SED Technology Gets Official for 2008

[marzetta7]

SED Technology Gets Official for 2008

http://gear.ign.com/articles/736/736795p1.html

October 2, 2006 - JapanToday.com reports that Toshiba and Canon have confirmed earlier reports that the companies will begin building an assembly line this year to mass produce SED (Surface-Conduction Electron-Emitter Display) HDTVs.

The plant, to be constructed in Taishi, Hyogo Prefecture, will cost Yen 180 billion, equivalent to $1.5 Billion USD. When finished displays begin rolling out of the factory in "early 2008," production will be 75,000 units a month. Toshiba and Canon expect high demand for the new technology thanks to the Beijing Olympics which will begin in the same time frame.

SED was originally promised to arrive on the market in 2006-2007, but was officially delayed earlier in the spring. When no SEDs were displayed at CEDIA home theater expo last month there was a degree of concern that plans had once again been postponed. This is apparently not the case, which is positive news. Toshiba and Canon have not, however, announced any resolution to their previously expressed concerns over the ability of the start-up SED technology to compete with the increasingly low-cost LCD and plasma solutions already available. SED, while technologically superior to all other HDTV display technologies, will have to compete in what has already become a cut-throat, low-margin business.

If you missed them, take a look at our previous demonstration reports of prototype SED displays. We've been very impressed (http://gear.ign.com/articles/679/679235p1.html) in the past, and will certainly be looking forward to the technology becoming a reality in 2008.

Cross referenced article...

January 5, 2006 - We use plasma sets and we use LCDs. We like them. They're stylish. And their respective picture qualities have gotten better and better over the years. Not quite up to the black levels or the response times of standard CRT setups, sure, but nevertheless pretty damned good. The new plasmas from Pioneer and Panasonic are particularly impressive. And yet, a new technology from Toshiba promises to do the unthinkable and combine the best of CRT with the best of flat-panel displays. If we hadn't seen this impressive new tech for ourselves at CES 2006, we'd be quick to shrug it off, but having beheld it, we're here to confidently state that plasma and LCD better watch out.

Toshiba is planning to release this new line of unbelievably accurate flat-panel sets in late 2006. The technology is called "Surface-conduction Electron-emitter Display" (yes, that's a mouthful) or SED for short. The electronics maker showcased prototype SED sets at CES and every IGN editor on-hand was in agreement: nothing else compares.
So how does it all work? SED sets use 6,220,800 electron emitters - or one for each color per pixel, to be precise - which cause red, blue and green phosphors to glow. That may not mean much to most, but the results will definitely matter. Toshiba's CES 2006 SED sets featured the deepest black levels we have ever seen on any television, including CRT - and these televisions are as flat as any plasma! Consider this: the typical plasma set sports a contrast ratio of 3000:1, but Toshiba's prototype SEDs offer a whopping 10,000:1 contrast ratio for truly unparalleled color and accuracy.

Toshiba took us into a dark demo room with three 42" SEDs inside. The sets displayed a variety of video, from a boat moving along the ocean at night to a woman examining a pretty artifact. We were continually amazed by how rich and deep the blacks were in these pictures, and always without sacrificing image detail. The graying effect commonly associated with low contrast ratios was not only missing from these videos, but the 16x9 "letterbox bars" were so deeply black that the pictures looked to be coming out of the nearby wall and not displayed on a television at all.

It gets better. The prototype SEDs on-hand at CES 2006 are far from finished, according to company spokespersons. The sets we viewed were running in 720p and not the standard 1080p that SEDs will accommodate later this year. Meanwhile, the 42" SEDs we saw will be axed in favor of a base size that begins at 55", Toshiba promises. The SEDs will also deliver a 1 millisecond response time, which guarantees that blurring or refresh issues will be a thing of the past. And get this - craziest of all, the final SEDs will ship with a contrast ratio of 100,000:1 to one. Yes, we wrote that correctly -- one-hundred thousand to one.

Toshiba reps are confident of SED, calling these sets the "new standard." And having seen them in motion, we agree. These babies are beautiful and nothing else that we've seen even comes close.

Unfortunately, the electronics maker was hush-hush on pricing for SEDs and would not even venture to give us a ballpark figure for these televisions. That noted, previous reports on the technology state that it can be mass-produced on a cheaper scale than competing plasma or LCD televisions.

We've grabbed a couple of images of the SED presentation we attended. Unfortunately, these dark shots do not do the sets justice so for now you'll just have to take our word that this tech is going to deliver big in 2006.

Ok, I'm a new technology *****...I admit it, especially since this looks to be new Toshiba (Canon too I guess) technology--let's hope they do a better job of implementation than their HD DVD hardware.

