Sony demos 56" 4K prototype OLED TV at CES - Page 2

Exactly another pipe dream for the bean counters.

Follow along little doggie and buy what we tell you too.

Yes Sir!

So now that CES has shown us all that it will, what's the next major event where we should see TV related stuff? IFA?

Why does OLED cost trillions?

Are the raw materials for it expensive? Do you have to pay the people that make it a lot of money?

Does it take a long time to make and is it difficult to make?

Can any OLEDs be produced in China?

Where exactly are LG OLEDs and Samsung OLEDs produced? Who makes them? Japanese? Koreans? Chinese?

Seems to me like you need low labor costs to produce them--would that help?

I'll tell you one thing--people will not continue to shell out for a long time mega thousands for OLEDs if those OLEDs aren't 4K and big--at the very least 65-inches.

What's the point of rinky dink sized 55-inch 4K OLED?

I know many people here crave great black levels that could beat the best Kuros but I think they're just WISHING that will happen with 4K OLED. I just don't see 4K OLED ever being cheap--not to mention the fact that once you get up to 4K and LARGE screen sizes people really WILL stop going to movie theaters.

I'm sure Hollywood wouldn't mind if they could still make all the money.

Look folks---ever since the era of Kuro sets--planet Earth has had enough technical knowhow to make pretty good pictures and 75-inch Kuroesque sets. They are not beyond the imagination of video display companies.

I DON'T believe that the reason they haven't happened is because of issues of cost. People spend tens of thousands on tube amplifiers and speakers and those companies haven't gone out of business! Don't tell me that it is beyond feasible to make Kuroesque plasmas in the 75-inch range and people buy them and a profit would be made.

I think the real deal is that Holywood doesn't want great BIG pictures for people at home unless they can still make ZILLIONS off the movies that would be a little bit more than Blu-ray discs + movie tickets at real theaters.

I think they just haven't figured out a business model way to make that happen and that THAT is the REAL reason why you don't alreay have great looking big 4K now.

4K LCD is laughable because LCD has so many shortcomings and 4K OLED seems like it CAN'T be made cheaply.

But the fact that OLED costs alot shouldn't doom it because there will always be people who will pay outrageous amounts for a TV--if they will for speakers--they will for a TV.

Which means if it doesn't happen then the REAL reason is Hollywood who can't make enough money.

Most of the US just gets their rocks off on IPhones and earphone music--they could care less about quality.

I will tell you this--if the video display companies think that in the REAL world that they can sell LCD that sucks and keep the OLED charade going on they will!

People have proven that they don't care about quality by tolerating COMPRESSED satellite and cable--given that--WHY would the video display companies care about producing 4K?

You hear the BOGUS bandwidth excuse all of the time--tell me how 4K will take less bandwidth?

For the record I never believed the bandwidth excuse anyway.

Just remember folks--when things don't make sense it's always because of money. but don't believe that it is always the video display companies making or not making money--sometimes it is Hollywood not making money--they make you THINK it is the video display comapnies when it is not.

One last thing to look for--Sony will try to MONOPOLIZE 4K content--IF they can do that then that is when you might see 4K--if they can get people to buy LCD that sucks they will OVER OLED that might be better but would be costly.
Edited by Artwood - 1/8/13 at 9:50pm

OLED televisions are outrageously expensive because the yields suck. There are some other parts to the story but they all pale in terms of impact to the fact that they have yet to master the manufacturing process.

Art, it is fine revealing the secret plot of Hollywood but save us from telling who is behind them . As Chrono says reality is just one bloody word: yields. This must be really nasty; last year they were promising 55" OLED for $10K and have not delivered, now the price is $12K. Meaning the problems were mounting and are still extremely hard.

The "Super Top Emission" may be another way to refer to the same printing technology produced by AUO. They could have said deposition or emulsion or sputterfication. None of it really says what they are doing.
I think they will have a very cost effective manufacturing method once fully developed, and that’s just a matter of time.

Super Top Emission is one of their OLED technologies utilizing a microcavity structure, it's not related to printing: http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/technology/technology/theme/oel_01.html#block3

Thanks for the technical description at the Sony site. There must be a few white papers out on the subject.

Maybe the Pany and Sony panels are different, but the specs and physical dimensions seem identical.

The Panasonic, Sony, and AUO 4K OLED televisions were all developed together.

http://www.flatpanelshd.com/news.php?subaction=showfull&id=1357673661

http://focustaiwan.tw/ShowNews/WebNews_Detail.aspx?ID=201301090031&Type=aTOD

Printing OLED's is the holy grail, but I am not sure how much these demo's tell us about how far they have managed to get in terms of solving the manufacturing difficulties. OTOH, it does seem that printing can be used to create some very high quality displays.

