OLED TVs: Technology Advancements Thread - Page 88

OK, you must be joking right?

So 5 years ago they decided to get into a tiny, niche market where being good at high-end gear matters. And... they aren't dominating it. So, wait, this means you weren't kidding. Wow.

In 5 years, HTC has gone from non-entity to bigger than Nokia and RIM. In 5 years, Google has gone from search-engine company to No. 1 global supplier of smartphone operating systems. In 5 years, Facebook has gone from about 20 million to 800 million users.

You are right, it's amazing what Sony has accomplished in 5 years.



And something the market could care less about. Sony is a non-entity in PCs. Has been since they entered the market. Newsflash: Separate GPUs are T.Rex and a comet is headed for the Yucatan. Yes, yes, they have a tiny niche market in gaming. And it's getting tinier.

Outside of the broadcast division, they have shown no such commitment.

... after that, they appear to have ended their OLED TV efforts.


So long as the risks don't actually involve making panels and actually pushing the technology. Oh, wait, LCOS, they pushed that. Then they abandoned it. Couldn't even supply spare parts (at least they made good for all the owners of Qualia TVs, in fairness).

The idea is still bad and that product will fail like every head-mounted display before it. The vast majority of people can't wear HMDs for more than a few minutes and a vaster majority don't even want to try.


Samsung is singlehandedly pushing AMOLED right now. They are the whole enchilada. If AMOLED is to make it to TVs this decade, it will be thanks to Samsung.

(a) It won't be successful and (b) so what? Sony's last great product was, um, Walkman? Original PlayStation? Look, I'm no Sony hater, but get real. They are driving nothing in consumer electronics and haven't this millennium. Oh, wait, that's unfair, they gave us BluRay. But nothing about Sony's BluRay players is special, except the PS3, which is versatile and plays games. But it has the worst motion control of the 3 consoles (non-native like Wii, non-amazing like Kinect) and is really "just another console" in the era where consoles are going away.

And don't get me started on PSP Vita, which is about to be the most stillborn gaming launch since... oh, wait, PSP Go.



Sorry, again, I have to assume you are being funny here. First of all, nothing they try succeeds. Second of all, here are some risk takers: Apple does nothing but take big risks. Sharp just bet the entire display division on 70" displays when the other leading LCD makers couldn't manage (and still can't) to ship 65" in volume. Again, Samsung is basically doing OLED on their own. Microsoft is not often successful, but they did Kinect (fairly big risk), Windows Phone 7/Nokia deal (giant risk), Windows 8 (huge, huge risk). Third of all, the mistake is betting on Sony. The turnaround has been due for a decade.

(Disclaimer: I own a PS3, the only BluRay player I've ever used, which is also my Netflix player and my Vudu player. I game on it occasionally. I also use an HDMI-based Sony AVR, which has an annoying UI, but has served me very well and is getting replaced this year only because it is literally out of ports and doesn't overlay volume on the HDMI output, which is surprisingly annoying. I also had a 65HX929 on order and would doubtless have been happy with it, but I am concerned based on when I ordered it wouldn't come till 2012, so I canceled the order. So please don't waste your time calling me "biased against Sony".)

With 140 million sales in 2010, the camera market isn't that small. Sony have gained significant ground on well-established companies, taking third place worldwide and overtaking Nikon for the #2 spot in many individual markets. You can't expect them to enter a market where the major players have been there for over 50 years and take the #1 spot overnight.



Taking risks and releasing innovative products does not guarantee good sales. I'm much happier with someone willing to try at least.


Integrated GPUs are still useless for just about anything other than 2D content. Notebooks are moving towards smaller and lighter form-factors that rely on the integrated GPUs. The CPU power is still relatively good in machines like the MacBook Air, but the GPU is useless. Even if you aren't playing games, GPUs are used for many other tasks these days now with their compute abilities. With an external GPU, something like the MacBook Air could replace the need for a desktop machine to get more demanding tasks done for a lot of people.


Broadcast or not, they're still the only company putting out OLED displays of that size.


LCoS is still big in projection, both in the consumer and professional markets. RPTVs are a dead market. (and never took off outside USA)


Consoles are going away, GPUs are dead? Gaming is a pretty big market that isn't just going to disappear.


I never said to "bet on Sony" but Sony have been driving innovation in the display markets for decades and whether they're successful or not is immaterial.

