Motorola Debuts Nano-Emissive Flat Screen

brain1 writes "PhysOrg is reporting that Motorola has developed a 5" flat-screen prototype display that uses carbon nanotubes. The display appears to promise lower costs for a full 40" HDTV screen bringing the price down to $400. The technology uses standard color TV phosphors, has a response time equaling CRTs', all in a package 1/8" thick. The display characteristics meet or exceed CRTs', such as fast response time, wide viewing angle, and wide operation temperature. All these are areas that LCDs are weak in. Is this the breakthrough we needed to finally make HDTV and flat-panel computer displays *really* affordable?"

Comments

several key points

[SuperBanana]

Hate to rain on the parade, but:

a)PhysOrg is just a slightly more subtle version of PR Newswire. Note there's no author. Slashdot, please stop linking to crap like this. Manufacturers- if you're going to put out a press release, just call it a #@$!ing press release- and stop insulting our intelligence.

b)Manufactured cost is NOT market cost. Not even close. If a NE display lasts longer than plasma and looks equally nice- you can be damn sure it will cost MORE to the consumer.

c)They claim longer lifetime, but no range/estimate is given, even though they surely know what it is. If it's a year or two more than plasma (which is lucky to last 3-4 years), pardon me while I let out a big 'ol yawn.

d)A five-inch unit was produced because, most likely, they haven't been able to get high enough yield rates to do a 42" display. Call us when you've got something that actually resembles your target application in terms of scale.

Toshiba has similar in production this month...

[Fallen Kell]

Toshiba and Cannon have a very similar product already in production (or will be this month). They call it "SED TV". Do a google search on it. It will be out around August/September. But will probably cost as much as you standard 50-60" plasma/LCD even though it is cheaper to make (same as the carbon nano-tube).

Trust me, you will not see the price reduction that you hope. Even if it only costs $10 to produce, they will still sell it at $4-6k for a 40-50" screen simply because it is better then everything else. As a result of it being better then products that cost 4-5x its cost to make, its sale price will still be the same price as competing products, maybe undercutting them 5-10%, but not much more. The last thing they want it to drop the floor value of the market, which is what would happen if they actually produced and sold their own products costs. You price a product as to what the market can withstand to maximize profits, not to maximize market share. Simple macro-economics will tell you that if people are willing to pay that much for a product, then you sell it at that price point even if your product isn't that expensive. Why should you ever want to NOT take the extra money the consumers are willing to pay.

We will not see a major drop in price of HDTV's until everyone is producing these panels. Why start a price war in a market that offers you chances to make a 500% profit? Until there are at least 2 or 3 companies with similar products, we will not see a drop in prices. As a monopoly on the technology, (which you are if you are the first and only one to market), you can set your prices to whatever you feel consumers will pay.

Take this comparison. Did the price of albums drop when CD's were introduced? Heck no. We all know that it costs pennies to make the actual medium and put the data on that medium, vs dollars for tape with the same music. But you will typically pay $5-6 more for a CD then a tape, why, because the quality is better and the market can afford the price (well one could argue this, but this is the music industry's feeling). The same will be with this TV technology. It is much cheaper to make, but since it is technologically better then the others available, it will sport a higher price.

Back to the subject of my topic, Toshiba already has been demo'ing this for several months now, it debued last September/October at all the trade shows. It is pretty much the exact same idea, just with a different element used instead of carbon nanotubes for the electron stream emmitter array. Has pretty much same exact bonuses as this technology does, thin, brighter screen, much higher contrast ration (10,000:1 is quoted and measured from working screen!), full color support, refresh times faster then CRT's, less power consumption then LCD, weight about the same as LCD's, as high a pixel count as the best LCD's. In otherwords, take the best benefits of all the current TV standard technologies (plasma, LCD, CRT) and combine then best characteristics of each into one TV without any of the particular drawbacks of the different technologies (i.e. no poor contrast ratio and pixel count of Plasma's, poor contrast ratio and refresh times of LCD's, bulky size, weight and power usage of CRT's).

What this all means is if you are planning on buying a HDTV now or the near future, you absolutely are stupid if you purchase something right now and do not wait the 2-3 months for this technology to be available. You are simply throwing $2-10k down the toilet and flushing, because this stuff truely and utterly beats everything that is currently available by a VERY noticable margin.