Canon Abandons SED TV Hopes

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."

Comments

The Man screws us again.

[grub]

Ah, that's too bad. I was looking forward to trying out 's/commercial//g'.
At least you'll still get your basic viewing stats with AWK TV.

Damn...

[mcgrew]

This display sounded good until I read TFA. Bottom line: they cost too much.

In 2007, Canon said it would further delay commercialization as it sought to bring down production costs. It was to be the last announcement on the technology until this week, when Canon said it would bring development back to its central labs.

Work is expected to continue on SED for use in specialist displays but its days as a living-room technology appear over.

Re:Damn...

[Myrv]

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...

[lxs]

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.

how thick are the TV's?

[alen]

CCFL LCD's are a few inches thick. someone i know just bought a 47" LED LCD TV and it's 1" thick at most. they junked a 150 pound CRT flat screen monster that broke. no one wants a big TV anymore

Re:how thick are the TV's?

[Rakishi]

It's a flat panel technology like everything else that's being worked on.

Re:how thick are the TV's?

[TooMuchToDo]

The LED LCD TVs along with Corning's new Gorilla glass (so there is no border/bezel around the edge of the TV, the picture can fill the entire screen size) are going to be awesome. Sturdy, extremely-scratch resistant, and light weight.

Re:how thick are the TV's?

[Shadow of Eternity]

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?

Re:how thick are the TV's?

[Surt]

Good news: the 3d tidal wave is forcing all of the LCD makers to switch to 120 or 240 hz.
And after that, the next differentiator is going to be resolution again, e.g., you'll get sets with 2160P advertised as 'twice as smooth as HD' etc.

Re:how thick are the TV's?

[sexconker]

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?

Re:how thick are the TV's?

[nschubach]

And I'll still be unable to physically drive my display at various resolutions?

If I understand SED properly... that's no different. There's still a matrix of emitters, but they are driving less screen space... like 1 emitter per pixel.

Re:how thick are the TV's?

[Shadow of Eternity]

SED was basically a CRT with something smaller than a linear tube.

Canon cannot compete in TV market

[adosch]

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

[A Friendly Troll]

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.

Re:Crap

[Eponymous Coward]

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.

Re:Crap

[A Friendly Troll]

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.

Re:Crap

[Haeleth]

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.

Re:Crap

[aztracker1]

I still miss my old 22" CRT in terms of display acuracy... I've yet to see any LCD that compares to it in that regard. Of course, I don't miss the strain of the 80 pound behemoth on my desk... and appreciate having the space back... I don't do too much graphics work anymore, mostly programming, so don't miss it *that* much... but have to agree, seeing IPS panels come down in price, and OLED on the horizon gives some hope... I wasn't familiar with SED until this article though.

Re:Crap

[PCM2]

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.

I just bought a 22" LED-backlit panel and the blacks are very black. The glow of the black screen is not completely imperceptible in a darkened room, but it is hard to detect. As with all technologies, things improve over time.

Re:Crap

[A Friendly Troll]

I just bought a 22" LED-backlit panel and the blacks are very black.

Only because your monitor is cheating and turning off the edge LEDs completely when it detects a black screen.

Try this: open your image editing program, create a fully black images, and add a couple of white pixels to it. Then display it full screen and see what happens. There are two possible scenarios:

1) You find out that your blacks aren't as black as you thought
2) The monitor decides to disregard those white pixels and turn off the LEDs anyway

Re:Crap

[thegarbz]

I still miss my old 22" CRT in terms of display acuracy... I've yet to see any LCD that compares to it in that regard.

See this is exactly what the GP was talking about. 99% of displays on the market won't out perform it do to cheap technology. Go have a look at NEC's spectraview series of monitors, or the high end monitors from Eizo and you'll never miss your old CRT again. These monitors have wide gamuts, perfect viewing angles, and internal colour lookup tables to ensure the data displayed is simply right.

Re:Crap

[mattack2]

I still get pissed off by the damn thing glowing grey when the screen saver kicks in

If you have your computer actually power down the screen, you'll save energy AND hopefully lower your blood pressure at the same time.

High end monitors

[djlemma]

I wonder if a company like Eizo that makes high end monitors for medical purposes and professional image editing would buy out the technology. They already seem to have some success at selling relatively small LCD monitors at extremely high prices due to their color accuracy and brightness, so maybe this technology would be another step in the right direction for them. My understanding is that the expensive technology Eizo uses doesn't actually fare well on moving pictures, so this CRT-type thing might be significantly better, assuming that the color gamut is similar to their current offerings......

Couldn't release it as high end consumer product?

[Ironhandx]

I mean, if they did all that work to turn it into a TV at all they could have released it to compete against Plasma TVs. If I could get CRT quality in LCD weight and size I'd be all over that. $5000 for a 36" TV that does that? Yes please.

Fire Hazard

[lobiusmoop]

I though 'SED' stood for smoke emitting diode. Probably would give a nice bright image I guess, but not for very long.

Re:Fire Hazard

[blueturffan]

I have a bit of experience with SEDs, LERs (light-emitting resistors) and DEDs (dark emitting diodes).

Well cry me a river...

[Twinbee]

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).

Re:Why not LED?

[A Friendly Troll]

There is no such thing as a "LED screen". What you are talking about is LED-backlit LCD panels. They pretty much do nothing important compared to regular CCFL backlighting, apart from having somewhat lower power consumption and more correct colour temperature. Everything else is more or less the same, including the black level and the contrast.

Re:Why not LED?

[annex1]

Not entirely true. LED backlights are controllable and switch off in banks. This is significant because the backlighting can turn off in areas where there is very dark "black", increasing the contrast ratio quite a bit. With a CCFL backlight it is always on, so you have a backlight bleeding through the dark areas on-screen.

Re:Why not LED?

[subreality]

-1, Wrong

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OLED

They're rare and expensive for anything more than portable devices, but LED displays certainly do exist, and the contrast is much better than with LCDs.