The Qualia line may have failed, but they were the best displays you could buy if you had the money, and that technology trickled down into consumer displays a few years later.

They may only have larger OLED screens in the broadcast market right now, but it's more than anyone else has and it seems better for them to start out proving they can make high quality OLED displays than focusing on making them as cheaply as possible. (obviously getting the cost down is important for mass-market adoption though)

The digital SLR market is small, sir. The vast, vast, vast majority of digital cameras are not digital SLRs. And, by the way, Sony has competing in digital cameras since the beginning of the digital camera era. But let's focus on those SLRs for a second.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-0...ra-models.html
http://www.1001noisycameras.com/2011...are-yir-6.html

"In the market for cameras with interchangeable lens, or single lens reflex cameras, Canon controlled 44.5 percent of the market, followed by Nikon with 29.8 percent and Sony with 11.9 percent, according to the data."

So in the 5 years you claim Sony has been focusing on the DSLR market, they have grabbed a stunning 12 percent share. (In all digicams, Sony sits at #2 with a 17.9 percent share.)

Impressed? Well consider this.....

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...d=a1tNArNUlcUU

"Aug. 24, 2006 (Bloomberg) -- Sony Corp., the world's second- biggest consumer electronics maker, won more than a fifth of Japan's digital single-lens reflex camera market in its debut month, claiming third place after Canon Inc. and Nikon Corp., a market researcher said."

And from August 2010:

"Furthermore, Sony enjoys around 20% market share in the SLR Japanese market in August 2010."

So in the first 4 years in Japan, they gained... zero share!

Just to be clear, I failed at Google-ing an accurate figure for 2010 DSLR sales, but it appears to be ~11 million.

http://bythom.com/2010predictions.htm

So 5 years, 12% share, and this is helping Sony sell an amazing total of about 1.5 million cameras per year. It's a nice, little business that doesn't probably amount to $1 billion on their income statement.


Anandtech and everyone else disagrees with you. Running at lower settings they can play modern games just fine. Discrete GPUs are much better and are totally required for serious gamers. Serious gamers represent ~1% of the market.


I use a Macbook Air. I also have an integrated GPU HTPC. I also know a fair amount about GPU co-processing. The vast, vast majority of computers are built without a discrete GPU. And guess what? The percentage is rising. Plus, if Intel is to be believed, Ivy Bridge will add another 50+% to graphics performance.


Guess what? Without it, it's already replacing the desktop machine. You are caught in John C. Dvorak's 1990s vision of computing, where everyone needs giant amounts of processing power. News flash: Almost no one does. Oh, also, Apple makes Macbook Pros with discrete GPUs that are equivalent to desktop cards from 2009 or so. Those meet the needs of about 80-90% of the people who "need" a GPU. And none of those GPUs in Macbook Airs (or HP Envys, or Toshiba Qosmios) are built into docking stations. Sony's solution is desperately searching for a problem.

Yes, and that's the only product on their OLED roadmap. It's not a consumer product. It's not being fabbed on a line that allows them to convert it into a commercial product. They have no announced or speculated-on plans to be in the OLED panel business for TV. It would take 2-3 years from now to change their mind if they chose to and had the capital to. They don't have the capital. They also don't have a TFT line to convert to IGZO and use for substrates.


Yes, Sony backed yet another dead end -- projection TV -- and blew up manufacturing both plasma and LCD. Good move, forward thinking. LCoS is "big" in projection if you mean "dwarfed by like 50:1 by DLP". If that's your definition of big then yes, it's big. It has 0% share in office projection, 0% share in education/corporate, 0% share in the low end, some share in home theater (much less than DLP), some share in commercial theater (less than DLP).

Funny, I don't recall suggesting gaming was going away. Again, your arguments would be persuasive if you paid attention to the market. Here are the facts from reality on the sad state of discrete GPUs. For example:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/graphic..._Analysts.html
http://www.guru3d.com/news/nvidia-st...te-gpu-market/
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/graphic...ics_Cards.html

"Jon Peddie Research's report also suggests the discrete GPU market as a whole is shrinking. Discrete graphics shipments slipped from 19.01 million units in the first quarter to 16.1 million in the second, and JPR expects total revenue from discrete graphics to be 33% lower this year than the last. JPR blames increasingly speedy integrated graphics, specifically those built into AMD's and Intel's latest CPUs, for the shift."

