SED Technology

[ShootMyMonkey]

My understanding is that early reports were that OLED would be a power saving technology although the savings in practice over LCD have been negligable.

The main reason the difference isn't so big is because all commercial use of OLED screens has been tiny ones (less than 3"). On larger screens, the difference is more pronounced because large LCDs need more powerful bigger backlights, whereas OLEDs don't need them at all. There are still resistance issues with scaling them up to very large sizes, though. Samsung, I think, had a prototype 40" OLED display, and it was supposedly miraculously low in power consumption, but I think that was about the limit of what could have been produced with those materials.

Good technology doesn't look good at only one or two resolutions

That does seem to be the trend, though. Thin displays pretty much depend on having a fixed resolution. I don't think the movement away from the bulk of CRTs is going to subside. What is really needed are some good sampling mechanisms.

 

[Moloch]

That does seem to be the trend, though. Thin displays pretty much depend on having a fixed resolution. I don't think the movement away from the bulk of CRTs is going to subside. What is really needed are some good sampling mechanisms.

Well maybe for watching video that's fine but for gaming it's unacceptable, where games come out pretty often pushing the limits of hardware.
It's also good to be able to choose a slightly lower res with higher levels of FSAA vs high res and lower levels of fsaa.

 

[Xmas]

Good technology doesn't look good at only one or two resolutions

The only way to achieve that is to have very high resolution displays (e.g. 200+ dpi on 19") where you just don't notice the interpolation.

 

[Jawed]

The only way to achieve that is to have very high resolution displays (e.g. 200+ dpi on 19") where you just don't notice the interpolation.

I dream of the day...

Jawed

 

[RussSchultz]

? link?

My understanding is that early reports were that OLED would be a power saving technology although the savings in practice over LCD have been negligable.

Ummm, OLED screens are becoming popular in portable electronics because they look so nice and bright. Unfortunately, they draw considerably more power than their TFT bretherens at the moment. Sorry, no linkies, just what experience I've had with them. (One of our customers actually had to manage the color content of their UI because an overly bright display would drain the battery too quickly.)

 

[MuFu]

Some more links.

SED hands-on at CES:

http://gear.ign.com/articles/679/679235p1.html
http://ces.engadget.com/2006/01/08/sed-up-close-and-personal/

bit-tech BrightSide LCD-LED article:

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2005/10/04/brightside_hdr_edr/1.html

TH review of Lumileds NEC monitor:

http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/10/28/a_revolution/

 

[AlphaWolf]

Ummm, OLED screens are becoming popular in portable electronics because they look so nice and bright. Unfortunately, they draw considerably more power than their TFT bretherens at the moment. Sorry, no linkies, just what experience I've had with them. (One of our customers actually had to manage the color content of their UI because an overly bright display would drain the battery too quickly.)

Well every piece of data I can find on OLED suggests much lower power draw than LCD. I do assume they mean at comparable brightness levels, so your example doesn't mean much.

I certainly don't expect a 5000 lumens OLED to use less power than a 1000 lumens LCD.

 

[Sxotty]

Well every piece of data I can find on OLED suggests much lower power draw than LCD. I do assume they mean at comparable brightness levels, so your example doesn't mean much.

That is what I have heard as well, lower power b/c no need for the backlight. Perhaps it is comparing the LCD panel with no backlight, and then yes OLEDs would use much more power.

 

[ShootMyMonkey]

I would certainly expect per-element power to be much higher as you have to deliver higher voltage and controlled current through the TFT matrix. However, the luminous efficiency of an LED is pretty high, and the viewer gets direct sight of it. As opposed to LCDs where you're polarizing and color filtering the light from the backlight as it passes through each element.

I'm pretty sure that implies that OLED screens can't get extremely huge or anything, but at least the larger the screen, the more difference there is in power. I saw something from IBM about 3 years back mentioning a 20" OLED color screen drawing 25 W (@ 300 cd/m2) -- any data for a similar LCD?. There was also that whole business with MIT a few years back about QD-OLEDs achieving near theoretical limit efficiency.

 

[Guden Oden]

What sort of lighting mechanisms do smaller LCDs use, like in cell phones, PSP, GBA Micro/DS etc? It's not CCFLs, that much I do know...

 

[nutball]

My phone uses white LEDs as a backlight (a strip of them along the side of the screen, not a matrix of them).

 

[Guden Oden]

Yea well, those phones not using LED front-lighting then.

 

[darkblu]

My phone uses white LEDs as a backlight (a strip of them along the side of the screen, not a matrix of them).

this type of backlight is commonly referred to as front light ; )

 

[nutball]

Meh, whatever.

 

[ShootMyMonkey]

I think it's not uncommon to use LED backlights for small screens these days. A few actual diode elements is more than enough for a screen that's less than 3".

 

[Tahir2]

Update:

Toshiba, Canon delay SED TV launch to Q4 2007

The companies said on Wednesday they now plan to launch surface-conduction electron-emitter display (SED) TVs in the last quarter of 2007, compared to their original plan for this spring.
Toshiba and Canon formed a joint venture in 2004 to develop and make SED panels, which are thinner and consume less energy than liquid crystal display (LCD) and plasma display panels, currently the main technologies used for flat panel TVs.
"Price falls in flat TVs have been much steeper than we had anticipated," a Toshiba spokeswoman said.
"We would like to work further on rationalisation of production and cost cuts before an actual launch," she said.

 

[Ty]

"Price falls in flat TVs have been much steeper than we had anticipated," a Toshiba spokeswoman said.

Wha? Analysts have (accurately imo) predicted price declines in flat panel sets for many, many months now.

In addition, a Toshiba spokesman mentioned that SED sets would debut at "Ferrari prices".

So if everyone has known flat panel sets were going to drop in price AND Toshiba knew their SED sets would be relatively way more expensive anyhow....I don't see how their excuse makes sense. The only thing I can think of is that they can't ramp their production expenses down enough or perfect the technology at this point. A huge delay like this doesn't bode well whatsoever for the technology.

 

[Tahir2]

Sounds like they have concluded there is no market for a $10'000 55" screen even if the technology is excellent.

It is a bit of a shame but in the long run what is another year? We have been waiting since 1999 for the partnership (Tosh and Canon) to bear much fruit.

 

[Ty]

Sounds like they have concluded there is no market for a $10'000 55" screen even if the technology is excellent.

It is a bit of a shame but in the long run what is another year? We have been waiting since 1999 for the partnership (Tosh and Canon) to bear much fruit.

Well they've either changed their minds on their "Ferrari" launch or have realized that they can't ramp the costs down quick enough to compete with PDPs/LCDs and are trying to figure out a way to do that.

And don't mind my cynical attitude, I'm that way about everything.

 

[darkblu]

oh well, one more year to bear with LCD tyranny.