Sony Intros 55-Inch Crystal LED Display Using 6 Million LEDs

First!...... but on topic, has "a contrast of more than measurable limit values." Geez!

This is what I thought current "LED" TVs were when they first came out. I was disappointed to find out that they were just referring to the backlighting.

It sounds incredibly expensive to manufacture, but it must look amazing.

so how does this compare to OLED?

Isn't Sony also fond of claiming infinite contrast ratios by turning the screen off completely to get their black value? I'm sure this screen is awesome, but I really don't trust Sony on their contrast ratio claims any more.

Hopefully unlike OLED oxygen doesn't kill it and also hopefully it has a life cycle longer than 7 years.

I'm interested in this, as well as knowing how much power draw is behind 6 million LEDs on a mostly white screen.

[citation][nom]soo-nah-mee[/nom]This is what I thought current "LED" TVs were when they first came out. I was disappointed to find out that they were just referring to the backlighting.

same here

willard, the whole point of LED backlighting is to get deep blacks by turning backlighting off, as opposed to CCFL backlighting that is always on. it's not just sony that can erroneously brag about contrast ratios on their LED TVs, it's everyone who makes LED TVs.

with that said, i understand the benefits of having the pixels themselves light up and negating backlighting altogether. it would actually improve contrast ratios, energy efficiency, and (i imagine) eliminate the "ghosting" effect current LED TVs suffer from while still maintaining the ability to deliver truly deep blacks.

i'd like to know pricing and availability on these TVs, i'll be in the market for a new HDTV in a year or two.

The example picture of the screen is pretty absurd, I mean, If it looks great, then the only reason is cuz my current screen got great colors.....

Normally I would agree with you, as I am NOT a fan of dynamic contrast screens. Turning off sections of back lighting to boost contrast numbers does not increase the quality of the picture, and it creates halo effects when areas of light are surrounded by dark picture. It looks worse than when the dynamic lighting is disabled, in my opinion.

However, in this case, I think the dynamic back lighting has real potential and the inflated numbers may finally be accurate. This screen would no longer be manipulating the back lighting for sections of the picture, but for each individual color of each individual pixel. This potentially puts the LCD picture on par, if not ahead, with what modern plasma screens are capable of, with much lower power use and waste heat.

I'm looking forward to this making its way into the mainstream. It's a technology approach that I always dreamed would happen but never dared to hope for.

Organic LEDs are based on organic compounds which may or may not have metals and, like devilzzz2007 pointed out, they break down over time (not to oxygen though these are sealed in a vacuum) due to electrical current and the resulting heat. these leds are more likely made of metals and metal compounds with nitrogen or various metalloids.

so what will manufacturers mislabel this as? we already have "led tvs" which are really "lcd tv backlit by led"... if this was called "led tv" it would lead to even more mass market confusion.

i'm all for this type of technology. this is definitely a step forward.

you know what would be awesome, get a dslr camera and set it to a 2ms exposure time, and let people take picutres of a ball going back and forth, so we aren't lied to about its repose time so blatantly.

every number on a tv besides its size is a lie.

"wider viewing angles when compared to existing LCD and plasma displays"????

Thought plasmas had NO limit on viewing angle, neither of mine seem to, that's for sure.

Also, I just love how everyone thinks LED isn't LCD. At Walmart the other day listening to a "sales person" telling an older couple how LED is soooo much better than LCD, then the old guy said "Why does the box say LED LCD?" Dude was like "uh, that box is probably used for two different tv's" I was about to go smack him upside the head.

Sony is losing out in sales still with HDTV's because it still pricing them based off a reputation they still think they have. Sony isn't the king of the hill and no one pays more for thier name as much anymore.

I'll stick with my LG's.

Contrast on AMOLEDs (the only variation of OLED in production I guess) was said to have LOWER contrast than conventional LCD.

On the first read through of the first like I though it meant 6 million 55" LED's and the first thought was "Oh my God that is huge!" followed by "That can't be right... were's my coffee...."

This will not be a cost competitive TV any time soon and as with all tech, what it can do and what the medium such as cable/DVD/Blue Ray can actually output are 2 different things.

I wonder what the "dead pixel" policy will be on this.

a contrast of "more than measurable limit values."

