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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!!!!!!
This was already mentioned here
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.
Whatever it is, she better watch out for any people-eaters in the area.
Yeah, they're using OLEDs on small devices, but not ones with long service lives (generally). While they do attempt to encase the OLEDs, they don't know how long they'll last since they're unstable in oxygen using the current technology. Using them in cell phones and digital cameras is good because the expectation is that one doesn't keep the things for long.
But if you're buying an LCD for your computer or as a television, you want it to last more than a few years without degrading.
Presently here, but not there.
"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.
Probably 2 things:
1. People want to buy them at that price
2. They are more expensive to produce than CRTs.
The picture ain't that good either. The geometry is better than a badly-aligned CRT (standard in consumer TV sets, even of $2000!), but the color quality is much, much worse. The responsetime is usually not good either, and while the viewing angle is getting bette, there usually is a blue or green background color when looking at a large angle.
I am looking around for a new TV set. I checked some different makes of CRT TVs and it amazes me how bad the geometry is on 2000 Euro TV sets, when compared to 200 Euro computer monitors. And it usually is not even customer-settable! Every computer monitor has these 5 buttons that allow you to align many things using an onscreen menu, but on TV sets this is hidden in a service menu that is only accessible when you know the secret code.
How many bits per color are stored on a DVD. Yep, only 6, so I guess it's good enough.
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 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...
The picture on the website has been altered to give the TV that extra "umph" of advertising glory. Obviously the site or person who took the picture doesn't want to give us a good idea of what it looks like but rather a "souped" up version of it...Thus we have purple asian lady, who looks like a fashion faux pas standing nex to a horribly saturated television in an environment which has had it's magenta's and cyan's tweeked.
Sorry, but completely wrong.
= /library/en-us/dnwmt/html/yuvformats.asp
MPEG compression uses YUV color space, not RGB. Y is the luminance/intensity and uses 8 bit per pixel. U and V specify the color tone and use 8 bit each, but for groups of 4 pixels. So 4 pixels need (4*8)+8+8=48 bits, 12 per pixel. (This is useful because the human eye's has more luminance receptors than color receptors).
In this YUV model, every pixel can have one out of 2^24 colors, because it has its own intensity, it just needs to have the same color tone as the other 3 neighbours. To reproduce the colors on a RGB screen you need 24 bits per pixel, because you can't use the intensity trick with RGB.
See also http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url
My understanding, and I could be wrong, is that you're correct that the polymers are printed on the screen itself. However, you still need all of the "other stuff" that surrounds the screen. You need to get the video signal to the screen, and in such a way that the OLED polymers understand it (ie, conversion may need to happen between the DVI/YPrPb/RGBHV/S-vid/Composite inputs and the screen itself). Along with that, you need all of the hardware responsible for receiving an input, and preferably multiplexing multiple inputs (not a big deal for a PC monitor, but a huge deal for a TV set). Add in anything else you need, such as a tuner, IR or RF receiver, circuitry to decode and act upon that input, etc, and it turns out that there's more to a TV set than just the screen.
Right now, the screen is the largest cost, though, so if you could get high-quality screens at low prices the up-front cost of a TV set should drop drastically. How would you like to be able to buy a very thin (hangable!) 40" flat-screen HDTV for $300-500? Sure, you may have to spend $100 every 1000 hours for a new screen (or push it longer if you don't mind the decrease in quality, since OLEDs don't just suddenly stop working like a lightbulb, but instead fade away; I'm pulling the 1000 hours figure out of my butt, so don't recite it as religion -- mean time to failure could be much more or much less), but that's a drop in the bucket compared to paying $5,000-20,000 for a similar plasma set, or $2,000-10,000 for a similar LCD set. Plus, you'll no longer have to worry so much about accidental damage to the screen, because it would be easy to replace at a reasonable price (let's see you do that with an LCD!). I'd love it simply for the fact that I could replace my screen for $100 rather than have my set professionally calibrated every 2-3 years at $300-500 per calibration to keep everything in tune (settings drift over time as the projectors in a RPTV age). Even if the initial set was priced at RPTV prices ($1000-1500 for a ~40-45 inch set), replacing the screen would be cheaper and quicker than a re-calibration.
"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
LCD-TFT Monitors can also display only about 252000 colours. They create more colours by alternating between two colors every refresh. That's why displays who are manufacturer rated at 12 ms have a real refresh of more than 20ms.
They've still got development to do. 260,000 colours aren't enough!
They will do 24 bits in no time and you will see them in laptops PDA's cameras and cell phones sooner than you think.
for more info on LEP/OLED displays try these...