"Advanced Micro Devices has admitted inevitable: the decease of the market of graphics processing units as a result of high-performance offered by accelerated processing units (APUs) with built-in graphics engines. In the long run, parts of [graphics cards] business will be cannibalized and the low-end discrete GPUs will be replaced with Fusion-type products."

I'd call 33% lower revenue a market in free fall. What do you think is going to happen next year when Ivy Bridge comes out and the successors to Llano are out at AMD (I forget the code name)? Hint: It ain't going to cause people to want more discrete GPUs.

And your theory that most people can use a GPU, whatever merit is has, is pretty much ignored at AMD and Intel. They are basically both saying: High end GPUs? Sure, if you need 'em. Otherwise, we have you covered. The market agrees.

No, this is just false. False false false. Sony drove innovation with the Trinitron. They did not drive innovation with RPTV. They did not drive innovation with microdisplay RPTV (see below on Qualia). They did not drive innovation on flat panels of either type. They had a couple of really nice products. So did Optoma. We don't call them a "driver of the industry". And it's not immaterial. By the same logic, you ought to credit Toshiba for its foolish SED venture and its more foolish attempt to win with HD-DVD. Gee, they tried! Toshiba will be gone from the CE landscape soon. Many believe Sony won't survive the decade at current rates.

OK, this is ridiculous. By the time the RPTVs were out, DLP already owned the RPTV market and said market was dying to flat panels, which Sony punted on. By the time Sony had an affordable LED-backlit LCD, everyone did. Sony has had some nice LCDs. Until recently, with the HX929, I don't recall anyone thinking they had an industry-leading product in flat panels. And before they could even ship the HX929 65" flagship, Sharp outflanked them with a set this is bigger and apparently at least as good / comparable / possibly better.

That'd be relevant if they intended to do anything with their lead like build an 8G fab and make TVs. They don't have any intention of doing that. So who cares? There's a guy who can make D/IF synthetic white diamonds. He doesn't actually do it. Instead he makes yellows. The fact that he can make the valuable whites is irrelevant. Sony can't actually make OLED TVs even though it can make the equivalent of a few of those white D/IF diamonds.

(By the way, the diamond guy doesn't do it because DeBeers and the other diamond cartels would shoot him dead. Or his family. Or his partners and their families. Sony's problem is different. They lack any ambition to actually own the next generation of flat panels. And they lack the capital to do anything about that lack of ambition.)

Let me say, every round of this, I cite facts, data, etc. to back up my points. You then make sweeping, opinionated claims that the facts actually demonstrate are false or -- in the best case -- are merely unsupported. I'm getting fatigued so at some point, you'll get the last word. Please don't interpret that as me agreeing with you.

You may not be aware of this, but Intel sued Nvidia and they are no longer allowed to produce chipsets for their processors beyond the Core2 series. This is why Apple stuck with Core2Duo processors for so long in the smaller MacBooks, because it was the only way to get half-decent GPU performance. No low-end machine or smaller portables are going to have dedicated GPUs now because Intel has basically made it impossible. That is why they are disappearing.

After almost a year, the 2011 MacBook Pro revision brought worse GPU performance in modern titles. A 50% increase in GPU performance with Ivy Bridge is still terrible performance compared to modern GPUs. (Apple has a habit of being a generation or so behind everyone else) At least they will finally support OpenCL next year.


---


The first RGB LED backlit LCD way back in 2004, long before everyone else.
The first wide gamut LCD TVs with BRAVIA in 2005 when other TVs couldn't even reach Rec 709.
The first local-dimming LCDs with the XBR8 in 2008.
The first (I believe) edge-lit LCD with the XBR9.
They developed a new UV-curing optical elasticity resin suitable for large displays to eliminate the air gap between the front of the LCD panel and edge-to-edge glass, eliminating internal reflections and the contrast reduction they cause with the HX/LX900. (Opticontrast) Virtually any other display which has another surface over it, whether it's your watch, digital camera, iPad, MacBook, iMac or the TVs that the likes of LG and Panasonic make, have nothing between the front surface of the display and the glass, reducing display quality considerably. (the iPhone 4 is possibly the only exception to this as it is bonded to the digitiser & screen.)

