Slashdot Mirror
40" OLED Television Revealed at SID
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.'"
FP!!!!!!
They've still got development to do. 260,000 colours aren't enough!
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?
This was already mentioned here
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.
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.
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)?
-- From Denmark
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.
Presently here, but not there.
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 pixels on top of it with a large ink jet printer.
I know I am simplifying it tremendously, but it sounds a hell of a lot less costly then traditional and LCD sets.
Am I right to assume that something like this could seriously come down in price?
I 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.
OLEM displays.
Organic
Light
Emitting
Mice
Don't tell PETA they will flip and we will all be out a cool technology.
mmmmmmm, Baywatch
When's the Heathkit coming out??
Or the inkjet catridge refill kit so I can print them on my Epson Stylus??
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
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.
As allways in these OLED dicussions the question is: /. brings a story about that, ThEn OLEDs gets really really interesting (as opposed to now: they are 'just' really interesting;)
How long before the display starts to degrade?
In other words: Have they solved the problem with OLEDs that they start degrading after a record holding short time?
When
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?
Mmm, and if they're edible and taste like cheese, I see a great opportunity!
Presently here, but not there.
I just need this one part to finish my Interocitor and communicate with Metaluna
--- Yx3 = Delilah ---
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?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
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?
Funny you should say that. At high school my friend was asked in his electronics exam what LED stood for. He got a bit mixed up with LEDs and LCDs and answered Liquid Emitting Diode.
http://www.perthonline.net
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?
It would be nice to be sure of anything the way some people are of everything.
"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.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
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.
it's spelled `philips', not phillip's or phillips. Just look at the URL.
So long as the quality and price justify it. My speakers cost about $2000 for a pair of them. Because of that expense, I expect that they will last for quite a long time, and they will. They are well build, from materials that last. Provided they aren't abused, there's no reason they can't work for 20-50 years. However, if you could offer me speakers with equal or greater quality that cost only $100, but would last only a year, I'd buy them.
It's a win for me, any way you hash it. First, technology is going to improve enough in 20 years, that I'd want to replace my speakers before then anyhow. This lets me basically stay on the cutting edge all the time. Second, it makes damage much less of a worry. I have to be careful with these speakers, as it would be a major expense to replace them. I would not need to worry so much if I'd only be out $100. Finally, the value of a dollar today is more than the value of a dollar tomorrow (because of inflation). I'd be better of economically to spend $100/year and invest the rest than $2000 now.
All that OLEDs will need to do is be cheap enough in comparison to the competition, and the disposable idea works fine. If they cost as much as LCDs, no thaks, I'll take the LCD and be happy. If they cost 1/10th as much, sure I'll take them, even if they have to be replaced once a year.
This isn't out of the realm of possibility. Remember these things are PRINTED on sheets using ink jets. Cheap technology, and we have much cheaper mass-production printers called web presses. Also the only part that needs to be replaced is the OLED screen itself, not the supporting electronics. S0 it really could end up being like razor blades. But the more expensive holder (handle) up front and then replace the screen (blade) when it needs it.
As an added bonus, OLEDs are organic (hence the O) and so not nearly the environmental problem of things like CRTs, even if replaced more often.
I just need to go change my pants. Seriously though, if the wear issue in early OLED stuff is fixed, this can't come soon enough. 2007 is too damn far away!
I just hope that the simple and reliable manufacturing methods (at least, that's how it sounds) will bring the cost way, way down. Hopefully manufacturers don't get way too greedy and price these similarly to existing tech (or higher), and gouge the consumer for massive profits. I'd imagine that wouldn't last for long, though, because a competitor could undercut such a price and still make a tidy profit per unit..
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.
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.
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.
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 does mention 10,000 hours, and so does this very interesting OLED Technology Roadmap (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...
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.
"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!).
Site & blog: http://www.mayaposch.com
It does actually occur, it might be possible to send your TV back to the manufacturer for a re-print. Still, I'd prefer to have it last, myself...
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. No one claims that it is a finished technology right now, so evaluating it as such doesn't make much sense.