Universal display
cambridge display tech
high efficency
transparent
flexible
stacked hi res
and some apps...
# Low-power, bright, colorful cell phones
# Full color, high-resolution, personal communicators
# Wrist-mounted, featherweight, rugged PDAs
# Wearable, form-fitting, electronic displays
# Full-color, high resolution, portable Internet devices and palm size computers
# High-contrast automotive instrument and windshield displays
# Heads-up instrumentation for aircraft and automobiles
# Automobile light systems without bulbs
# Flexible, lightweight, thin, durable, and highly efficient laptop screens
# Roll-up, electronic, daily-refreshable newspaper
# Ultra-lightweight, wall-size television monitor
# Office windows, walls and partitions that double as computer screens
# Color-changing lighting panels and light walls for home and office
# Low-cost organic lasers
# Computer-controlled, electronic shelf pricing for supermarkets and retail stores
# Smart goggles/helmets for scuba divers, motorcycle riders
# Medical test equipment
# Wide area, full-motion video camcorders
# Global positioning systems (GPS)
# Integrated computer displaying eyewear
# Rugged military portable communication devices
My favorite is the high efficency ceiling mount. Need white light [click] there you are. Want a change of pace go for blue sky with puffy white coulds [click] done.
These products are supposed to be cheap enough to do these things once mass production has begun.
"I really dont see why LCD monitors are so hot."
In general, LCD displays are a joke when compared to CRTs. However, aside from the space-saving features and the 'futuristic' look of 'flat displays', LCDs do have one saving (literally) feature: power-usage.
The CRT you mentioned in your post uses probably around 150-200 Watt whenever it's on and displaying something. This, coupled with the generated heat (some 'broken' monitors are fixed by modding them to include a fan) are the reason why large CRTs can be called 'hot, power-hungry beasts'.
OLEDs supposedly have all the benefits of CRTs (excellent IQ, plenty of colors), as well as those of TFTs (small in size), while using less power than TFTs.
Only thing I haven't any solid data on is the likelihood of dead pixels with OLED displays, although it can be assumed that this will be far more rare than with TFTs, considering that the production process is far less complex.
Site & blog: http://www.mayaposch.com
> 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.
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.
But for the less detailed analysis the sensor here has very lousy resolution
That's incorrect. The human eye has extraordinarily high resolution, probably close to what is theoretically possible for an optical system of that size. However, it only gives you that resolution in the fovea.
That's probably because high resolution just isn't needed across the whole visual field, and if the eye were constructed to provide it across the entire visual field, our brains would have to be bigger than our bodies in order to process the information.
Also, the human eye is extraordinarily sensitive, allowing you to come close to perceiving individual photons.
It isn't a very good sensor at all. It is the processing that brings out the great detail and such.
The human eye is an extraordinary sensor. Quality does not just mean having the highest spec along a single dimension, it means making the right engineering tradeoffs. And the human eye does both.
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/
I had a book that described how to do this and had sample code. I'm pretty sure it was Understanding the Apple //e by Jim Sather, but it might have been a different book. (BTW, I no longer have that book and am looking for a copy if you have one. I've had no luck finding it via Amazon or eBay etc.)
In case anybody cares, here's how it worked:
The Apple II series was designed so that the CPU and video hardware alternated reading from memory. The memory was twice as fast as the CPU needed it to be (quite different from today's situation!). If you wanted to know what the byte value was that the video hardware had just read, all you needed to do was to read from a memory-mapped I/O address that didn't actually put anything on the data bus. There were a few I/O addresses that worked like this; just putting that address on the address bus (by reading from or writing to that address) would make something happen; the data wasn't important, so the I/O hardware would just leave the data bus alone. If you read from such an address you'd get the data that was still being put on the data bus by the RAM from the previous video hardware access.
The way to make this work for mode switching was to use a second idiosyncracy of the video hardware. For some reason (probably simplicity of implementation), during the horizontal retrace interval at the end of each scan line, the video hardware kept stepping through video memory, reading one byte at a time. Thus, there were a few undisplayed bytes that would appear on the data bus during the horizontal retrace interval, in memory that was basically just wasted. So, you could put a multi-byte signature in that area of exactly one line in display memory, and spend all of your CPU time in a loop waiting to see this signature appear. When it did, you knew which line had just been displayed, and could immediately switch video modes in the middle of the screen. You could use a few of these to display multiple video modes (low res graphics, hi res graphics, and text) on the screen in different vertical bands.
The only problem is, there's hardly any practical reason to want to do this. The CPU cost was so high that it was hard to use it for anything.