I am well aware of that. Sandy Bridge Macbook Airs, however, play fairly recent games at OK FPS with middling settings. They are not for hardcore gamers but your implied claim they can't be used for games is false. Don't believe me? Read Anandtech.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4528/t...-13inch-review

"At 1280 x 720, the HD 3000 is fast enough for today's Mac games:"

45+ fps on HalfLife 2 test, 40+ fps on the GPU bench test on Starcraft, ~30 on Portal 2

"While gaming is possible on both Air models, it's far from ideal. Apple definitely fixed the CPU performance with the new Air, but through no fault of its own failed to address GPU performance. Intel seems committed to taking GPU performance seriously, let's hope we actually see that in the coming years."

So, add in 50+% for Ivy Bridge and, well, voila, you have a pretty decent gaming platform. Again, I am in no way suggesting this will be sufficient for hardcore gamers, not in 2012, 2013 or 2014. There is a a market for dedicated GPUs, just like there is a small -- but real -- market for DSLRs among the giant camera market.

It's funny, by the way, you cited the camera market stats of ~140 million, which we've established is about 11 million DSLR. The real camera market is around 400 million, as most smartphones are used as cameras occasionally. The dedicated camera market is shrinking at this point; but the DSLR market will probably remain about that size for several years to come. People who want the high end form important niches of the business, but they are niches.


This sounds like an impressive list. I still will tell you no one considers Sony a driver of the display industry on the consumer side, save Sony fanboys like yourself.

I can't speak to many of those, but a few. Sony's first backlit LCD was a disaster. It used obscene amount of power, it didn't use white LEDs (if memory serves), it was ridiculously expensive (like $13000?). And while you credit them for somehow being important here, they abandoned the product and the product line almost as fast as it came to market. In your world, that's an innovation driver and someone "not to count out". In the business world, they are a combo of a has been, a poser, and a failure.

Sony does apparently get credit for edge-lit LCDs, which has to be the worst innovation in TV in the HD era. You like bad uniformity? Thank edge lighting. Flashlighting? Thank edge lighting. Clouding? Thank edge lighting. And what do we get in return? Well, they aren't really much cheaper -- look at how cheap a full array 70" set can be (Sharp 73x series). They are maybe slightly thinner -- but is anyone complaining about how fat the HX929 is?!? Like, um, wow Sony. Thanks for edge lighting. Woot.

Let's pretend your point about them having the first local-dimming set is true (I don't dispute it, I'm just not sure). So that was 2008. Local dimming rocks. Now let's compare a real company to Sony.

Real company: We have this cool technology on the high end; let's make it less expensive so we can roll it out across more products and give ourselves a competitive advantage.

Sony: Let's keep this technology limited to like 1 expensive model / line per year so almost no one even knows it exists or is beneficial.

I mean you're saying they had one of these out 3 years ago? And in 2011, the best they can do is the HX929 series only. And they fail to ship the flagship model of said TV before Thanksgiving? Yep, they are driving the industry -- right off a cliff.

People don't love this Opticontrast thing as much as you appear to. Some people like it a lot, some people don't like it a lot. Is it new? Yes. Does it have problems? The infamous "crease" for example? Some people thinking there are reflectivity/glare issues? Check, check and check.

Find me some industry trade references about Sony driving the TV industry and I'll acknowledge that there are people who still believe this. Given they were/are:

1) Late to flat panels and pass on making panels of all techs (including OLED)
2) Doing nothing special in 3-D, which is expected to be a major catalyst for the industry this decade (even though I may personally hate it)
3) Unable to demonstrate their products have meaningful competitive advantages at almost any point on the price/value curve (55HX929 with the much lower pricing is probably the exception)
4) Losing market share
5) Considering outsourcing more and more of their production and even design

... the notion they are important to the TV industry is patently ridiculous.

methinks your faith in sony misplaced it is.

sony is floundering. they've lost money on their display division for 8 straight years. they had the #1 gaming console and now it is #3. they used to dominate music listening formats but that is long gone. they're not aggressively pursuing oled, even though they should be. their vaio computers are too expensive to make up much of the pc market and do they have a table out yet? their smart phones are non-competitive compared to what apple, htc, and sammy offer. they only make lcd/led tvs when their major competitors sell pdp in addition to lcds and are apparantly willing to invest billions to develop oled. sony is only treading water in all these consumer product fields, and if anything, they are slowly falling further behind.

their only 2 stable business lines is their professional equipment and sony/columbia studios.

so no i would bet on apple, google, and samsung before ever considering wagering on sony's future.

