Canon Abandons SED TV Hopes

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Posted by Soulskill on Friday August 20, 2010 @07:37AM from the upgrade-path-delayed dept.

angry tapir writes "Canon has decided to liquidate a subsidiary developing a flat-panel display technology called SED, effectively bringing to an end once high hopes that the screens would replace LCD panels and plasma displays in living room TVs. Development of SED (surface-condition electron-emitter display) screens began in 1986 at Canon and was joined in 1999 by Toshiba. SEDs combine elements of both CRT (cathode ray tube) and LCD (liquid crystal display) technologies. As with CRTs, electrons hit a phosphor-coated screen to emit light. But instead of being shot from an electron gun, electrons are drawn out of an emitter through a slit that is only a few nanometers wide. The result is a picture that is as bright as a CRT and does not suffer a time lag sometimes seen on LCD panels with rapidly moving images."

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Canon cannot compete in TV market by adosch · 2010-08-20 07:48 · Score: 2, Insightful

Canon just flat out cannot compete in that market with something that will cost too much. Look at the ridiculous amount of effort put up by the kingpin companies like Samsung, Visio, Sony, ect. Their campaigns filled with all the goody-TV-jargon ooze, not to mention anyone with even a remotely hapless budget can afford a 42"+ LCD TV now from them is flat out hard to stand next to.
FTFA, it's unfortunate that SED TV won't survive. But I see it no different that the VHS-vs-Betamax, BlueRay-vs-HDDVD market flame-wars that have taken place of recent memory. Some things that had potential to be better than their rival product sometimes just don't survive or make it.
Crap by A+Friendly+Troll · 2010-08-20 07:59 · Score: 3, Insightful

Let us pray that big OLED screens with enough longevity become a reality in a couple of years, because the LCD tech just isn't that good.
This is bad news... Very, very bad news.
1. Re:Crap by Eponymous+Coward · 2010-08-20 08:28 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  the LCD tech just isn't that good
  It might not be great, but it's good enough for most people.
  You can say the same thing about MP3s and DVDs. Not great, but good enough.
2. Re:Crap by A+Friendly+Troll · 2010-08-20 08:42 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  It's only good enough for most people because they haven't seen better. Case in point: TN panels. If you've never seen an IPS, you have no idea that vertical gamma shift and low colour reproduction aren't normal. If you've never seen a CRT or a plasma, as is the case with newer generations, you have no idea that the gray background, instead of black, isn't normal.
  Thankfully, IPS panels have come down in price so they are affordable, but the black level is still waaaaaaaaay over what classic phosphor display tech gives you. I've had my LCD for a year, and I still get pissed off by the damn thing glowing grey when the screen saver kicks in.
  mp3 usually *is* good enough, and most of the time you can't discern it from the original if it has a high bitrate, but that isn't the case with something like LCD vs. SED; it would be more like 64 kbps compared to lossless audio.
  OLED is our only hope for quality displays now, and it's not progressing as fast as it should.
3. Re:Crap by Haeleth · 2010-08-20 09:43 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  It might not be great, but it's good enough for most people.
  You can say the same thing about MP3s and DVDs. Not great, but good enough.
  And before those, cassette tapes and VHS were "good enough". Black-and-white TV was "good enough". Phonographs were "good enough". Believe it or not, people once lived perfectly happy lives with just books and whatever music they could sing and play themselves!
  I would argue that "good enough" is not good enough. If you settle for "good enough", you are rejecting the very concept of progress. If on the other hand you believe that progress is both possible and desirable, then there can be no such thing as "good enough"; there is only "the best we've managed so far", and that is only tolerable until we figure out how to do better.
4. Re:Crap by Anonymous Coward · 2010-08-20 13:04 · Score: 1, Insightful
  
  You assume that it's because they haven't seen better. I'd like to suggest that perhaps it's simply because most people just don't care that much about these things, even if they had seen better and that "good enough" really is good enough.
  That movie I just watched and that game that I just played looked fine. I was too busy enjoying them to be sitting around nitpicking at how black the blacks were.
Re:how thick are the TV's? by Rakishi · 2010-08-20 08:01 · Score: 2, Insightful

It's a flat panel technology like everything else that's being worked on.
Well cry me a river... by Twinbee · 2010-08-20 08:39 · Score: 2, Insightful

Honestly, this isn't as nearly as sad as it appears, because its 'rival', OLED surpasses SED in almost every area. In fact, it could well be in EVERY area. Does anyone have any information on how SED could have been even slightly better?
OLED, when it comes of age, really is the panacea/holy grail/goal/best of all worlds when it comes to display tech (and possibly most types of lighting too).

--
Why OpalCalc is the best Windows calc
Re:how thick are the TV's? by Shadow+of+Eternity · 2010-08-20 08:59 · Score: 2, Insightful

Shame that all those of us with a decent set of eyes will have to suffer the same laggy, blurry nausea inducing inferior display technology only now it's wrapped in a tougher shell. At least I can finally go back to cleaning it normally.
Whatever happened to a mere 22" doing 2048x1536 @85hz with no lag? What happened to the days when anything over 17" could do resolutions that left that 1080P bullshit in the dust?

--
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
Re:Damn... by Myrv · 2010-08-20 09:01 · Score: 5, Insightful

Personally I believe it was the delay from the license lawsuit that really killed it. The first couple of generations of LCD and Plasma's screens weren't cheap to produce either. But while the SED technology was mired in litigation the LCD and Plasma manufactures sold screens and used the money to develop better and cheaper manufacturing processes. Once the SED litigation was cleared up it was too late. They had missed the ramp up stage. The had an expensive new technology competing against a cheap mature one. The stupid thing is the biggest loser in the whole ordeal is probably Nano Proprietary, the ones who started the litigation in the first place. If they had just let the joint venture build the damn things they would be collecting royalty checks today. Instead they sued their only revenue source out of existence.
Re:Damn... by lxs · 2010-08-20 09:08 · Score: 2, Insightful

Pretty soon OLED technology can do everything SED could do while being cheaper to manufacture and using less power to run. Using SED in consumer products will be like using nixie tubes in digital wrist watches. Highly impractical.
Re:how thick are the TV's? by sexconker · 2010-08-20 10:30 · Score: 2, Insightful

So, the resolution and frame rate will be comparable to what high end displays had over a decade ago, yet the image quality, color accuracy, black levels, etc. will still be shit?
And I'll still have to deal with dead pixels?
And I'll still have to deal with shitty shitty shitty processing delays?
And I'll still be unable to physically drive my display at various resolutions?