Canon & Toshiba demo SED TV @CES, yet another HD disp tech

10 Jan 06 00:17 by Seán Byrne in category Uncategorized To news archive

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Despite all the display technologies that have been come up with, such as Plasma, LCD, Rear projection, OLED as well as projectors, most still have a hard time trying to match the picture quality of a good CRT display. Unfortunately, large CRT’s have a major drawback due to their depth, never mind the sheer weight! As most consumers only have a standard definition TV, they will need to upgrade to a HDTV set in order to get the benefit out of high definition content, particularly with the expected launch of Blu-ray and HD DVD players & movies over the coming months as well as the increasing number of HD broadcasts becoming available.

Well, Canon and Toshiba have been demonstrating a yet another display technology, this time SED (Surface conduction Electron-emitter Display). This works in pretty much the same way as a CRT TV, but with the exception that each phosphor has its own dedicated electron emitter, unlike a traditional CRT which has one main electron gun. As a result, these electron emitters can be placed in close proximity to their designated phosphors, resulting in a very thin display, but with all the advantages of a traditional CRT display, such as deep blacks, 1ms response and a contrast ratio of up to at least 100,000:1, but without the weight and depth of a regular CRT TV.

The only drawback the display has is that as its resolution is fixed to the number of phosphors, the TV only works best at its native resolution, as with plasma, LCD and other fixed resolution displays. According to the source, the TVs demonstrated at the CES had a size of ~30″, although it is unclear what its native resolution is. Thanks to Dennis_Olof for mentioning several sources about this on the forum:

src="http://www.cdfreaks.com/contentimages/newsimages/1009089053" align=right border=0
>Canon and Toshiba have been working on yet another display technology called SED (Surface-conduction Electron-emitter Display). The goal of SED is to bring some of the good qualities of CRT displays (response time, brightness, black levels) to a fixed pixel, very thin, low power display.

The technology works very similarly to older CRT displays, except on a much smaller scale. In a CRT display a Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) would shoot electrons at phosphors behind the viewing glass to effectively paint the picture you see on your monitor. In a SED display, individual electron emitters shoot electrons on phosphors behind the viewing screen to create the pixels on your screen.

Since a large CRT isn’t necessary, SED TVs can be several centimeters thick rather than tens of inches. But with the response time, brightness, color reproduction and black levels comparable to CRT displays, SED technology has the potential to be the best of both worlds.

The full article href="http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i=2666&p=8"
target=_new>can be read here. Further details about SED can be read on this article.

While the pricing is initially expected to be high to begin with as when Plasma and LCD displays first hit the market, it will be interesting to see how the pricing will compare once it matures over a few years. If the displays can be made down to 17″, with at least SXGA resolution, they would potentially become a good competitor to CRT displays when it comes to professionals involved in image and video editing, due to their better rendering at colour and contrast.

Feel free to discuss about HDTV displays or choosing a display technology on our Satellite, HD-TV, Blu-ray and HD-DVD Forum.

Source: AmandTech

15 Comments

shimman: Posts: 596; Posted on: 10 Jan 06 00:27

sed has an inherited crt problem, reflash rate. the demo showed very slow reflash rate that my friend could notice

lui_gough: Posts: 1237; Posted on: 10 Jan 06 02:02

refresh rate you mean? The flicker will definitely be an eye strain.....

ItsRick: Posts: 100; Posted on: 10 Jan 06 03:08

Since each phosphor has it's own electron source, I can only imagine that any refresh flicker would be a function of the signal, not the display. The flicker of CRTs is due to the vertical scan rate of the electron source, something that could be completely eliminated in SEDs. The only ugly thing that will probably revisit is image burn-in.
[edited by ItsRick on 10.01.2006 03:10]

shimman: Posts: 596; Posted on: 10 Jan 06 04:12

thanks for correcting; i was little bit angry about the dvd media i got

shimman: Posts: 596; Posted on: 10 Jan 06 04:38

i did not see the sed tv by myself, so i cannot really tell you how it performed, but i can imagine what happened. even though sed tv is a fixed pixel based tv with electron generators on each pixel unlike the crt, electron generators must generate constantly in order to produce light. i don't know how much power the each sed tv's electron generator needs, but i don't think it's ease to make them generate electron beams constantly for 2M pixels (HD) (probably far less than crt because sed is running with tunneling effects not from high temp excitation from the crt's electron gun); beside the power problems, the control signal bandwidth would be a problem if sed-tv changes entire screen at same time. the demo unit must be running like a good old crt. shooting electons to one pixel at a time; because the screen is fluorescent, the pixel will be ON without electron beams for while. they will fix the problem soon or later but the 1st gen sed tv might suffer from the flickering problem

shimman: Posts: 596; Posted on: 10 Jan 06 04:40

you are right, fluorescent based tv can suffer the "image burn-in"...like plasma tv if i have to choose, i would choose oled tv if the price is reasonable even though it would only last for serveral years.