Panasonic finally have a press release out. (nice of those sites to not link to it)

http://panasonic.co.jp/corp/news/official.data/data.dir/2013/01/en130109-3/en130109-3.html

It confirms that they are using Sony-provided TFT substrates in the panels. However, Panasonic claim to be using their own developed top emission structure, rather than Sony's Super Top Emission structure, and Sony made no claims of their panel being printed.
There's a very good chance that they are the same panel and they're just being marketed differently, but I wouldn't say it's definitive.

I don't believe they are different.

They tell us nothing, really. But I'll say this: On the Sony demo at least, you can look at the single best flat panel I have ever seen in my life.

It's not, but it strains imagination that they are using different "top emission structures" when the very idea appears new. It also strains imagination that AUO is printing the panel for Panasonic but not for Sony.

I mean all of this could be happening, it's certainly possible.

None of it seems to matter much as neither company is commercializing anything before well into next year at the absolute earliest, with mass production not before 2015.

This is going to require Sony and/or Panasonic to bet billions to stay in the TV business and to incur the "valley of death" into 2017. Does either company have the appetite for this? I don't know. I hope so, however, and if you saw the Sony, you would too. (The Panasonic also looked amazing, but the demo material wasn't as eye boggling.)

It’s too bad they didn’t have the Crystal LED set on display there, simply for comparison if nothing else. A lot of people said the same thing about it last year, so I wonder if it’s better than OLED, or if it was simply because it’s the best set Sony had produced at the time. Not that it matters really, as it seems like there’s no chance of that ever appearing in our homes.

I agree that it seems unlikely, but stranger things have happened. I think Sony has been developing their Super Top Emission for some time now. I know it has been used in the broadcast panels, and I think the XEL-1 as well. I see now that Sony are claiming their Super Top Emission tech is proprietary (I was not certain of this before) so I think we do just have the same panel being “marketed” slightly differently.
Yeah, I really hope they make it. I’m sure the sets from LG and Samsung are fine, but this seems far more exciting. I don’t expect LG to make a good display, and I doubt I will buy another Samsung product.

^Going all in with the Japanese, eh (as long as it's Sony )?

Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't LG supply most of Sony's LCD panels?

Even if true, that's (somehow) different. Sony can turn water into wine, didn'tcha' know? And even if there isn't an arrangement presently with LG, there is one with Samdung (unless, again, things have changed), so you're in effect bolstering Samsung when buying an XBR.

I knew about the deal with Samsung. Who knows I could be wrong about LG.
I also was unaware of Sony's ability to turn water into wine. Sounds some what useful

Applied Materials announces new LTPS and IGZO deposition systems

http://www.oled-info.com/applied-materials-announces-new-ltps-and-igzo-deposition-systems

I doubt this works for roll to roll flexible film though.

This article is a year old, so things could have changed but in 2012 they reportedly cut ties with Samdung and increased reliance on LG, lol:

http://www.zdnet.com/sony-ups-reliance-on-lg-for-lcd-screens-2062303664/
Sorry, Chrono, looks like you'll have to avoid Sony's XBR's if you want to avoid the scourge of LG.

They're all edge-lit now anyway, aren't they? Wouldn't touch them.

And for what it's worth, the panel is only a fraction of what makes up the display. The kind of backlighting, image processing etc. is just as important.

The HX950 is a full array.

Forgive me for this dumbo question--I'm sure it's probably been answered in the past:

How much better is OLED versus the greatest calibrated Kuro of all times? How much blacker are the blacks and how much brighter is OLED? How much more accurate are the colors?

If they were the same size--and hypothetically if the Kuro was brand new--how much more would you be willing to pay for an OLED set versus the best calibrated Kuro set?

I know these are dumb questions but I may be in the same boat of as a lot of people in the world--I've never seen an OLED set.

Is OLED so great that it makes one climax?--I don't climax over TVs but some here wrote about Kuros as if that had indeed happened to them before!

Are there OLED people like that?

Significantly better. The Kuros only achieve about 30,000:1 contrast calibrated which means they look grey in a dark room. Actually, to be more specific, they have a reddish tint in a dark room. They also have poor uniformity on black which supposedly evens out over time. They also have uniformity issues on white (with the 9/9.5G models at least) due to the way they bonded the front filter to the panel. I think people are starting to run into issues of black level rising over time as well.

They have poor gradation, particularly at 72/100Hz, and have a lot of dithering/noise as a result.

