DailyTech - Sony Looks to Possible Production of OLED

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Gadgets Sony Looks to Possible Production of OLED
Nirav Sanghani (Blog) - January 9, 2007 8:40 AM

33 comment(s) - last by oTAL.. on Jan 11 at 3:32 PM

A closeup

Sony is setting its sights on a new thin TV with the OLED

As this new year kicks off, Sony Electronics has begun looking into organic light-emitting diode (OLED) technology. At the Consumer Electronics Show this week Sony demonstrated a 27-inch flat panel OLED which features a contrast ratio of over 1,000,000:1 (no joke!) and 1080p resolution. It also has >100% NTSC color reproduction.

CNET reports that Sony Electronics President Stan Glasglow stated that mass production is not far off, yet the company still needs to overcome cost and consumer affordability. The company is not announcing any commitments to OLED, but the company has high hopes.

The market for OLED has recently experienced a bit of a shake-up. RiData, one of the primary manufacturers for small-scale OLEDs, exitted the business just last month. LG.Philips LCD has small-scale OLED samples at CES 2007, developed in conjunction with Eastman Kodak.

Problems for next-generation displays are not just limitted to OLED. SED, or surface-conduction electron-emitted display, technology has experienced a fair share of problems over the last year. Toshiba has delayed its SED television program several times due to licensing troubles and cost.

Glasglow has stated that Japan will be the first test market for the OLED television, but if it does go into production, it will not be released until 2008 or 2009.

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Sony and OLED?

By retrospooty on 1/9/2007 12:11:40 PM , Rating: 5

I dont know too much about OLED LCD's, but if there is a way to do it and make it proprietary and more expensive than other companies, and possibly even make it a a fire hazard I agree, Sony should do it. =)

RE: Sony and OLED?

By cocoviper on 1/9/2007 12:15:01 PM , Rating: 2

lol.

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RE: Sony and OLED?

By DangerIsGo on 1/9/2007 12:42:50 PM , Rating: 2

Lol, Sony.....

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RE: Sony and OLED?

By retrospooty on 1/9/2007 5:18:33 PM , Rating: 3

Thanks... I was rather proud of that one =) hehe

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RE: Sony and OLED?

By GoatMonkey on 1/9/2007 1:45:39 PM , Rating: 2

But they could integrate it with the PS4 and everyone would love it automatically!

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RE: Sony and OLED?

By Frank M on 1/9/2007 4:06:55 PM , Rating: 2

Yeah, the PS4 could have this built in. It will cost $2000, and their pitch will be that it's half the cost buying a separate OLED.

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RE: Sony and OLED?

By jimmy43 on 1/9/2007 4:01:04 PM , Rating: 3

Give Sony a break here guys. I too love to bash Sony occasionaly but this is an area that they have been primary innovators in and it is a very promising technology.

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RE: Sony and OLED?

By jtyson on 1/9/2007 4:30:17 PM , Rating: 3

What a brilliant group of unbiased, forward-thinking, open-minded individuals we have posting here! I'm with you guys; if it's technology, and it's Sony, don't even give it a chance! I mean, what has Sony ever done right? The Walkman? Please, what a piece of garbage, nobody bought those. PlayStation 1 and 2? Who cares if you sold more units than any other consoles in history? I'm fine with my 3DO, thank you very much. And all this talk about OLEDs and 1,000,000:1 contrast ratios? Pssshhh, that thing's got nothing on my Magnavox CRT. Sony should just be wiped off the face of the Earth, am I right fellas? I'm talkin' BIAS baby, YEAH!!!

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RE: Sony and OLED?

By masher2

(blog) on 1/9/2007 4:33:12 PM , Rating: 2

> "And all this talk about OLEDs and 1,000,000:1 contrast ratios? Pssshhh, that thing's got nothing on my Magnavox CRT..."

While I agree with the rest of your post, I have to point out that many CRTs had contrast ratios this high or higher. Any emissive display technology can have essentially an infinite contrast ratio. Its really limited only by interpixel bleeding...and, depending on how the manufacturer chooses to measure contrast ratio, they may not even account for that.

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RE: Sony and OLED?

By jtyson on 1/9/07, Rating: 0

RE: Sony and OLED?

