backtop

Hardware SED TVs Delayed to 2007
Ibrin (Blog) - March 12, 2006 1:02 AM
Print E-mail del.icio.us 41 comment(s) - last by Gooberslot.. on Mar 13 at 10:38 PM
Toshiba and Canon claim SED TVs will be here in two years, but will the price be competitive?

Reuters reports that the joint surface-conduction electron-emitter display venture between Canon and Toshiba will have to wait an extra year or so.  At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas two months ago, the two companies announced that SED displays are just inside a year for commercial use. 

With the cost of LCD and Plasma TVs in near freefall, for SED TVs to gain any market acceptance, the technology needs a dramaticly cheaper cost or dramatically apparent feature.  Right now, DLP and similar technologies dominate the high fidelity market while LCD and Plasma TVs have dropped so much in cost that SED has a difficult task ahead of itself to really unseat either technology. 

For example, low end 37" LCD TVs used to cost approximately $2,000 about this time of the year in 2004.  Today, you can walk into any Costco or Frys and pick up a 37" Syntax LCD for $1,300.  The price drop is even more dramatic for larger sized LCDs.  DLP prices have experienced similar drops, but have also increased resolution dramatically in the last two years.  For SED to really have a fighting chance out of the gate, Toshiba-Canon would need a 37" to 40" SED TV for under $1,500 to compete with sub-$1,000 LCD TVs of the same size. 

Toshiba and Canon have promised nearly $2B USD to keeping SED technology afloat, though Intel made similar promises in 2002 with LCoS technology. 

Comments     Threshold


This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled
All these pixels...
By byonic on 3/12/06, Rating: 0
RE: All these pixels...
By nwrigley on 3/12/2006 3:35:45 AM , Rating: 2
I agree completely. I see no reason to throw down money on a HD set until more content is readily available. Not to mention that standards may change and quality will only continue to go up while prices go down.

About the only truely compelling reason I've seen to buy a HD set is for use with an upscaling DVD player. Still not worth the cost to me.


Quick History
By Googer on 3/12/2006 5:03:20 AM , Rating: 2
Candescent technologies was the company original developing these FED's (aka Thin Panel CRT) during much of the 1990's. At the near end of the decade they were working closely with Sony and had small (6inch?) prototypes and developerment kits avalable untill the deal fell through (I think because of disagreements) and Candescent ran in to financial trouble in part to the loss of Sony as a buisness partner. Canon later picked up and bought most of Candescent and continued the research untill the present day.


RE: All these pixels...
By AlexWade on 3/12/06, Rating: 0
RE: All these pixels...
By masteraleph on 3/12/2006 9:23:06 AM , Rating: 5
Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

TV stations were supposed to have until 2006 (now '09) to go DIGITAL. This is NOT the same as HD. Yes, you can broadcast HD in digital, but you can also broadcast SD in digital. The requirement is designed so that the government can reclaim the spectrum of frequencies currently used for analog TVs.

Furthermore, it is only broadcast TV that has to change over. As in the rabbit-ears on top of your TV variety of broadcast. Stations on cable or satellite or what have you can stay analog to their hearts' content. And since something like 80% of people have either cable or satellite or some other variety of non-broadcast TV, it's actually going to be a relatively minor impact on the market as a whole.

Digital != HD. Remember it, love it, be aware.


RE: All these pixels...
By bigshooter on 3/12/2006 9:26:23 AM , Rating: 2
TV stations don't have to go HD, that would be expensive for the cameras/bandwith. They just need to convert over to a digital signal to free up the analog airwaves.


RE: All these pixels...
By bigshooter on 3/12/2006 9:26:59 AM , Rating: 2
Ooops... gues ssomeone beat me to it.


RE: All these pixels...
By spwrozek on 3/12/2006 9:39:54 AM , Rating: 2
You put it in such a better tone though :)


RE: All these pixels...
By GTMan on 3/12/2006 6:15:10 PM , Rating: 2
And then we just have to wait two years for the salespeople to learn how to use the technology.

I recently walked into a "The Source" where they had a nice HDTV showing a 4x3 letterbox stretched wide to fill the entire screen. I asked why there were black bars on the top and bottom and several salesmen said those bars would always be there because it was HDTV.

I asked why I should spend money on a TV that never uses part of the screen. They had no answer. I asked why I would want to watch everything squashed vertically on the screen and they had no answer.

Turns out they had the digital cable box set to output 4x3 letterbox and didn't know how to access the menu.


