looked pretty dead for the last few years for large formats such as TVs, despite the technology's original promise. I've been waiting a long while for a better-than-LCD screen technology for home TVs. If what LG say about making it cheaper is true, then it might actually be a viable alternative to LCD.

 

[Jawed]

Mmm, a 40" 200dpi monitor for a computer should be possible within, what, 3 years? Fingers-crossed.

 

[fellix]

Last I heard is that the main issue with larger OLED panel sizes is the precision of "printing" the matrix in an exact ordered pattern, and that makes the manufacturing of larger screens rather slow and expensive.

 

[AlphaWolf]

7.5kg... I wonder if it works out to being cheaper than gold when they announce the price.

I'll reserve the right to be excited after it goes on sale and is reviewed well (I wonder about the colour reproduction as that has been a long standing issue). Being lighter and thinner was a lot more important when TVs were a foot thick, now that they are a few inches (or less) thick that alone isn't going to carry them, it's going to require a top notch picture.

 

[Sxotty]

Well to be honest, OLED is pretty widely used in small forms such as phone screens, but it looked pretty dead for the last few years for large formats such as TVs, despite the technology's original promise. I've been waiting a long while for a better-than-LCD screen technology for home TVs. If what LG say about making it cheaper is true, then it might actually be a viable alternative to LCD.

We already have better than LCD screen technology and always had

 

[Mize]

Notice it's only cheaper to make than older OLEDs, not LCDs.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

Notice it's only cheaper to make than older OLEDs, not LCDs.

Yeah, but it's a first step. Once you get into production and can improve processes and get some economies of scale going, then it turns into a viable product rather than just a lab experiment that's more expensive to bring to market than a mature, cheaper, but not as good technology.

 

[Grall]

As long as the pixels don't wear out it'll be OK. I'd hate to have ghostly images of my web browser, task bar and other stationary shit visible while gaming or watching video. That's just not acceptable.

LED lightbars for LCD monitors wear too, but they wear more uniformly (well, at least in intensity; maybe not in color temperature), and more importantly, they don't have a memory of previously displayed imagery of course...

For this reason I'll take a long, hard look at anything OLED-related before buying.

 

[Sxotty]

Yeah grall that is why plasma is a pain, but plasma was pretty good in visual quality for quite some time.

 

[Mize]

Yeah grall that is why plasma is a pain, but plasma was pretty good in visual quality for quite some time.

My Panny plasma kicks the shit out of my LCD, but the LCD is better for gaming since kids tend to leave things on and plasma has a pretty significant aging curve.

 

[Xenus]

Mmm OLEDS and now CLEDS from Sony as well. Which will be interesting to see if they ever make it into production since Sony started out pro-OLED.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

A thread resurrection about a technology resurrection (again).

So, I was with the wife in a department store looking at a new sofa, and we went into the TV section (I'm keeping an eye out for a new one). I'm pretty fussy, and there's nothing I've seen that has been perfect. It's always been a choice of which compromises I will have to make. Then I saw the Samsung KE55S9C.

Holy crap! The picture on this thing is perfect! A Samsung sales woman intercepted us, and we got chatting, and she said they had sold so many of them even at this price. It's beyond what I can afford for a TV, but both I and the saleswoman seriously lust after this thing, even though neither of us can afford it. Not just for the HD demo reels that make it look spectacular, but even freeview HD channels looked amazing. I'd love to see it playing some Blu-ray movies.

If you get a chance to see one of these in action, do so. It is the future of TV. There are other LED screens that are good, but this thing makes them pale in comparison. I compared it to the 4K Sony TV, and if I had the money, I'd still buy the Samsung OLED even though the Sony is larger, 4K resolution, and two thousand pounds cheaper - the picture on the Samsung is that much better. It's just somehow more satisfying to look at.

Seriously, the Samsung drew crowds, whilst no one noticed the Sony. The saleswoman said "we've got a 4K TV over there, but we don't bother with it much because we're selling more of these."

 

[imaxx]

If you get a chance to see one of these in action, do so. It is the future of TV. There are other LED screens that are good, but this thing makes them pale in comparison. I compared it to the 4K Sony TV, and if I had the money, I'd still buy the Samsung OLED

...