Ahem. It just means that any portable machine will have AMD graphics. AMD's integrated chipsets have always had way better graphics performance than Intels truly awful GMA series (where much of the "GPU" actually consists of software running on the CPU!). Today the integrated chipset is on its way out since GPUs are now integrated on the CPU die. As before, AMD's products are faster than Intels.

The thing that kills external GPUs in portables is power consumption, portables have to live off battery power and even low to lower middle range desktop GPUs like the 6770/450 consume about 100 watt. And modern CPUs intended for portables have the equvivalent to a bottom range GPU integrated on the die. So there is just no point unless you are designing a portable machine intended to be used connected to the power grid.

[quote=rogo;20990342]
Can we take it you do not hold Sony in high regard?

You clearly missed my disclaimer in a previous post. I'll re-include it here:

"(Disclaimer: I own a PS3, the only BluRay player I've ever used, which is also my Netflix player and my Vudu player. I game on it occasionally. I also use an HDMI-based Sony AVR, which has an annoying UI, but has served me very well and is getting replaced this year only because it is literally out of ports and doesn't overlay volume on the HDMI output, which is surprisingly annoying. I also had a 65HX929 on order and would doubtless have been happy with it, but I am concerned based on when I ordered it wouldn't come till 2012, so I canceled the order. So please don't waste your time calling me "biased against Sony".)"

I am speaking very objectively about Sony. People who love Sony because it was once a great company have a tough time acknowledging reality. But Sony is no longer a great company. It's a once-great company that is struggling to stay alive, leading no segment of the industry, losing brand equity with an entire generation. This is reality. Grim, hard reality.

Clearly, my continued purchases and use of Sony goods should tell you something about my hope that Sony remains around and finds it way again. That my next TV appears not to be a Sony due to these delays, however, speaks volumes. Had Sony actually been a panel manufacturer, they'd control the supply chain, they'd have 65" TVs, I'd already be watching my new 65HX929, etc. etc.

Wow, it can play a 7 year old game at 45 fps on low settings at a resolution that no Mac uses. very impressive.


Qualia was shuttered in 2006 in USA, the KDX-46Q005 was launched mid-2004. As I have been saying all along, Sony were there first, and have been driving innovation with their high-end products. That says nothing about their success. If anything, what Sony has proven time and time again is that there isn't much in the way of a high end market for AV. That does not mean the products were bad.

If you can't see the impact that Sony's high end products have had, despite their innovations trickling down into other products, and being copied by other manufacturers, then I don't know what to say.


What you fail to grasp, is that Sony is one of the few companies out there that still offers a high-end range of products for those that can afford them, when companies like Samsung and LG are simply in a race to the bottom.


This is a result of the 929 being a cost-reduced 909 and the introduction of Corning's Gorilla Glass.


Late to OLED, despite having the first OLED TV on the market, the largest OLED products currently for sale, and being the first to use OLED on portable media players with their Walkmans.


Being a content producer, making projectors used in theatres, making broadcast monitors for content to be produced on, having the brightest active shutter system last year with their uniue single-polarised glasses system, creating and encouraging 3D content with games on their PlayStation console. Nope, not doing anything for 3D.


AMD are busy with their own CPUs, they don't make chipsets for Intel's processor platforms. That's why we're now moving backwards—the GPU used in Apple's 2010 MacBook Pros was already out of date, and this year performance stood still. Next year, we might see a 50% performance increase on an outdated platform, fantastic.


…and the whole point of the external GPU is that you dock the machine when you get home and are plugged into the wall, having the power of a 200W GPU at your disposal rather than a 10W one that isn't much good for anything. This is just an extension of what Apple are pushing with their Thunderbolt display.

I like the way you selectively ignored the fact that the leading online publication evaluating computers said it can play modern games. So I'll repeat it for your trollbait: ""At 1280 x 720, the HD 3000 is fast enough for today's Mac games""

Post hoc, ergo propter hoc again, eh? They were there first. They have not been "driving innovation" since. You are finally correct in something, however. They have proved there isn't much in the way of a high-end market. To the extent there is one, they don't capture much of it. Their market share is bad in projectors, their market share in infinitesimal in high-end audio.

You presume inaccurately that people are copying Sony. And, yes, again, you've made an accurate point: You don't know what to say. I've made like 100 points in this discussions, you've refuted maybe 5. You claim Sony is an innovator and driving force, but no one covering the industry agrees with you.

