By Scott Patterson

Unquestionably the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) at Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S.A. is focused on the new technologies. Among all these impressive new technologies, the highlights implementing LED technologies were Sony’s new Crystal LED technology and Korean maker’s application of OLEDs (organic light-emitting diode) on large-sized TVs.

Sony’s Crystal LED technology creates a full-HD display using approximately 60 million LEDs as light source on a substrate. This new technology can have a nearly 180 degree viewing angle. At the trade show no details about the release date and price were unveiled, it is uncertain if Sony will push ahead with large screen TVs implementing its OLED technology or the new Crystal LED technology. Sony showed a very large 55 inches Crystal LED TV prototype at CES, but for the past years Sony always pointed to OLED as the future display technology.

A Sony representative at the booth explained that Crystal LED technology uses RGB LEDs that is using 3 color of LEDs, red green and blue to be exact, to make up a pixel. These LEDs are press against the glass for maximum display brightness. However, these were as much detail as the Sony representative was able to provide since it is one of the many technologies Sony are researching for advance display. It is currently without any real implementation on Sony products on the market. Despite that he said, Sony believes Crystal LED technology to be one of the more viable technology for future display, but they are not abandoning their OLED technology.

OLEDs’ application on large-screen display was the center of crowd’s attention. With 55 inches OLED TVs from Samsung and LG, but not at Sony’s booth this year. For years, experts from the display field have said OLED to have a big advantage over the LCD display technology due to its high-contrast, sharp, ultrathin characteristics and an approximately 180 degrees of viewing angle.

This technology was limited due to its manufacturing difficulty produce only small-sized displays typically less than 30 inches. These technology difficulties are now apparently being resolved by manufacturers like Samsung and LG. As they showcased their 55 inches TV prototypes at this year’s CES at Las Vegas.

This technology was previously only available to small-sized displays, applications on Smartphones and tablets. Application on large screen TV is a new advancement in display technology. OLED panels are high color-saturation, image uniformity, brightness and contrast and with an ultrathin form factor and is said not be burdened by the defects of other alternative technologies.

In order to understand why OLED display technology are so prominent, it require one to have some basic knowledge of each type of display technology, organized by LEDinside.

Plasma TV
Plasma TV and LCD TV are the two most prevalent TV Display technology. Every pixel on a plasma TV can light up on its own, and plasma TVs have better contrast, color saturation and black level. This technology, self-emissive, can produce excellent black level, contrast, and motion resolution because of the responsiveness of plasma phosphors. Plasma phosphor can quickly turn on and off on a pixel basis. However, plasma TVs are generally bulky in size and thickness, consume more power and lower in brightness when compared to LCD TVs.

LCD TV
LCD TVs, on the other hand, produce images through backlights. In general, a LCD pixel act as a color filter press against it backlight source to produce an image. Each LCD pixel is controlled to pass or block light. The backlight source can be the commonly CCFLs (cold-cathode fluorescent lamps) or LEDs (light-emitting diodes). LCD TVs pass light through their panels and are thus refer to as transmission. LCD TVs are higher in brightness and more energy-efficient. Implementing edge-lighting also allow LCD TVs to be very slim. Edge-lighting allow backlight source to be located in one or many edges of a LCD TV. Then through a light guide in the back of a LCD light cabinet, light is focus and distributed throughout the whole screen. The drawback of this technique is the difficulty of having light evenly distributed, so you can get lighter patches or bright spot on an LCD screen. Resolution and image details can be lost on fast moving images due to its less responsive pixels. Also, due to light leaks, LCD TVs have hard times producing truly black images.

OLED TV
OLED pixels are self-emissive light points; each pixel can turn on and off light on its own. They can match even surpass plasma TV in producing a truly black background for an image while maintain light-weight and slimness we see on LCD TVs. OLED pixels turn on and off quickly and thus have a fast responsive rate, according to a LG representative, to be 0.1 microsecond. You can enjoy excellent contrast and quick motion responsive images on a panel that is only 2 mm to 3 mm thick. The specification of LG’s 55 inches OLED TV has not yet been published, but the LG representative claim it thickness to be just 4 mm and weighted under 17 pounds. It is a stunning TV, and feels almost surreal that the images can come from a paper-thin panel.

The manufacturing of large OLED TV panel was expensive and difficult. Not until recent OLED have had experienced an uneven length of lifespan of OLED pixel colors. Red, green and blue, especially the blue pixel has a much shorter lifespan when compared to other color. This can lead to an experience of color shifts, uneven color patches in later stage usage or generally a shorter panel lifespan. Samsung representative said that they have resolved the blue phosphor aging problem.

While Samsung did not get into much detail about how, their new OLED TV has a high resolution of 1920 by 1080 array of pixels of separate red blue and green sub-pixel elements. On the other hand, LG have worked around this problem through making their OLED TV with an array of denser OLED elements, in a total 60 million of them. Red, green and blue filters in front of each tiny OLED element create a full 1080p high-definition image. Both Samsung and LG OLED TV produce impressive image and are said to have 3D capability when come to market.

LG OLED TVs are said to be available in this fall, 2012. What makes this option more attractive is the fact that the LG representative said the TV will incorporate voice-recognition technology and internet browsing capability. With capability to produce impressive image with a paper-thin panel, the future truly looks bright for OLED TVs says LEDinside.