By masher2

(blog) on 1/9/2007 5:45:47 PM , Rating: 2

> "Still though, if you owned a CRT, would you make it a Magnavox? "

No, I'd make it a Sony, as their Trinitron tubes had the best picture in the business. :)

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RE: Sony and OLED?

By retrospooty on 1/9/2007 11:18:05 PM , Rating: 3

Hey now, I have owned a Walkman, and a PS2, as well as a Sony G500 monitor, all were quite good... That was all in the past, and I will no longer give Sony a dime of my money for a plethera of other reasons... To sum them all up. I dont like Sony's business practices, therefore I will no longer buy thier products. It is not an anti Sony bias, it is me making an informed decision on the products I buy.

The post above was mainly a joke an Sony's expense. If you cant see the humor then look again.

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RE: Sony and OLED?

By Blackraven on 1/10/2007 9:58:09 AM , Rating: 2

quote:
What a brilliant group of unbiased, forward-thinking, open-minded individuals we have posting here! I'm with you guys; if it's technology, and it's Sony, don't even give it a chance! I mean, what has Sony ever done right? The Walkman? Please, what a piece of garbage, nobody bought those. PlayStation 1 and 2? Who cares if you sold more units than any other consoles in history? I'm fine with my 3DO, thank you very much. And all this talk about OLEDs and 1,000,000:1 contrast ratios? Pssshhh, that thing's got nothing on my Magnavox CRT. Sony should just be wiped off the face of the Earth, am I right fellas? I'm talkin' BIAS baby, YEAH!!!

I don't if you're trying make a joke. But if you are not....

then you are uniformed.

Sony makes awesome TVs. That's a fact.
While their PS3s are problematic, they are the leader in the LCD TV market. (another fact)

Lots of people have bought the BRAVIA brandname LCD TVs which have caused a "storm" in the global flat panel market.

If you don't believe me, ask the number of people who bought X series (or XBR 2 & 3 in Stateside) or even the power-packed SXRD sets.

Of course we all know that Sony has faults (incl. the PS3) but please give credit where credit is due.

Thus, I'm excited about their decision to go with OLED (over SED) seeing as Toshiba can't do much right now (due to the lawsuit). I then see OLED being the TRUE successor to Plasma, LCD and RPTV.

After what I've seen with their BRAVIA line, I'm convinced that Sony makes one of the BEST flat panel TVs in the global market today.

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RE: Sony and OLED?

By oTAL on 1/11/2007 3:17:07 PM , Rating: 2

You couldn't understand whether he was joking or not? Are you serious?

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RE: Sony and OLED?

By jtyson on 1/9/07, Rating: -1

Another format war?!

By daftrok on 1/9/2007 4:45:05 PM , Rating: 2

VHS vs Beta
Plasma vs LCD
Blu-ray vs HD DVD
OLED vs SED

IT NEVER ENDS!

(>.<)

RE: Another format war?!

By Xeronix on 1/9/2007 4:56:08 PM , Rating: 1

Competition is a good thing, it creates better technologies and drives down prices.
If nothing had competition everything will end up like Windows.

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RE: Another format war?!

By qwerty1 on 1/9/2007 5:01:07 PM , Rating: 2

Don't forget its proprietary Memory Stick vs SD cards battle! In a way, this reminds me of Apple's desire to be exclusive and proprietary in their Macs before Windows got the better of it during the OS war in the 90s. Guess who won?

Of course, OLED is not a Sony exclusive, so hopefully we won't see that kind of problem here.

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RE: Another format war?!

By retrospooty on 1/9/2007 5:37:26 PM , Rating: 3

"this reminds me of Apple's desire to be exclusive and proprietary in their Macs before Windows got the better of it during the OS war in the 90s. Guess who won?"

Exactly... And that proprietary mantality is why Apple is almost a non-contender in the personal computer industry.

Sony has faired better with thier extremely deep pockets, and sales of other products (like Televisions) that makes them billions.

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RE: Another format war?!