Does this mean when you turn on the T.V. you could watch it through the walls of your house or that your house will be a beacon to space ships?

*Coffee Consumed*

In reality only the highest end LED TV's use local dimming, most of them are edge lit displays that stay on at all times. And like shoreless pointed out, the local dimming displays suffer from some pretty wonkey problems, so they are best avoided. OLED and true LED are the way to go as you get super high contrast like a plasma screen, but without the power bill or burn in issues.

I have a techno buddy who's always wanted to build his own large screen using R/G/B LCDs from scratch. He probably felt a little tickle reading this. Something different = new price ceilings seemingly warranted as prices drop on the current stuff. I'm not a huge color / contrast Aficionado so I'm pleasantly ignorant and happy with what I have.

OLED lifetime is up to 100,000 hours. That is slightly over 11.4 years running 24 hours a day.

I agree. Printing OLED will almost certainly be significantly cheaper than this.

All of LG and Samsung's 55" OLED TVs were on display at CES along with this set, and according to Gizmodo, the Samsung set was the number one device at the show.

Well, this is Sony. IMHO, Sony, if they even release this to the mass market - it is a prototype and not an announced product, will over price this relative to competition - LG, Samsung, and Panasonic releasing 55" OLED sets this year.

Rumored price on the Samsung 55" OLED set is $5K US. While expensive to some, IMHO, that is an unbelievable market entry price.

IT's a contrast RATIO. brightest / dimmest As dimmest approaches 0, the value becomes infinite. This is 6th grade math.

Even if each tri-LED pixel is 1 cent(not likely), the LED's alone for the screen will cost 21,000 dollars.
Contrast numbers on LCD and Plasma TV's are totally misleading.
They don't include ambient light in the calculation.
If you are in a room that is pitch black, with black walls, ceilings and floors so no external light can illuminate the screen, including reflected light from the LCD screen itself, the contrast numbers are correct.
In the real world your room has light from lamps and windows and your actual contrast ration is probably less than 100. This is obvious because otherwise your screen would have to be absolutely black in your lighted room.

Yes. I agree. As you said, you do get only a 'ration' of the total contrast ratio.

Cheaper : )

A bit of a clarification. The shenanigans I was referring to is using a black value from the display being totally off (black screen entirely, backlight off). This is very different from turning backlighting off for better blacks, which is called local dimming as many people have already pointed out. If Sony were using local dimming and comparing the numbers they get there, I'd have no problem. It's simply not what they've been doing.

Comparing against the black value of a screen that's totally off is in no way a useful metric. Who cares how dark the screen is when it's not showing anything? And again, I'm sure this is a great screen, and the technology behind it is certainly sound, but I've learned not to trust Sony on these easily inflatable numbers. They aren't the only offenders, but they certainly seem to be the worst, or at least in the ranks of the worst.

Will this get amazing contrast ratios? Almost certainly, but I'll eat my hat if the contrast ratio is really "more than measurable limit values." That just sounds like another way of saying infinite contrast ratio to me.

While this sounds promising I have a feeling this will not be affordable for quite some time. So we can expect to see it only when visiting some rich friends. Well, there is something to be said to socialize outside of facebook then :-)

Anyone else questioning why the SONY rep said, "work conscientiously"? From a quick Wikipedia check, they define conscientiousness as follows:

Part of the definition seems to be to work hard, diligently and deliberately with careful thought. But the other part involves conscience, and indirectly morals. So I wonder whether the employed manuf. process for this device is just abominable on the environment.

That said, I welcome the development of this technology. It seems as though it would have similar benefits to OLED technology, without the shortened lifespan issues (particularly for blue pixels). PQ would blow the best plasmas out of the water, but with lower power, heat, weight, depth and toxic chemicals than even an LCD - hopefully. If they can do it using something akin to a printing process (or perhaps something more like a very large SOI IC process using a glass substrate and deposition technologies), then device size could indeed scale very nicely. They probably have a minimum-achievable dot pitch around 0.024" (~40 pixels per inch) given their chosen prototype size and resolution, which isn't good for close-up viewing. But a 4k2k 110" screen made of these would be incredible - the brightness, contrast and response times would make it like looking through a window.

What? nobody wants to know how much?