OLED Screen TVs Enter the Market

By Tim Conneally | Published October 1, 2007, 5:23 PM

Sony, which has in the past been the market leader in portable music with the ubiquitous Walkman in the 80's and video games with the Playstations in the 90's and beyond, hopes to establish dominance in the flat screen TV market with the first OLED displays.

The Japanese company is currently placed behind Samsung at the top of LCD display sales.

"I want the world's first OLED TV to be the symbol of the revival of Sony's technological prowess. I want this to be the flag under which we charge forwards to turn the fortunes [of this company] around," said Sony President Ryoji Chubachi.

The diminutive 5 millimeter-thick OLED displays that Sony showcased at CES this year will be made available in Japan on December 1, the company announced.

While it showed off a 27-inch version with full 1080p and an 11-inch model with 1024x600 resolution at CES, the production model will actually feature an even lower resolution. The "XEL-1," as it is called, will be produced with an 11-inch screen registering 960x540 pixels and an even smaller 3 mm profile.

Because the organic LED market is still in its infancy, these tiny screens come with a king-sized retail price that Sony suggests is still money-losing. ¥200,000 ($1,740 USD) will get the consumer a screen that approximately shares the dimensions of a sheet of copy paper. The same amount of money will buy a 40-inch LCD screen.

The lifespan of these OLED screens is considerably less than LCD TVs as well, registering at just around 30,000 hours. The real attraction, of course, is the tiny profile and efficient energy consumption. Hopefully as the market and copyright guidelines for this technology mature, we will see leaps in its progress, as well as drops in price.

Comments

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Yes the fellow below "stormprobe" got it right.

SED is something to wait for!

It is based on CRT principles, superior colour and resolution but with a flat architecture, using electron emitters rather than a cathode ray tube.

I am so sick to death of LCD, plasma, now OLED its all bul$#t, and we are all taken for a ride.

Those of you even with high end LCDS, tilt your screens back, go on, do it now what happens?
yep, the whole colour gamut changes.

This stuff should only be used in portable devices.

"viewing angle" and "dead pixels" is something our grand kids are gona laugh at us about!

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I still use my 19" "Magview" CRT monitor manufactured back in March of 2001 (I plug it into my 320MB GeForce 8800GTS), if that makes you happy...

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SED [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface-conduction_electron-emitter_display]

Advantages
50,000:1 contrast ratio. According to IGN at the 2006 CES show, Toshiba's final versions of SEDs will ship with a contrast ratio of 100,000:1.
20 micro seconds response time.
Brightness of 450 cd/m2.[15]

Disadvantages
As with any phosphor-based technology, SED may also be susceptible to screen burn-in. This was a constant problem for people using CRT television monitors for security camera systems. Early plasmas also had this problem, but with phosphor development, the problem has largely been reduced.

OLED from sony, 1,000,000 contrast? um if oled can get past the life span of the blue particles, its gonna be way better!!

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$1,740 USD for 11 inches + The lifespan of these OLED screens is considerably less than LCD TVs.

Good luck for your "symbol of the revival of Sony's technological prowess".

I am in peace with the higher energy consumption of my low tech TV. I compensate far more by commuting to work using public transit.

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oh, yah, some days id rather walk thhen take public transit, it just is such a hastle, and if the bus is full, it goes right on by, without stopping..

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How about putting one of those in a mobile handset first? Get the dumb american public to buy it with two year contracts!

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"Get the dumb american public"

Thanks!

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If they dont in any way attempt to deceive customers about its lifespan theres not much chance of these things selling very well at all at that price.

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well can't wait to see it in person =)
got to love Sony ^^

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Let me know when SED becomes available.

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read my comment above for SED.

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11" for $1,740...Yah no thanks. I can live with a little depth to my TV for that price.

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um 11" screen for $1700+ ? how'bout NO!!!

for that money i can get myself a 1080p 42' LCD widescreen...

what a waste of money!. 11' would be good for my car. but if they drop the price to something around$100 sure. i'd buy one. i can get a touchscreen LCD 12' for about $200 anyway.

if the 11" version is $1700, what would the 27" cost? $5700 ?

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haha yah, i agree prices are too high, but thats becasue they are not as manufactured as other screens yet..
look at plasma when it first came out, and LCD, man i remember when it was 900+ dollers for a 19 inch lcd... and now they are 200?

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Wow, 11 inches for $1750? That sounds like most porn films I've heard of (a-hem). :)

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Not to get into bashing Sony (seriously I'd be saying this no matter who had produced this) but can someone explain what the point of a 27" 1080p TV is meant to be?

Had they stuck to it as a technology demonstrator I'd have seen why and what the point of it was
but
with a screen so small what is the point of it going on sale to the public?

Seriously.

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Probably because most consumers don't know that you can't even see the difference between 1080p and something else at screens smaller than 42". Awesome marketing job to get it up to 1080p to say "see, look at our new 1080p, best resolution on the market today!"

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Err - ever looked at a computer screen? 24" PC screens are > 1080p. I'm pretty sure they have a point, don't you? What I don't get is why people don't consider the computer screens for TVs. You get a better resolution and sometimes at a much cheaper price. Admittedly 30" is the limit in size, but still - that's already way beyond 1080p.

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And...why exactly would I want anything higher then a 1920x1080 screen for my TV? You do know that 1080p is the max resolution currently from any source right?

Hm...30" monitor or 50" tv set...tough decision right there ;/

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"Err - ever looked at a computer screen? 24" PC screens are > 1080p. I'm pretty sure they have a point, don't you?"

- Unless you're planning to watch TV at the same sort of distance as you use a computer monitor then no, I don't.

Do you do much TV-watching at about 20" distance?
I don't.

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"And...why exactly would I want anything higher then a 1920x1080 screen for my TV?"

- It's not just a matter of native resolution.

Screen size and viewing distance are equally important factors (but so few people are really interested in the facts relating to the physical limitations of the human eyeball).

Once you go below certain sizes, unless you are incredibly close to the screen, you cannot even see the differences
(no matter how much you want to kid yourself that you can).

Here's one for bursting a few fanboy bubbles.

Have you seen this viewing distance, screen size & resolution chart?
(click on the image to enlarge)
I ought to educate & shatter a few illusions.

http://s3.carltonbale.com/resolution_chart.html

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30,000 hours?

No thanks.

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at 1700 dollars they're practically giving them away. you'd be stupid not to run out grab one today. 11 inches you say? sounds like the perfect enhancement for my minivans head rests if i were so lucky as to own a minivan.

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Mr. Chubachi: please start your technological prowess by firing everyone at Sony Computer Entertainment. Someone has to warn you that those incompetent slackers (including the worst of them all, Kazuo "Kaz" Hirai) are making fun of your respectable company.

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"'I want the world's first OLED TV to be the symbol of the revival of Sony's technological prowess. I want this to be the flag under which we charge forwards to turn the fortunes [of this company] around,' said Sony President Ryoji Chubachi."

Well eh...*ahem*, good luck with that.

Actually, OLED technology is quite interesting. I chose not to buy plasma a while back because I knew OLED would eventually replace it, but it took a little longer to be introduced than I expected it to. Better late than never.

Good marketing punchline:

"Organic LED TV--the only TV that's truley alive"

Okay that sounded funney in my head anyway...

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You're dead right with that. I particularly like their statement that says:

"Complete cutoff, it can make the state of luminous zero!"

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"Organic LED TV--the only TV that's truley alive" - agreed

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