I see. Sony being in Costco and outsourcing all their TV production is unimportant proves they aren't in the race to the bottom huh? Sony shutting down Qualia 5 years ago shows they're not in the race? It's a shame I don't use drugs, I'd ask you what you were smoking. Sony is losing the race to the bottom. But they are very much in it.

As for the high end, I suggest you look at their non-presence in audio, their minimal impact on projectors, their loss of the high-end panel market to Sharp by failing to deliver the 65" in a timely fashion. Add up their presence in the high end and you can get a pile of nothing. Except, of course, for your vaunted low-double-digit share of DSLR and 3rd place!.

See this is where you don't get it. They already have given up on OLED. They're out. No fab. No plans for one. No research of any meaning. Samsung owns AMOLED. Period. If it's in TV you can buy in 2015, thank Samsung. Not Sony.

This year, they apparently lead the market in crosstalk on their 3D. Awesome. They are doing nothing to bring passive to market, unlike Samsung and LG, who understand passive is the future. The fact they have a studio is, well, another matter. I'm all for Sony Pictures, but let's not pretend there is some magic synergy between Sony Pictures and Sony Electronics. There never has been much.

You are clueless. The future is performance per watt, not useless 3DMark benchmarks that benefit 1% of the market. The high-end is already served just fine by the discrete GPU market. They are also a rare breed, a tiny part of the business. That part of the business is not driving the rest of the business anymore than DSLR is driving the improvement in cellphone cameras.

Get over it.

I've seen the solution you are talking about. It will never sell 1 million units, cumulatively. Ever. Worldwide. Do you understand that? And every year, the integrated GPUs get better, shrinking the % of the market that wants discrete from tiny to tinier to tinier still. There is no chance the discrete GPU market will ever grow again as a percentage of the total. Do you grasp that? That's reality.

And there are no Macs with 1280x720 screens. The MacBook Air, Apple's entry-level notebook, starts at 1366x768, almost 15% more resolution.

The Half-Life 2 Source engine (which both HL2 and Portal run on) is seven years old.
Blizzard specifically build their games for older computers with Starcraft II. If anything they are going backwards as the upcoming Diablo III looks worse than Starcraft II. Hardly taxing the system.

I personally had one of the 2010 MBPs with the Nvidia 330M graphics (faster than the HD3000 by all accounts) and it absolutely could not run any modern games, so I don't see how the slower 3000 could.

No modern game is going to run well on those notebooks, and will look terrible on the lowest settings. A 50% increase is not nearly enough to fix that.


As the only company out there releasing products that are not cell phones using OLED screens, it seems a strange thing to say that they have given up on OLED.


Of course performance per watt is important, but desktop parts still beat notebook parts in that metric. And as good as performance per watt gets, a 10W notebook part is never going to compete with a 200W desktop part.

If the future is having an ultraportable notebook that you dock to a large display when you get home, an external GPU is part of that. Whether Sony have that right yet, is beside the point, my point was that it's another first from them, and they are willing to try.

Oh, and who is driving innovation in the cellphone camera business with their back-illuminated CMOS sensors for mobile phones? They also make all the sensors used in Nikon SLRs as well as many others such as Pentax.

Even aside from their own cameras, Sony is huge in the camera sensor business too. Guess who is supplying the camera module for the iPhone 5.

OK, stop. Seriously. Stop.

Anandtech says you can run modern games. You don't. Point? Anandtech. Not you.

Sony has no plans to build an OLED fab for TV. They are not researching the technologies needed to manufacturer OLED TVs. Period. Samsung is. LG is (to a lesser extent). Sony is not. Point me.

The future is 10w parts, period. There will not be 200w parts, except in some tiny niches of the market. That's the future. There is no future for GPUs in docking stations. No one has ever used docking stations. They are a technogeek product that has been theoretical desirable for close to 15 years and has never exhibited good sales. Even port replicators have a tough time selling these days. Just stop. Sony will never sell 1 million GPU-equipped docking stations. Ever. Point me.

Bravo, Sony's CMOS division is doing a great job. Point you.

Score, me 1 million, Anandtech 10 million, you, 5. Game over. Congratulations you were not shut out.

None of the benchmarks they do at the display's native resolution are at playable framerates.


Yep, terrible idea. It'll never catch on.

Things like the Apple display are further proof that add-on docking stations -- like the "innovative" Sony product you tout -- are 100% dead on arrival.