Since the organic in OLED means that it is made of carbon chain compounds, rather than it being brewed from fertiliser-free potatoes, why would that in itself make OLEDs more environmentally-friendy?
Yes, there is going to be a lot less of an OLED display to dispose of than a CRT, plus it won't include a hunk of (barium? lead?) glass as a screen. To be able to say "OLEDs are organic (hence the O)" we'd need to ask whether the organic compounds are persistent in the environment.
It's not that I give two hoots for the environment, you understand, but if you know that the organic compounds in OLEDs are biodegradable / environmentally inert then I'd be interested to hear about the chemistry of them.
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...
Lifespan is pathetic! Contrast and colors fade rapidly.
This is what I have heard.
nothing is as good as a tube in 2004, but this is so short a lifespan it will generate class action lawsuits if you can get the salesmen to lie on videotape.
I asked one dude and they said 20 years.
hah!
try 3 max in constant use, or less
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.
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 is that what's already being done?
"Why Subscribe?" Good question...
I thought most things on /. were tripe?
Ooohhhh! Is THAT how big it is?
Zilch
I seriously doubt that the colors are as intense as shown in the publicity photo. Look how "purple" the model's skin is!
Good Point. A question: do broadcasters *want* a tv to last twenty years; look how hard they have to work to roll in a new broadcast technology model, and maybe manufacturers want a ongoing revenue stream from a short-lived product. Let alone the DRM implmentation and acceptance issues. So, OLEDs may not be that far off in life span?
Seiko-Epson intended to show this screen, did a press release and then.... shipping problems, or so they claim. No display to be seen at the SID!
It is by the way a tiled display, 4 20" displays put together to form a 40" one.
Could you please write the electronics firm "Philips" the right way? And not confuse it with the screwdriver type inventor called "Phillips" ?
Thanks.
There's no place like 127.0.0.1
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...
-- Cheers!
If the decay time of each of the colour components is known, then wouldn't it be fairly straightforward to compensate for this? You could even embed a handful of sensors behind the screen the measure the output brightness for a given input signal, and compensate accordingly.
And even 1000 hours life isn't a problem if the price is right. They could make monitors/tvs so that the bulk of the electronics lasts for many years, and you simply attach a new screen every month or so - you could pick it up with your groceries.
> 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.
fine. OLED should come down cheap enough pretty quick. Just buy a (robust) controller box for the tuner/HDTV receiver/whatever and replace/upgrade/whatever the plug in screen (a standard connector would be nice)whenever required - at a much lower cost. Thats one way it could go anyway...
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. They have a purity problem, plain and simple. The silcon used in IC's today is 99.99% pure; any less and there are problems particle contaminates. In contrast, today's organic conducting polymers, including Light emitting homopolymers, copolymers, oligimers, and doped and undoped Fullerenes (buckyballs, and carbon nanotubes) have purities from 95% to 99.5% when ordered from companies like American Dye Source, which is one of the best. Until the OLED industry starts controlling their particles through better, more purified suspensions and moving production into class 10 clean rooms (which has been done, but only recently), they will continue to be plagued by these problems. Looks to Seiko Epson to lead the way for OLED displays. Many companies are using traditional silcon processes to manufacture their displays while integrating roll-to-roll processing. This process is traditionally accomplished through a series of shadow masks to lay the materials down in proper order (think really fine stencil). However, Sieko has adapted their current printing technology in order to use ink jetting coupled with roll to roll processing in what I think is a better production process overall. The OLED industry is going to revolutionize the world of displays. Because, the materials and processing are so cheap compared to silcon, companies are scrambling to develop the technology to produce displays for cellphones, PDA's, and other small devices in addition to tv's and computer displays. And, while they may be priced cheaper for the consumer, the companies will still make a tremendous profit from it.
My current CRT TV will last that long ... I have long wanted to buy a projection, then a plasma and now LCD. Right when I am convinced I can put down the money something new comes along.
