OLED TVs: Technology Advancements Thread - Page 181

Well whether or not you want an OLED section, I'm totally against a 4K section. To me, it's akin to a "good LCD" section and a "Better LCD" section. OLED seems to be an entirely different beast to me.

Actually, the more I think about it, the less convinced of my new section stance I am getting. There is already so much cross-talk because even in something as common as all the variants of plasma vs. LCD, there is no clear destination for it. Enough of this for now however. It's not a democracy here anyway.

I think my AVS participation fell about 80% when the plasma and LCD forums were split (against my personal preference, which I outlined publicly). I suspect more sub-forums would reduce my presence even more. So that would be a pretty big plus for some people.

I was wondering why you were only at 28,000 posts.

No, not a plus at all. Do you still think they should be combined?

My apologies to all. Yep, MAJOR brain burp on my part.

I guess they could make it a sub section of the LCD section, but they have the projectors split below $3K above and below, so who knows. It is obvious though they will need a 4K section to discuss 4K projectors, 4K flat panel, 4K blu-ray players, 4K movies etc. It would be best to not disturb the 2K hold outs.

If you actually look at it (and I'm not going to do any real research), I've been an AVS member for more than 13 years. That's an average of 6 posts per day over that time period. But what I'm sure we'd find is that there was a period where I'd respond to more like 20 posts per day pretty regularly and long periods where I didn't show up at all. There's a pretty strong correlation between me (a) getting interested in new areas of home-theater and HD tech and posting more (b) that interest waning and me posting a bit less (c) AVS policy changing and me posting a lot less (d) a repeat of the cycle but it never coming close to the previous level.

I felt -- and the archives probably back this up -- that the split was utterly pointless and really bad. It catered to the worst people on AVS, those who couldn't make an intelligent post without engaging in some flame baiting about one tech or the other being bad. The tens of thousands who lurk or find the forum via Google don't give a rat's behind about the underlying technology, they want a great picture that meets their needs. When they come to AVS and are shopping and have to re-do all their questions and research across forums split along technology, it provides them a confused, incomplete picture of what TV to buy.

Given that plasma is slowly but surely dying, it's less logical than ever to segregate the two. People do really cross shop and yet there is no intelligent place to post threads like "VT 50 vs. Elite" or "Plasma or LCD for my bright living room" or "Which is worse, uniformity or dithering?" etc. etc. You can post them here, but this sub-forum gets minimal traffic compared to the plasma or LCD forums.

Also, in the Plasma area, LCD myths still get trotted out routinely and in the LCD area, plasma myths are repeated with the certainty that Donald Trump insists Obama wasn't born in the U.S. (and, really, anyone who believes that is just too stupid for me to have a conversation with so they should move on from this post).

But I don't have the time or energy to care enough to do anything about it. I try to contribute facts and my opinions (when I think they are useful) to both the plasma and LCD areas. I just don't do much these days.

If OLED will never compete on economic grounds how it can compete at all? PQ is not the main issue anymore and LCD can well compete on PQ if needed by IGZO and dense local dimming.

Eh. We've gone to the mat before, but I like your posts.



Yeah, this bothers me too, and I've been an advocate of not splitting forums in the past in other sites. I've forgotten the large number of forums I've seen where this very dynamic has clobbered productive discussion. I'm backing out of this thing for now.

Reading Rogo's last response, especially the advantages of having one LCD/Plasma thread, spiked a thought in my old and uninformed brain. If you took the Elite from Sharp, eliminated the color problem, increased off axis viewing by 50%, and incorporated 4K, would you have a serious contender for OLED 4K? The only real problem would be the off axis concern which could possibly be accomplished with the new screen materials (Gorilla,Moth Eye) being discussed here. Fixing the color problem and using 4K would be pretty simple.

You raise a good question irkuck.

I like a lot of your posts.

So I've been arguing that since last year Andy, that "the best LCDs are so good, there isn't really room for 'better quality' as a selling point." That doesn't mean there is no room, but there isn't much room.

The Elite has:
* Great simultaneous contrast
* Great sequential contrast
* Great brightness
* Really good motion handling
* Excellent gamma

But:
* Slightly imperfect color (a problem some other sets don't have, so we know it's fixable)
* Slightly imperfect off-axis viewing (a problem plasma obviously fixes, something that's gotten better on LCD over time)
* A reflective screen (but so will OLED, and maybe fixed by Moth Eye once and for all)
* "Only" 2K resolution (but easily fixed as you say)

The point of the list above isn't to assail the Elite but to show that there simply aren't many real picture-quality metrics / selling points where the Elite isn't already great or "fixable". And what applies to the Elite could easily apply to other LCDs. Although, there's a caveat. The apparent death of local dimming means I'm not sure about the future of simultaneous contrast on LCD. Does anything touch the Elite (or other local dimmers?). I mean, this is a fixable problem with local dimming, but what about without?

Also, as IGZO becomes ubiquitous on LCD, will we see better contrast? I think we will. And will that mitigate the need for local dimming? I don't really know. But if someone could build great edge-lit screens, that might. The reality with edge-lit vs. local dimming is that if you could actually get uniform light (hard, but not impossible), stop letting it leak out the edges (very easy with care) and block it well (perhaps coming with redesigned panels thanks to IGZO?!?) you don't need full-array dimming. All of these are hard problems, but all of them leverage off a giant LCD ecosystem that has at least partly solved them. And who is to say OLED will have perfect uniformity with the WRGB method (or even with the now apparently dead Samsung RGB method?!?)?