RE: All these pixels...
By cgrecu77 on 3/12/2006 3:25:13 PM , Rating: 2
hdtv is great, there are plenty of sport casts in hdtv and once you got used to watching a game in hdtv regular tv is almost unwatchable, the difference in quality is huge. In addition to this, the larger the tv the worst SD looks, on my medium size (42") tv analog looks like civilization 1 on a 21" lcd ... digital is acceptable though, but I can only imagine how it looks on a 50" or bigger screen.
In my opinion the small cost ($10 per month is more than worth it the price of hdtv) since virtually all lcd/plasma tvs support some form of hdtv


RE: All these pixels...
By bunnyfubbles on 3/12/2006 12:59:14 PM , Rating: 2
And HDDVD and BluRay are supposed to be here THIS year, quit complaining and stop being jealous. Credit cards wouldn't exist without idiots, this world needs them, you are making a contribution.

That aside, SED seems like promising technology, its too bad we can't see it as an option earlier than 2007 as there will be HD content out by the end of the year other than the many channels already available.


SED = return to the past
By RW on 3/12/2006 1:24:46 PM , Rating: 1
SED technology is like a trip to the past since it works exactly like a CRT monitor.
That means the monitor flickers and you get headaches and eye fatigue.

Another STUPID technology is the one wich will be implemented in the next AU Optronics BenQ LCDs, the technology is called BIF (Black Interleav Frame) wich displays a Black frame on you're monitor after every 6 displayed frames, that means from 60 frames per second 10 are blacks and only 50 are displaying the real image.
They call this technology a eye washing technology but this is the most stupid technology I've ever heard off.
This will produce even more monitor flickers, headaches and eye fatigues.

SED and BIF technologys must take the RAZZIE AWARDS for the most stupid technologies ever to come.




RE: SED = return to the past
By bob5820 on 3/12/2006 1:43:59 PM , Rating: 2
I've got to disagree with the no content argument. I've had HD (a JVC LCoS, TW cable HD feed)for a little over a year now. The majors all carry HD for sports and prime time programming. Discover also carries quite abit of HD programming. While I'd still like to see some more complete coverage, I think that the lack of content argument is no longer a strong reason not to go HD if your in the market for a new TV.


RE: SED = return to the past
By margon on 3/12/2006 3:18:16 PM , Rating: 2
I haven't seen one but I wouldn't think it would flicker. CRT scans the screen surface with a single electron beam, The scanning pattern causes the flickering. SED has individual electron emiters for each pixel.


RE: SED = return to the past
By RW on 3/12/2006 4:14:25 PM , Rating: 2
Oh yeah ??

Just read the following article and watch the pictures that shows the flickering.

http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i...


RE: SED = return to the past
By YERWHATEVER on 3/12/2006 5:16:23 PM , Rating: 2
The reviewer below didnt seem to have any such issus

http://www.behardware.com/articles/593-1/close-enc...

"One of the video sequences shows a streetcar moving from right to left. This second test really is impressive: with the LCD the result is disastrous with huge ghosting effect and with the plasma, sharpness is reduced. Video displayed by the SED it is magnificent. I have never seen something like that, even with a CRT. The object lines move without any blurred effect."


RE: SED = return to the past
By RW on 3/12/2006 6:46:26 PM , Rating: 2
What review that was a presentation of the technology not a review.
What's funny it's that even on that article if u look close to the pictures u will see a black stripe on every SED monitor, and that's the flickering exactly like on a CRT.

Its up to u if u will buy such a monitor but more than sure I'm not buying it.


But I guess there are plenty of stupid people out there that will buy them.


RE: SED = return to the past
By MadAd on 3/12/2006 7:16:41 PM , Rating: 2
could that bar not be the screen refresh out of phase with the shutter speed?

Either way no-ones going to buy anything with a bar down it are they? Sounds like you think we are going to go and buy one blind tomorrow....or your just trolling and dont really care?

Myself I think SED looks very interesting and am sorry to hear its been put back- the problem with that is theres more chance now that another technology will be bought to market to solve this contrast ratio problem, perhaps even one that can change resolution (SED, while being based on crt tech, will still have a fixed native resolution).

Also Ive yet to be convinced that the power drain of a panel comprised of tiny electron guns will be less than a plasma, but we'll see in time.


RE: SED = return to the past
By KristopherKubicki (blog) on 3/12/2006 7:29:16 PM , Rating: 2
I think OLED has a very strong possibility of disrupting SED and FED in future techs. Its cheaper, more mature and solves all of the problems of all displays right now (is flexible, faster response time, less power) except variable resolution. However, the variable resolution is becoming less and less of an issue because the resolution and DPI is increasing so fast.


RE: SED = return to the past
By masher2 (blog) on 3/12/2006 11:33:48 PM , Rating: 1
That's assuming the OLED lifetime problem can ever be solved. OLEDs degrade fast, and no one wants to replace their big-screen TV every six months.