back to article Samsung shows off state-of-the-art 40in OLED TV

Samsung has demo'd a 40in OLED full HD TV, but the company admitted that the screen is at the very limit of what it can manufacture today. "This 40in TFT panel is the largest size that can be made on our pilot line, and it cannot be mass-produced right away," a company spokesman admitted, Japanese newspaper Nikkei reports. " …

COMMENTS

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  1. Joe K

    200cd/m² ?

    Thats pretty frigging dim, your average panel has 500, you'd have to watch that in a dark room.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Colours?!

    "and can show more colours than the US TV standard, NTSC, defines."

    Good grief, my BBC Micro can show more colours than NTSC in mode 2!

    Mine's the one with 32K in the pocket.

  3. Mike
    Boffin

    Re: 200cd/m²

    >Thats pretty frigging dim, your average panel has 500, you'd have to watch that in a dark room.

    Old CRT TVs are around 100cd/m², LCD's are commonly around 300cd/m², so it's not as bright not unusual for LCD to be 200cd/m², the contrast ratio on OLED is much better, you wouldn't have to watch it in a dark room, I'm not sure where this "average 500cd/m²" comes from, given the typical range is 200cd/m² to 600cd/m² and in most lab tests the manufacturers exagerate anyway (I've never found a screen that meets it's quoted brightness), besides very bright screens can be horrible to use, it depends so much more on distance, viewing angle and contrast, 40" full HD with that contrast ratio is probably lovely.

    Reminds me of the classic... "Yea, but these go to 11" bigger numbers don't always mean better.

  4. Arnold Lieberman

    Brightness

    Nah, 200 is an OK figure, CRTs chuck out about 70-130, and that's perfectly fine. Of course, more is better, assuming the contrast ratio can be kept at a decent level, which is something most LCDs struggle with.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    T?

    Any word on how contrast and gamut compare to Laser TV?

    Of course, the 42in OLED's main disadvantage is that I can't have one until 2010.

  6. Ceilidhman
    Thumb Down

    NTSC

    What a crap standard (sic) to praise it for... Never Twice the Same Colour as we used to call it!

  7. Paul
    Paris Hilton

    OLED

    Aren't all OLED displays still prone to "burn-in"? The only experience I've had with OLEDs is the Optimus Mini 3 which did suffer from this.

  8. Charles

    @Chris Morley

    As I recall, the BBC Micro only displays *8* colors in Mode 2. Now, a quantifiable number is hard to make for the analog NTSC standard, but it's probably reasonable to assume the number considerably higher than 8.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Colors - redux

    I'm with chris on this one. What type of crack was being smoked when that stat got trotted out? It's like comparing a 2008 Mercedes with a 2004 BMW by saying that the Merc gets better mileage than a 1968 Chevy pickup.

  10. Frank Bough
    Thumb Up

    Big Up Mike

    The only reason that most LCDs have such bright backlights is to try and improve their dismal contrast ratios. 200cd/m² is more than good enough for a display with such superb contrast. Looking forward to seeing these in the shops.

  11. Steve

    brightness and colours

    Has anyone ever watched LCD screens set at full brightness? They're bloody awful. I keep mine set to about 100cd! To expand on what Frank Bough rightly said: manufactures have settings to make their screens super bright so they can inflate the 'dynamic' contrast figure to well above the level of the more crucial static pixel to pixel contrast figure, but they looks crap when the dark pixels are bright too.

    200cd with truly dark adjacent pixels? f*** yeah!

    I should also point out the colour claim is "can show *more* colours", which is not the same as equal to. Granted NTSC isn't a great standard to compare against but it doesn't mean it's a bad thing.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    @Charles

    Urm... jeez... that was the joke. NTSC would struggle to display even 8 satisfactorily...

    Over there for the humour bypass surgery... maybe I should have used the joke alert icon?!

  13. fishman

    Fading

    OLEDs don't suffer from burn in, but supposedly they tend to fade with age - unless that's been solved now.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Alert

    TFT?

    "This 40in TFT panel is the...."

    Thin Film Transistor? I would have thought they'd want to drop that acronym, as to me, its closely associated with LCD tech, something they would not want to peddle cool new OLED tech as - as if its just a new form of LCD, which it clearly isn't.

    I'm not sure even if OLEDs require a thin film transistor arrangement, but I suppose they do.

    Well I cant wait to see these babies in the shops too, imagine having the deepest blacks imaginable!

    Even my new Samsung Series 6 TV, although very impressive, cant manage this. It made watching Blade Runner somewhat dissapointing cos its such a dark film, esp. towards the end.

    Now OLED on the other hand better be totally black when I see one in person, seeing as all it has to do is switch OFF the pixel!

  15. TimM

    Re: Fading

    No suppose about it. OLED does. Essentially OLED has a fairly short finite life. It's why many handheld devices using OLED resort to powering off the display frequently to keep the lifetime up. This does mean even a screensaver cannot be used, because that requires the OLED to be powered and eat into its lifespan.

    But they may have improved this in big screen displays. I don't know.

    Thing is though, LCDs also have a limited life in a way. The backlights will only last a few years before they can go. My Samsung LCD has hidden away a counter on the number of hours the light has been running. Presumably to ensure they can wriggle out of any warranty claims on it.

    Had a Dell monitor backlight die a year after purchase, just out of warranty and Dell effectively said "bin it, buy a new one", and wouldn't even take money to repair it! Likewise my Acer laptop backlight died in just under 3 years.

    Look in the small print on many LCD warranties and you may find the backlight is limited to a year, even if it's a 3 year warranty.

    They should be easy to replace, but frequently they charge more than the LCD's worth to replace them. So if OLEDs can manage to outlast an LCD backlight, they're doing good.

  16. Bronek Kozicki
    Thumb Up

    @TimM

    "This does mean even a screensaver cannot be used, because that requires the OLED to be powered and eat into its lifespan."

    You confused two things. OLEDs do have finite life time due to oxidation, and the way around it is by researching tighter membranes. OLED screens are powered off to extend battery life, because (opposite to LCD screens) OLED only draws power for lit pixels.

    I am using AMOLED screen (Clix2), which is actual technology used for full-colour screens, more than a year now. Colours and contrast are absolutely briliant, no trace of fading, could be brighter though (it certainly does not have 200cd/m2, more like 20cd)

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