No one is going to buy a docking station to put between their Air and their Thunderbolt monitor. Especially when like 1-5% of buyers are ever going to care about the graphics horsepower being an issue. And whatever that percentage really is (I suspect it's closer to 1% based on how few Windows laptops have discrete GPUs and how laptops thoroughly obliterate desktop sales in markets where people get to choose), it's going down every single year from now until the end of time.

There will never be a year when (the number of people demanding / requiring / buying a discrete GPU-based system + more ludicrously, an add-on GPU that you plug in through a port) will = a higher % of the market than it was the year before. That's real.

New score update, me 1 million and 1, you 4, for making ridiculous comparisons to Sony's GPU dock and Apple's monitor. I have retired you from this competition at a deficit of 999,997. Thank you for playing.

Now here you are going way too far. They dont have any announced plans for a fab but they are doing heavy research into exactly the areas that would be necessary to build a fab. They have also clearly made some progress. I know neither of us predicted that they would have a 25" OLED televsion for $5500 in 2011.

Check out their presentations at FPD International in October.

http://expo.nikkeibp.co.jp/fpd/2011/english/forum/B/

There are far fewer leaks out of Japan than Korea so we dont have a clear picture on how well Sony is doing and what their plans are for a commercial fab. Hell, we dont even know what processes/fabs they are using for their professional televisions.

I dont expect them to be first, but I do think they are pursuing plans to ultimately have an OLED fab. Whether they will be successful or not is an open question.

Slacker

No fab. No plans for one. No research of any meaning.

Sony has a Gen 3.5 line......

Sony announces new OLED panels almost every year (rollable oled in 2010 , Vacuum deposition/print hybrid oled in 2011 )....

Sony is not making OLED panels for smart phones and tablets does not mean it is not pursuing OLED. Sony's goal was to make OLED TVs from the very start of its OLED research (back in the 90s) while Samsung's strategy is start by making small panels and then move to the big ones. Now it seems Samsung's strategy is a lot better.

Sony's semiconductor business (CMOS sensors) and Digital imaging business (DC/DV/NEX/SLT) are also quite stable.

I really don't think you know what playable frame rates means, anything over 30fps is considered very playable. But as of now you're just speculating at what the frame rates are going to be.


Points: Me - over 9000 You - 0

Sony is not even a position to build an OLED fab financially and has announced no interest in doing so. More accurately, they have hinted at leaving the TV business entirely. I mean, anything is possible, but where Sony is getting billions to re-enter the TV-making business -- a business they've been out of for a decade, buying panels from others since -- is completely unclear. Why is less clear.

Well, recently the governments of both Taiwan and Japan invested in display technology, Taiwan explicitly into OLED, Japan possibly so:

Japan: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/0..._n_943091.html

Taiwan: http://www.oled-info.com/taiwan-want...ed-rd-alliance

(caveat: the Japanese thing may indeed be to consolidate LCD, as all the articles' headlines state, but yet still somehow every article about it mentions that the "new display company will focus on developing next-generation displays, including thinner organic light-emitting diode displays with higher resolution, the three firms said." Very selective reading and interpretation on my part to be sure, but this is a possible opening for Sony/Japan, especially since Sony alone in the world has experience putting out 25" OLEDs.)

When did Sony say that "We will never build a OLED fab" ? Yes , Sony said nothing about building a fab ,but Sony said nothing about "not" building a fab either. The truth is : Sony has an OLED fab and Sony's R&D power is focused on OLED ,you could say Samsung/LG puts more resources there , but you can not ignore Sony.

About leaving the tv business...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolog...d-tablets.html

"Sir Howard’s right-hand man and executive vice president was clear, however: “We are not leaving the TV business, we are not thinking of leaving the TV business, we are not talking about it either”

Holy bear, those comments were after they conducted a strategic review where they decided -- for now -- to remain in the business. It was technically a true statement.

Sunidrem, it's possible they'll do something. What's not possible is that Japanese OLED TVs are coming to market anytime soon. And this notion that because Sony is shipping an infinitesimal number of 25" OLEDs to broadcast channels means they can somehow translate this into something else is wrong; the technology to fab larger TVs is almost entirely different.

I think Rogo got attached to the idea that Sony is on the way out and will defend that no matter what. He's nothing if not sure of his predictions.