Samsung quality is lower and still it is... especially compared to a Sony (or to triluminous).
From a technical point of view... from a marketing one, there is no comparison.

 

[Grall]

At seven thousand quid it's nowhere near worth its cost regardless how good, unless you're constantly pissing money out your wingawang... Even at half the cost it can't compete with LED TVs, 95% of all people just can't justify spending that much money on a piece of consumer goods electronics.

How long will that OLED screen last anyway? If the pixels wear enough that you start seeing ghost images after a year or so you're screwed.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

...

Samsung quality is lower and still it is... especially compared to a Sony (or to triluminous).
From a technical point of view... from a marketing one, there is no comparison.

Funilly enough, top of my shopping list is a Sony W9 Triluminous, because I can afford that and it has great picture quality, but the Samsung OLED is really stunning. You have to see it before you tar it with the same brush as the mainstream Samsung LEDs. Picture quality is a world above the "normal" Samsungs.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

At seven thousand quid it's nowhere near worth its cost regardless how good, unless you're constantly pissing money out your wingawang... Even at half the cost it can't compete with LED TVs, 95% of all people just can't justify spending that much money on a piece of consumer goods electronics.

That is true. I certainly can't justify it, but they are still selling loads. The saleswoman said we might see prices start to come down next year as they sell more of them. At the current time, with so few competing OLED screens on the market, and with so many people willing to buy them at the current crazy price, there's no reason for Samsung to sell them any cheaper.

I know people that don't balk at spending several thousands on a pair of speakers. Same again for an amp, same again for a DVD player, etc. If you've got the money and it's your hobby, the cost is no barrier.

How long will that OLED screen last anyway? If the pixels wear enough that you start seeing ghost images after a year or so you're screwed.

I'm pretty sure the big delay in getting OLED out to the world has been cost of manufacture, and getting a decent life out of the screen. The latter problem would have to be fixed before they can sell these screens. Otherwise, the technology would be killed dead as it got a reputation for failing and fading screens.

JL sells TVs with a five year warranty, so if there were any issues, you'd have a come back. Certainly in the UK, if a TV started to fail due to design/manufacturing faults you'd have recourse of the "not of merchantable quality/fit for purpose" complaint. There's no way they could defend a failing panel on a seven grand TV.

 

[Grall]

I know people that don't balk at spending several thousands on a pair of speakers.

Speakers are different though since they basically don't wear. They could literally last you a lifetime, anything electronic will be dead within 25 years at most usually, due to dry caps if nothing else, or mechanical components like switches giving up.

There's no way they could defend a failing panel on a seven grand TV.

That's what I'm thinking too, but since I haven't seen it confirmed that the pixel wear problem has been solved I will choose to remain wary until it is proven to me otherwise.

 

[Wynix]

A thread resurrection about a technology resurrection (again).

So, I was with the wife in a department store looking at a new sofa, and we went into the TV section (I'm keeping an eye out for a new one). I'm pretty fussy, and there's nothing I've seen that has been perfect. It's always been a choice of which compromises I will have to make. Then I saw the Samsung KE55S9C.

Holy crap! The picture on this thing is perfect! A Samsung sales woman intercepted us, and we got chatting, and she said they had sold so many of them even at this price. It's beyond what I can afford for a TV, but both I and the saleswoman seriously lust after this thing, even though neither of us can afford it. Not just for the HD demo reels that make it look spectacular, but even freeview HD channels looked amazing. I'd love to see it playing some Blu-ray movies.

If you get a chance to see one of these in action, do so. It is the future of TV. There are other LED screens that are good, but this thing makes them pale in comparison. I compared it to the 4K Sony TV, and if I had the money, I'd still buy the Samsung OLED even though the Sony is larger, 4K resolution, and two thousand pounds cheaper - the picture on the Samsung is that much better. It's just somehow more satisfying to look at.

Seriously, the Samsung drew crowds, whilst no one noticed the Sony. The saleswoman said "we've got a 4K TV over there, but we don't bother with it much because we're selling more of these."

Is this an advertisement? it sounds like an advertisement.