Poor shadow detail. If you have that 30,000:1 contrast, you lose the lower levels of shadow detail. This is related to their poor gradation. I had to raise brightness to the point where the panel was less than 5,000:1 contrast (if I remember correctly) before it would display all shadow detail correctly in an actual image rather than a test pattern - they looked fine with a pattern that only had some just-above-black patches, on a black background. The 10pt ISF gamma control did not help. Their calibration controls in general were quite coarse, and the CMS was useless if you ever had to make adjustments.

They have a relatively coarse pixel structure and are not as sharp as an LCD.

They have poor ambient light rejection and must be watched in the dark, or an almost dark room to look good.

They are from a time before Plasma tried to be efficient, suck down 500W, and might as well be a heater in your room. This also means they have an aggressive ABL and dim the picture more than 50%. The monitors were better, only dimming after about 50% APL, rather than the 25% or so which the regular “9G” models started to dim at. And the power supply buzzes. Loudly.

They are thick, heavy panels with a non-flush bezel, and a limited number of inputs. A lot of their inputs are shared and have to be assigned to one or the other via the menu. E.g. Input 1 might be HDMI or Component, you can’t use both, and it’s several layers deep into the menus to change the option. (Note: I forget the specific combination of inputs, that is just an example) That’s not such a big deal these days where everything is HDMI now.

The menus themselves are terrible. Very poorly thought out with confusing options that have no explanation in the manual. I can tell you what they do, but I bet half the owners don’t even know.

Motion is poor. They suffer from motion blur, and suffer badly from “phosphor lag”. Flicker is also a problem.

They also have somewhat limited vertical viewing angles due to their filter design.

They lack modern features such as 3D support, HDMI 1.4 for audio pass through and auto lip-sync correction. If I remember correctly, input lag was high, making them unsuitable for gaming. I don’t think they were capable of displaying a 4:4:4 or RGB resolution image either. I seem to recall them displaying 4:2:2 only, also making them unsuitable for gaming. Perhaps someone could clarify that for me.

If I recall correctly, they could only remove overscan with a 1080 signal and not a 720p or lower one. The monitors may have been different, it’s been so long now, I forget specifics like that.

They suffer from image retention and burn-in. My first set (8G) was permanently burned in from (I think?) less than 6 hours of use at very reduced contrast settings. (20 out of… 50? 60?) After a couple of months (repeatedly running the screen wipe etc.) the shop took the set back. I saw image retention on my 9.5G, didn’t keep it long enough to see if it had burned in. (Wasn’t worth the money for its contrast and gradation)


OLED should fix just about every one of those issues. My only concerns with OLED are; potential for using an ABL, potential for burn-in (if they burn like a CRT and not a Plasma, it will be fine for most people though) “crosstalk”/“line bleed” and gradation. The only reason I am concerned about those last two, is because Sony’s HMZ-T1 suffered from them.

Motion handling could also be a concern if the sets don’t give enough options. OLED is a sample & hold type display, so they need to implement black frame insertion and/or interpolation. I just hope we get the options to tune those to our preferences. I tend to see flicker a lot easier than most people, and can’t stand to watch 24p without interpolation due to judder caused by the low framerate.
Personally I think the Kuros were vastly overpriced for their time, and TV prices in general have come down a lot since then. I would be willing to pay today’s VT50 prices for one. (I am not located in the US so I don’t know how those are relative to other TVs) With the way things are going, I expect that will be about 50% more than a “regular” flat panel costs in three or four years time, which is when I expect OLED might start to be affordable.

Honestly, I don’t know if I will even want a flat panel in five years time though. I’m not sure if the 50–55″ size will cut it for me then, and I am not willing to go any bigger if they’re still a giant black slab on the wall. I think I will be forced into buying a projector, which means low contrast, but you get a large image without making your place look like a bachelor pad, or someone’s midlife crisis.
Right, but that’s a 2012 model. I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think it is using an LG panel either.

You sure do know a lot about a Kuro for not having owned one, especially the remark about black levels rising. It sounds like you pulled that from your hat. Correction: Having owned one for 2 weeks! If burn-in or image retention were of any real concern, do you think there would be so many rabid fans like me?

Most of your complaints are as exaggerated and hyperbolic as I'm sure you consider Artwood's posts to be. You convincingly (to yourself) make the Kuro sound like a junk panel, but the rest of us know better. Artwood only asked about the black levels and the color accuracy. For serious videophile-type viewing (in a dark environment), there will be clearly deeper blacks (but likely less noticeable with ambient lighting) but color accuracy depends on the OLED implementation. Better gradation will help with color reproduction as well but is not as horrible as the above claims. The dirty whites (due to what is theorized to be an uneven panel bonding) is definitely something I wouldn't mind an improvement on.

