LG Display is set to tip $4 Billion dollars into a new OLED fabrication plant, market leader Samsung, Panasonic Sony along with several other brands, claim that OLED is not the future for high quality TV reproduction, which is why they are sticking with alternate technologies.
Sony claim that there are too many problems with the
production of OLED technology and that OLED TV’s have reliability issues and
are costly for what you get.
Reliability issues combined with the high costs of ramping
up production of OLED panels has most manufacturers investing heavily to improve 4K
UHD technology by widening the colour gamut and employing either Quantum Dot or
a similar film technology (Nano-Crystal in Samsung’s case) to enhance and
solidify colour.
The curved screen also helps to minimize the effects of
contrast degradation from side angles in LED backlit UHD TVs.
LG who are one of the
few Companies flogging OLED TV’s is struggling to shift volume sales of their
LG 65″ 4K Ultra HD OLED 3D Capable Smart Curved TV which is selling at
Harvey Norman for $8,495.
Earlier in the
year this TV was selling for $9,950. The Company did not make one of these TV’s
available for a side by side comparison.
At CES 2016 there is set to be a lot of debate around HDR 4K
content.
Interest in HDR (high dynamic range) 4K technology has
resulted in a wider discussion on whether OLED TV displays will be able to
handle the display characteristics of this new technology as it arrives.
OLED is expensive for what you get and while it delivers a
great picture it is hard to differentiate between a TV that is delivering an
SUHD image at half the price.
According to the TV expert’s OLED, while being
extraordinarily good at black reproduction and motion clarity due to its
ability to actually turn off its organic LEDs (OLEDS), isn’t quite going to be
capable of delivering the same brightness that normal LED TVs can provide.
Since one of the crucial components of HDR’s quality is its
expected brightness, this will possibly make the powerful technology of OLED
surprisingly deficient at delivering the extraordinary contrast of HDR when
compared to normal LED TVs.
In turn, this could affect these TVs ability to deliver the
expanded luminance and colour range that HDR promises.
According to Danny Tack, an expert from Philip’s European division
questioned by Forbes magazine in a recent blog post, the wide colour gamut and
much brighter light output of LCD are features that have a better position to
meet the demands of HDR than OLED does.
So far, as Tack explained to Forbes, OLED (and its primary
developer LG) have to first solve this light output issue before they can
really meet the standard of HDR and Tack doesn’t believe that this will happen
for at least two or three more years.
The point of this was underscored by some raw numbers behind
both technologies: Namely, while 4K LCD TVs have managed to increase light
output from 500 to 800 nits in just the last 12 months between 2014 and now,
OLED has only increased its capacity by 50 nits.
While this is understandable given the revolutionary and
difficult to manufacture nature of TVs with organic light emitting diodes, it
also shows how the technology might face problems with new HDR technology set to be released at CES 2016,
Samsung has also weighed in on the issue and claimed that
force driving the brightness of OED panels to levels that are bright enough to
handle HDR will likely also reduce those panels’ life spans dramatically. Given
the very high retail prices of OLED 4K TVs, this is something that potential
owners definitely won’t want to hear as they get ready for HDR content to
arrive from different 4K transmission services.