I was particularly struck by the suggestion that Sony isn't doing anything for 3D. The PS3 was turned into a 3D Blu-ray player with a firmware update. Sony has been pushing 3D in their games: Killzone 3, Ico/Shadow of the Colossus, Uncharted 3. Unless you have a ton of money to buy a powerful gaming PC, the PS3 is the place to be for 3D gaming right now (handhelds excluded). Faced with the heads up about Sony's involvement in 3D, Rogo moves the goal posts to say that they're doing nothing with passive 3D, which he declares is the future (actually, that's another debate).

Sony's Playstation 3 is 3rd worldwide right now, but how's Nintendo doing at number 1? Well, they're facing financial troubles because their Wii no longer sells. Meanwhile Xbox and PS3 are doing just fine. It's never so simple is it?

Yes, it's correct to say Sony is having big problems. But it's a mistake to count them out.


And just a note on style:


This sort of thing adds nothing to the discussion. It doesn't make you look good either.

In that case Samsung and LG are in an worse position , they even can not manufacture 25 inch OLED panels now.

I do agree with you that Sony does not have enough $$ to push OLED further , but I don't agree with you that Sony is abandoning OLED/TV business.

@Airion, Sony is not driving 3-D adoption. They are doing nothing important to get full-resolution passive into your house nor anything as aggressive as Toshiba's glasses-free effort.

And, no, I don't have it in my head that they are on their way out. I have facts suggesting they are a slowly dying company. Most people agree with me. They haven't had a hit in forever. I love my PS3, but it's a bust. Wii made motion controlling real. Xbox Live is much bigger than PSN and Kinect took motion to the logical conclusion. Yes, PS3 is one of the all-time great BluRay players -- you can read my posts on that very subject on AVS over and over and over -- but so what?

@Holy Bear, Samsung has made 10 million AMOLED panels for Galaxy S II in <5 months. Yep, they are small screens (usually 4.3s, although some models are getting 4.5s now), but Samsung is moving 625,000+ units per week. That's an order of magnitude more screen area than Sony is moving. By this time next year, Samsung might be at two orders of magnitude the AMOLED production of anyone else on earth. By that logic, there is no else in the game at all.

The PS3 is providing badly needed 3D content. If people are gaming on their new 3DTV, then they're most likely doing it on the PS3. (Xbox 360 has a handful of options, but only in half-resolution side by side format.) The PS3 and PS3 games continue to sell: how is that bust? The Wii had its day but it's gone bust now and Nintendo is struggling to sell stuff.

You seem to be using arbitrary metrics to evaluate the health of the company. PS3 3D support, doesn't matter because they're not making passive TVs. PS3 as a system, bust because you don't like its motion control offerings.

Interesting that they actually been mentioning 8.5G rather than 8G. And large size non-vapourware coming faster than any of us thought. Looks like IGZO implementation is real... the companies must have "whispered". I highly doubt LG will have 8.5G fab though... like I posted, for "white LED backlighting" they can likely array 4 pieces of 3.5G into one.

"55-inch OLED TV panel marketing to begin with London Olympic Games

Samsung Mobile Display (SMD) and LG Display recently succeeded in the
development of 55-inch OLED TV panels, which are expected to premier in Jan
2012 Consumer Electronics Show CES). The two companies are expected to begin
the production of OLED TV panels in a small scale in their 8.5G lines (pilot
lines included) ahead of the 2012 London Olympic Games (Jul 27 - Aug 12) in
order to secure early mover advantages in OLED TV market.

Various 8G OLED technologies to be applied
The core technologies for the development of large-size OLED panels concern
thin-film transistor (TFT) and color patterning, among others. In order to cut
costs while increasing the panel size, the two companies are expected to apply
various TFT technologies (involving low-temperature polysilicon, oxides,
printing, etc.) and pixel technologies (involving fine metal masks, laser-
induced thermal imaging, white OLED, etc.)." - Hyundai Sec 22 Sept

So I'm supposed to watch marketing for a TV I can't purchase in concert with the Olympics? Who comes up with these brilliant ideas?

I am impressed that there is a 5k 25" OLED monitor, especially since Sony is doing such low volume on OLED. This means that a consumer/commercial model would logically be less. Small progress, I guess, but I was expecting those to go for at least twice as much.

I think we may see an announcement of a smaller OLED screen size for 2012- smaller than 55" which I still think is such a crock of s#$%.