By oTAL on 1/11/2007 3:32:17 PM , Rating: 2

Apple's desire to be closed and limit their software to work on their own hardware has more to do with stability and quality control than money...
Apple wants its computers to be ONE device which you buy and use. No hassle, no opening up, no nothing.
I don't like it either. I prefer to be in control myself, but for the regular Joe, that's the way it works best... that's just the way it is.

Want a quick example? Most of us like it for text editors to ask, when you close them, "would you like to save your changes?". Well... for most users, that's just as dumb as asking "Would you like to dump the work you've been doing for the past hours?"

We (us geeks/professionals in the industry) control technology, we control how it evolves, and we need to learn to be less selfish. We need to do it the apple way. The average Joe doesn't want control... he wants EASY! He wants LESS buttons! He wants LESS questions. You close word and it just saves... no questions... IF you want to you can check out the power options and choose for it to ask... or you can just go to the menu and choose "Exit without saving".

Engineers need to learn one thing... The best manual for the best device isn't the comprehensively detailed one. It's the one that's one sheet long and tells you how to unwrap the product and turn it on... the product should be self explanatory!! Check out the iphone keynote and you'll get the picture.

The most successful CE products are the simple ones that do what they are supposed to do. Why do you think Nokia sells so many phones? Nice design, easy menus. You can have a phone with twice the features and half the price... my mom will still want the nokia, cause she can learn how to use it without the damn manual.....

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RE: Another format war?!

By Oregonian2 on 1/9/2007 6:18:36 PM , Rating: 2

Chicken sandwiches vs hamburgers
Mild Salsa vs Hot
Scrambled Eggs vs Sunny-Side-Up
Fried Chicken vs Roasted
Pepsi vs Coke
Orange Soda vs cherry soda
Yale vs Harvard
MIT vs Cal Tech
Kansas vs Kansas State
Colgate vs Crest
iPod vs Zune
Film Cameras vs Digital Cameras
City House vs suburban House vs farm house

It never ends! Why not just one of everything!
Once a company comes out with something NOBODY is
allowed to make anything remotely similar or something
that could be bought "instead". Everybody throw away
your cameras. You're only allowed to use daguerreotypes.

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RE: Another format war?!

By Ticholo on 1/9/2007 10:25:55 PM , Rating: 2

LOL

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RE: Another format war?!

By daftrok on 1/10/2007 1:09:42 AM , Rating: 1

Screw you oregano I was making a joke.

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RE: Another format war?!

By tuteja1986 on 1/10/2007 3:11:16 AM , Rating: 2

Chicken sandwiches vs hamburgers
Mild Salsa vs Hot
Scrambled Eggs vs Sunny-Side-Up
Fried Chicken vs Roasted
Pepsi vs Coke
Orange Soda vs cherry soda
Yale vs Harvard = don't know
MIT vs Cal Tech
Colgate vs Crest
iPod vs Zune
Film Cameras vs Digital Cameras
City House vs suburban House vs farm hous

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RE: Another format war?!

By jtyson on 1/10/2007 8:54:07 AM , Rating: 1

Agreed.

"If there can be but only ONE sandwich, let it be hamburger!"

- Hamburglar (1829)

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RE: Another format war?!

By surt on 1/9/2007 6:25:19 PM , Rating: 2

Plasma vs LCD
OLED vs SED

These aren't format wars in the traditional sense of 'Consumers will be screwed if they wind up buying into the losing side.'

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Keeping my fingers crossed

By Chernobyl68 on 1/9/2007 2:31:05 PM , Rating: 2

I'd like to see both of these technologies (OLED and SED) make a go of it. SED for its CRT-like flat panel-ness, and OLED for it low power consumption. One day...

RE: Keeping my fingers crossed

By masher2

(blog) on 1/9/2007 2:57:53 PM , Rating: 2

Eh? OLED and SED are both flat-panel technologies...CRT, however, is not.

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RE: Keeping my fingers crossed

By Behlal on 1/9/2007 5:14:42 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
CRT, however, is not

I think you missed his point. SED uses electron beams to display content in a similar fashion to CRT. The different is that CRT uses one electron beam and uses electromagnets to move the beam across the phosphors. SED uses many electron beams (I believe one per pixel color) instead and so the TV can be made flat. It therefore brings with it similar properties to CRT but flat-panel (which is what he was saying).

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