The Elite also has excellent black levels even though that's probably included in your contrast statement. Would it not be cheaper, much cheaper, to make the upgrades you mention regarding LCD and forget developing OLED? What with the problems so far in bringing OLED to the stores, forget the cost, just getting product on some shelves. It seems like OLED may have some teething problems so why not stick with a known entity and engineer away the weak points of LCD? Even if you stay with local dimming it's still going to be light years cheaper than OLED. In the mean time develop the local dimming edge lit technology. It almost looks like they want something brand new just to have something brand new to market. I'm not saying that's a stupid plan because we all like something brand new. Sort of Starwarsy.

Oh I don't think the Samsung RGB method is dead. I think it's on the shelf, awaiting better materials development and perhaps ink jet printing.

I believe that's actually the majority of the business plan. If it's new, it can be sold as different. No one has made much money ever in LCD. Samsung does OK selling the finished TVs, but the panel side of the business has always been kind of sucky.

The hope was to renew display on a new tech where there'd be a competitive edge on mfg. and less overcapacity. I think for a lot of reasons, that is unlikely to really ever come to pass.

I should clarify. When I say, "the Samsung RGB method is dead" I mean, "the Samsung RGB method" using small-mask scanning. I don't mean RGB OLED, which I believe will be resurrected by printing at some point. But when that happens is unclear; at least 2 years from now -- no sooner.

I don't know who you are, but you speak with seeming authority and I read everything you write that I see. You're my go-to guy for this stuff, so I hope you know what you're talking about

I agree about the splitting of forums. I've run a couple of sites in the past (one of which was going for about seven years or so with consistent traffic - I really should have tried to monetize that at some point) and the best solution is to have as few different sections as possible, with good moderation. Splitting up into sections such as LCD/Plasma/OLED rather than "Flat panels" or Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo rather than "Gaming" for example, only serves as a way to cut down on the work for your moderation team. Most people don't bother to visit each section which weakens your community, it limits discussion, and is just generally a bad idea.

However, AVS probably has enough traffic that each section is its own little community these days. I really only bother to check this section now, and occasionally browse another one (usually the calibration section - though I don't have as much interest in that these days) but more than 90% of my time is just spent in here.

If you simply had a "flat panels" section, I think discussion would be a lot more lively and interesting - but you need good moderation to avoid repeat topics, trolling, and so on. That's not to say that all the "Display Devices" sections should be consolidated into a single one, but you could probably get away with less than 1/3 of what we have right now - there are 18 sections!

Everyone can learn something new from others every day. Some can be biased even when right. Read, learn, do your own research and in person viewing, listening, etc..

I hope I know what I'm talking about too.

Thanks for the kind words, by the way.

#violentagreement
For me, the thing is, the more granular the sections, the less I even see threads elsewhere. I don't know who that benefits. Not me directly and certainly not anyone I might have offered some usual info to elsewhere.
Mhm.

Hmm, am I biased? I don't really think so. There's a pretty big difference between firmly held opinions and bias. I, for one, try not to let bias creep in even when I believe something pretty strongly.

The forums were split because the managers of the site got tired of all the Plasma V. LCD fanboy wars that never stopped raging, and kept taking threads off topic; something that never happens with this thread!

HD Guru reports on Samsung OLED release date and price. Link is here.

I still feel that Samsung is far more likely to go this route ,instead of sticking with their RGB OLED approach at those astronomical prices. LG and Samsung suddenly settled their OLED patent disputes, which make me think that they probably agreed to share the same WOLED approach.

lol @ a presumably 2K panel for $18k+

Source The Korean Economic Journal.

"Here's Why Samsung and LG Are Finally Playing Nice"

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/02/06/heres-why-samsung-and-lg-are-finally-playing-nice.aspx

Excerpt:

"When the dust settles, Samsung and LG will likely sign a cross-licensing agreement to give both companies free rein on each others' OLED patents, effectively thwarting unnecessary chest-thumping and encouraging Korean innovation to resume."

Oh, he does. He has a darned good record of being right. Even when I was sure he was wrong. I'm still disappointed that my expectation of LCoS hitting 30% of the market was wrong. Rogo correctly saw it wouldn't get anywhere near that- RPTVs, even rather thin ones with great PQ, wilted under the sexy LCDs & plasmas that you could hang on walls.

that's not what killed sony's lcos. it was their inability to find a way to keep their chips from degrading over time.

lots of people dropped big bucks on these sets for a 3-4 year lifetime

Sharp Samsung Alliance – An Alliance of Mutual Benefits. Source: Displaysearch.

If this report is accurate; then the LG 55 OLED sets are not going to be available in the US for several more months, at least!

"LG has revealed that its 55-inch OLED TV will be arriving on UK shelves this July, making it second market it will launch in after South Korea.

The TV – which is just 4.5mm thick – is currently being showcased at Harrods, and is available for pre-order. It will retail for £9,999."

http://www.t3.com/news/lg-to-launch-55-inch-oled-tv-in-july

And here there were some UK folks thinking LG were foregoing their island altogether. Another pushback, and I would not be surprised if they don't launch in the US at all. I wonder if they can even manage to sell 1000 panels this year.