:)
Oh well, now that oled is here, I'll forget lcd
Wish I had mod points at the moment, I'd be tempted to mod you up just for quoting Repo Man in your sig.
"Find one in every car..."
Relax. They're organic, right? ;)
no go....go and hug a tree...
I only mod up parents of "mod parent up" posts...
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 white will look by then:
<html>
<body bgcolor="#C0C080">
asdfg
</body>
</html>
Yes, _that_ horrible.
But that's already _way_ past the point where you're starting to notice it. I'm betting that a tenth of that time is where it already starts looking wrong.
I.e., we're back at the 1000 hour figure, aren't we?
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
About the lifetime of the LCD backlights issue,
now that bright LED's are here, why do we use fluorescent backlights anymore?
Why not use ultra bright LEDS? They last way longer and might even use less power.
mark
Organic Light Emitting Displays are MADE OF PEOPLE!
They boosted the colors so much that the girl in that photo is PURPLE!
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?
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 or so isn't going to add much to any landfills - especially if this once a year replacement does a lot to cut down on the use of much more frequently disposed of paper signage. This stuff will be MUCH cheaper, MUCH brighter (bright enough for outdoor use), thinner, potentially higher resolution that uses far less power. It's not only a replacement for infrequently disposed of TV's and Monitors but also for very frequently disposed of paper (store signage, newspapers, magazines)
OK, so the OLED part is organic, but the casing will most probably be made of non-recyclable plastic, the board on which the OLED is mounted probably wont decompose and so on.
It's not just about the OLED.
Although to be fair if they're as efficient as the marketing bullshit claims then the energy savings may compensate for the landfills
"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."
Why don't you ask anybody that bought a plasma more than 5 years ago?
American culture.
I was just reading Philips' Research page 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.
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
The story headline is incomplete:
Obviously, it should be:
It must've been mistakenly truncated.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
Every discussion of OLEDs mentions two things:
- made of organic materials
- sensitivity to oxygen
Hmm, what else do we know of that has an oxidation problem, and is organic... Food! So I'm wondering if anyone's tried adding BHT or some other free-radical-absorbing preservative to the OLED "ink"...
--
m3lang3
I'm not entirely certain, but if I were to make an educated guess, I would say that this is because using LEDs for this purpose would make it prohibitively expensive, exactly the reason why OLEDs use 'plastic'-like structures, instead of silicon ones (which is what LEDs are made out of).
In other words, a backlight using LED-technology might last a long time, but it might not be nearly as cost-effective as current backlights.
Site & blog: http://www.mayaposch.com
If they only last that long, is it possible to buy a six pack or a case of screens at a discount? Maybe Costco wants in? Maybe they'll come in a box like "Swiffers" and sit on top of your DVD/DVR/etc. box and everytime you sit down to watch tv (there should be a new name for tv, consequently) you pull one out and attach it... (wash your hands first).
--- Das einzige, das wir zu fürchten haben, ist die Furcht selbst.
It seems like there are a lot of options that further development can explore. What about sealed displays? If OLEDs decompose in oxygen, would an airtight seal around them prolong their life? What about programming in color adjustments to the red and green elements? My apple monitor can calibrate itself and make adjustments over time to compensate for degradation, so why can't the OLEDs factor in their life spans and either decrease the red and green element output over time, or "bulk up" on the blue elements and have them start off in a more diminished state and increase their output over time.
There are a ton of options they can still explore, no doubt. And I'm sure the technology will improve a lot, given enough time. Just like any other technology, in the end.
All I'm saying is that I wouldn't buy an OLED display right now. In a year or two, if they get better, maybe. But not yet.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
OK, still, read the rest of my post. Look at how much trash goes out to the the curb EVERY WEEK. Adding an OLED screen (or two or three) once a year (or even once a quarter) is statistically insignificant. Now imagine using OLED for store signage instead of dead trees - Now what is the environmental impact. How about hi-res/flexible longer-lasting monochrome OLED reader for a book/magazine/newspaper replacement that you can read on the john - NOW what is the environmental impact.
You should have mentioned that the people-eaters are also "giant".