Anyhow, with all this cool Blu-ray stuff upon us, I'm looking as to what TVs I ought to be purchasing in the near future and stumbled upon this. 100,000:1 contrast ratio / 1 millisecond response time, are you freakin kidding me!? Anyhow, just wanted everyone's thoughts on this tech, whether or not you think it will be too expensive upon release, or whether you think it will be reasonably priced in comparison to LCDs and Plasmas, since the HDTV market is already established, etc. Thoughts? Comments?...

[ProvenFlipper]

The technology looks very promising to me, but I want to see the costs of one of these sets. Plus as with any new technology, what problems will arise? I will probably give it at least 2 years to see what types of issues there are to iron out and what manufacturers are going to be producing the sets. I wish I was going to be able to make it out to CES in 2007... Guess I'll have to wait until '08.

[hmurchison]

my guess is they'll hit at $5995 and if sales there are solid they'll deliver smaller units as well.

SED has oft been delayed so obviously there are kinks still being worked out but say that they are being produced in quantity and various sizes in 2010 I'd certainly think about adding the technology to my home. I love the CRT look but I also love the slim LCD/Plasma form factor. This is the best of both worlds.

[thunderhawk]

I red in a news article (can't find it at the moment sorry...), that SED will never be able to replace the LCD king in the plat-panel market due to high prices. By the time SED will be released, LCDs prices will have falled even more. A cap of thousands of dollars is expected to come...
That's what the analists say...

But then, videophiles will gladly want to pay for it, I'm sure of it.
SEDs technological superiority will be noticed. At least, I hope so for the sake of quality.

[Jeff®]

Is SED susceptible to burn-in?


Edit: appears to be.

Source:
http://www.hdtvsolutions.com/sed_tvs.htm

[thunderhawk]

Damn, are they all...
Burn-in everywhere it seems.

But less on SED, or is it.

However, LCD does have the advantage of not being susceptible to burn-in which any device using phosphors will, including SED.

[JTK]

Hope this gets more support behind it than just Toshiba and Canon.

...

Wow, does that sound like a familliar motif or what?

[Josh]

SED sounds nice, but don't we already have similar performance from LCoS?

[phloyd]

I was not terribly impressed by the SED (CES 2006) in that it had quite significant colour separation artifacting kinda like DLP rainbows.

While it did have the nice CRT colour look etc, they will have to work on the colour sync to make it viable in my view. Of course, they have more than a year to deal with these kinds of things...

[Psiweaver]

SED IMO is merely going to be okay. Plasma and LCD are going to rule the flat panel market for the next little while. 100,000/1 contrast ratio is like 10 times as bright as the sun. So i highly doubt that number is accurate. the sun is like 10,000/1 contrast ratio and we can't watch it. I hate how all these manufacturers come out with the most redicoulous contrast rations to make their products look better.

[Deciazulado]

Originally Posted by Psiweaver

100,000/1 contrast ratio is like 10 times as bright as the sun. So i highly doubt that number is accurate. the sun is like 10,000/1 contrast ratio and we can't watch it.

Psiweaver, a 100,000:1 contrast ratio means that the darkest black is 100,000 times darker as the white, so if the display's white is 35 foot-Lamberts (The SMPTE recommended level for CRTs), the black will be 0.00035 foot-Lamberts. I think most display technology today don't reach much more than 200 foot-Lamberts for the max. white

That said, Kodak's expensive Vision Premier film print stock reaches a maximum density of approx. 250,000:1 contrast ratio, and their Vision stock 8000:1, while the average film print stocks and transparencies have a maximum density between 2000:1 and 4000:1. But that's theoretical maximum density achievable on the emulsion, as most shadow detail by the normal process of exposure in photography falls much higher in the brightness scale, being 500 to 1000 times darker than the brightest highlight, and furthermore on actual projection several things diminish the actual contrast ratio seen on the screen. Lets say to 2000:1 sequential, 200:1 ANSI.

CRT's great look is having great sequential contrast (better than most movie presentations), the promise of SED is having as good or better sequential contrast than this (other display tech seems to be doing a fairly good job with ANSI right now) the question is if and when LCD, D-ILA, DLP, etc will "catch up" and achieve enough density in the blacks in sequential, or will SED have it first and/or cheaper before them?

I actually think an aim between 4000:1 to 15,000:1 is kind of as good enough as we might need..

[Blackraven]

I just hope Toshiba does better TVs this time cause their REGZA lcd model line sucks! Doesn't even come close to Sharp, Sony and Samsung LCD TVs but it has cheap prices :P

I just hope Toshiba does better this time with this new SED.

But with the way I see it, there's also OLED for the Flat TV market expected to hit earliest next year.