We shall see how well OLED addresses all of the shortcomings (a mountain to some, a molehill to the rest).
Edited by vinnie97 - 1/11/13 at 9:58am

Correction: a couple of months for the 8G panel. A couple of weeks with a 9G, and a few weeks with the 9.5G - they didn't seem to offer anything over the 8G other than black levels really (and an improved ABL on the KRP) so I didn't need to spend as much time with them to know that I didn't want to keep them any longer.

I got a killer deal on the 9G panel and actually bought it after I had the "9.5G" monitor. I got it at almost 1/3 the price, right before Pioneer announced they were exiting the display market and one of the local shops here panicked (I think they must have had an advance warning) before Pioneer had announced that they would still honor the warranties because they are legally obliged to keep spare parts for five years here. After that announcement, the price went back up until they cleared their remaining stock, which went quickly. I bought it thinking that maybe I could live with its shortcomings at that price, so I stuck with it for a couple of weeks and couldn't do it. I almost regret not keeping it for nothing else other than being able to make a killing on selling an almost new panel a year or two down the line, especially as Panasonic has still not been able to match their contrast yet, but I don't really like people who hold onto things purely for profit when they are in scarce supply, and preferred that someone else who was wanting one, was able to have it.
It's not a junk panel, but just about every aspect of its performance can be improved upon with OLED - many aspects, significantly so, and other aspects have already been surpassed by current LCD/Plasma panels. The best thing the Kuro panels had going was their black level, nothing else they do is really special compared to what most other panels are offering today.
I don't know, have you seen a Kuro in the daytime? In a decently lit room? They might have had advanced front filters for their time relative to other plasmas, but they don't handle ambient light well at all.



Most plasmas still don't handle ambient light nearly as well as an LCD does, and I don't know that it will ever be any different simply due to how the displays work. SED/FED had similar issues with ambient light due to their cell structure.



OLED should handle light more like an LCD does, rather than Plasma displays.
Absolutely, but I'm quite sure it won't be a problem, especially now that manufacturers have been focusing on improving their color management systems for years now.
Gradation helps with far more than just colour reproduction, and it was a real problem on the Kuros once you went above 60Hz in my experience.

Don't need a correction, don't care about 8G. That's even more historical than 9 and 9.5G and even more nonapplicable. Was clearly referencing 9G when I made my correction. All of my subsequent comments are also about 9/9.5G (I know, I know, little difference between the two generations IYO).

There's very little difference between the 8G and 9/9.5G panels other than contrast and the front filter, from what I remember. I wouldn't be surprised if they were essentially the same panels with an improved driving method to reduce the black level - that's all the 10G infinite black panel was.

Well, a lot of effort went into that driving method, and it wasn't achieved without a high cost. Otherwise the panels wouldn't have been priced as such.

"OLED should handle light more like an LCD does, rather than Plasma displays."

Um, no it shouldn't. Well, more accurately, LG's OLED might to some extent, but there is absolutely no reason to believe that Samsung's will.

A huge portion of the reason that that LCDs handle ambient light so well is the color filters actually stopping the light from getting into the panel. The LC material and polarizers also help some as the remaining light that does enter the panel gets further attenuated and doesn't therefore have a chance to be reflected.

I'd love to know how you think OLEDs are going to make these miraculous effects occur without the relevant materials. (Again. LG does have color filters).

OLED material itself will likely attenuate the light very little as it's transparent by nature, unlike LC material -- which is translucent even when "untwisted".

Now it's possible that there is enough "spare brightness" for OLED to work with to allow filtering the incoming light with dedicated filtering layers. Certainly, the Samsung phones seem to be similar in performance in ambient to other non-OLED phones. I'm not sure what they are doing there, but I'm guessing it's an explicit filter.

I was under the impression that a lot of the reason Plasma had poor light handling was due to the deep cell structure, and their phosphor-based nature.
OLED doesn't have either of those things, and Sony is using color filters as well (over RGB OLEDs) it's not just LG.

Even Samsung's OLEDs don't appear to be suffering from the dramatic contrast loss that Plasmas typically have on the bright floors at tradeshows. (though Samsung's panel is very glossy)
But even Plasmas are getting a lot better at handling ambient light and ambient reflections these days, so I'm sure that technology will have carried over.

Plasmas historically have poor light handling because historically the brightness wasn't there to filter them so they couldn't reject incoming light. Now, they have elaborate front filtering, which makes them more akin to LCD at ambient rejection. LCDs are still brighter, however, which matters because the more light, the more you can overcome the light around you.

These are real things.

What you are describing is a bunch of "I think these other things matter" and, look, they might, but you need to explain how they might matter. Having "cells" doesn't in and of itself make the screen handle ambient poorly. Nor, in my opinion, does having phosphors, although those might be somewhat reflective (and that would matter). I'm open to ideas.