Discman: Posts: 155; Posted on: 10 Jan 06 11:11

Why does Toshiba have to go their own way. HD-DVD and now this. OLED is the real follow up IMO. OLED has all these advantages! Ok so we may have OLED Vs SED in a few years time instead of todays LCD vs Plasma! Two things that I don't like about SED is that they have a refresh rate (flicker) and they will be affected by magnets like CRT's!

hardgiant: Posts: 216; Posted on: 10 Jan 06 12:28

My CRT has never suffered from Burn in so I wouldn't worry about SED suffering from it either. This tech seems like it will produce the BEST picture quality and yet be thin which is what everyone wants.

hardgiant: Posts: 216; Posted on: 10 Jan 06 12:30

It's called choice and it's a great thing. CRT LCD Plasma OLED SED Great age to live in

[edited by hardgiant on 10.01.2006 12:31]
[edited by hardgiant on 10.01.2006 12:31]

Discman: Posts: 155; Posted on: 10 Jan 06 13:56

Kinda true, but if everyone concentrated on one technology, it'd drive the prices down.

Seán: Posts: 6944; Posted on: 10 Jan 06 13:58

I don't think magnets or stray magnetic fields will be a problem with these, since each phosphor has its own electron emitter and each is in very close proximity of it also. CRT's on the other hand which use an electron gun suffer from magnetic fields quite easily since the electrons must travel a fair distance from the emiter to the screen's phosphors. It's like the difference between a gust of wind affecting a dart shot over a long range and another being shot right in front of its target.

I'm sure the refresh rate will be worked on also, particular since large 100Hz (PAL) 'flicker-free' CRT TVs have been sold here in Ireland for the past number of years.

CORRSA: Posts: 298; Posted on: 10 Jan 06 14:23

dont forget about carbon tv's

shimman: Posts: 596; Posted on: 10 Jan 06 18:05

crt type is far more durable than plasma, so image burn-in can happen but not very likely & the effects won't be as much because it's very bright magnetic filed can affect the screen; shielding & filed adjustment are needed oled has a serious inherited problem; degration. this is far more serious than plasam & crt which loose half of their max brightness in about 5 (plasma) to 8 (crt) years. oled's o stands for organic menaing water & oxygen are bad for them & glasses let those two molecules pass through them believe it ot not. if some one can make inorganic led for tv, that would be great though that's extremely difficult. sed tv might be a contender in near future but there are few problems of its own. 1. flicker problem (very likely to be resolved) which gets more of problem as the size of the screen gets bigger 2. weight: not sure but can be far heavier than plasma or lcd 3. power consumption: likely use at least as much as plasma which isn't really efficient

DJ Specs: Posts: 45; Posted on: 10 Jan 06 20:22

NOTHING can beat the picture quality of CRT. LCD TV's have THE worst picture quality of any of the technologies and in my opinion are total crap! If a person can't see that the picture quality is so bad on an LCD then they should be springing for new glasses rather than a TV, or this proves the only reason they got an LCD was to show off because it's thin. It's funny how the electronic companies are using people in the marketplace as one huge test zone. And people throw their money away like it was yesterdays newspaper.

790: Posts: 52; Posted on: 10 Jan 06 21:07

Yeah, hopefully this tech will mean the death of lcd, or at least lcd's driven by standard backlights. Also to those that think the refresh rate is a problem I say think again. When's the last time you had a problem or even noticed the flicker on your living room TV?? That's right, a standard CRT TV runs at 60hz, 100hz TV's are high end and most people don't have them, have never seen them, and wouldn't notice the difference. It's sad to hear arguments on these boards with little to no basis, SED is a potentially incredible technology. to CORRSA - SED is the carbon tv.

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Canon & Toshiba demo SED TV @CES, yet another HD disp tech

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