Displays & Projectors News - Page 73

It looks as though May will be the month that LG launch their ultra-thin 55-inch OLED TV, if everything goes to plan. The awesomely thin OLED TV will have an asking price of $7,928.91. Not bad, I guess. We should expect the TV to be the same that LG showed off at CES recently, which means it will be less than 0.5cm thick, and under 17 pounds in weight, as well as sporting 3D tech.

LG have also teased of "futuristic features", where I bet you've just rolled your eyes, but they might actually work quite well, hopefully: 3D motion and voice gesture controls. Yep, thats it. Hopefully they're not laggy and buggy, but personally, I think first-generation OLED TVs are going to have great picture quality, but the separate "exclusive" features that the companies throw on them won't work too well, but, time will tell and there's only 8 or so weeks left to find out.

OLED should be quite the breakthrough in not only picture quality, but response times. Typically, LCDs have a response time slower than 20ms, where OLED smashes this with response times of less than 0.01ms. You know what? I'm excited. I really am. I'm after a new TV this year, and I really want to get an OLED. Price doesn't bother me, as there's a corner that I can sell my body at.

Microsoft's Applied Sciences Group have released a video showing off their work on reducing input lag for touch screens. Microsoft have said that most touch-sensitive devices have a response lag somewhere between 50 and 100ms. But, their new screen technology reduces this to not just 25, or 10, or 5, but 1ms.

For larger touch-based surfaces like Microsoft's Surface, input lag can be a huge problem. The input delay becomes especially perceptible when drawing or quickly moving objects on the screen with your fingers. This issue has prompted Microsoft engineers to look into other ways of improving touch screen input lag deficiency. Microsoft haven't revealed how the technology actually works, but the video below demonstrates how their research may greatly improve the touch-based user experience.

Assistant director at Microsoft Applied Sciences, Paul Dietz, compares most flavors of input lag from 100ms, 50ms, 10ms and 1ms devices, by dragging an object around with a single finger. Between 100ms and 10ms the difference is quite substantial, where from 10ms to 1ms, is big, but not as big as the jump from 100ms to 10ms. You can definitely "feel" how the 1ms looks/feels right when being compared to the higher input lags of 50, 100ms.

Now this is something I want, now. Late last month, Samsung confirmed that they would start mass production of flexible displays later this year, with the first of the screens to come out of Samsung's monitor ovens, baked and ready to go, in Q2-Q3 of 2012.

The second batch would be built in the second quarter of 2013. Samsung have toyed with contoured displays in the past, but a flexible display would allow a device to be fully folded and unfolded like a book. Samsung have even said that the displays are capable of decreasing power consumption by cutting the supply of operating power to a display based on the degree to which the display is bent.

In a recent patent filing, Samsung have stated that the flexible displays are bendable, can be made to appear crooked, and can be folded and rolled up like a magazine. All of this while maintaining the visibility and other features found on flat displays. The way I see it, is we could have stretchy displays, that could eventually be rolled out into a tablet-sized display. Imagine that. You could rock along with a normal smartphone-sized screen, but when needed, it stretches out to say, 7-inches.

Since CES earlier this year, with all of the TV teases, smart TVs, OLED, and more, I began to feel my wallet shaking on the table. It shook more when I started checking out the leaked pricing on 2012 HDTV pricing, and oh boy am I excited.

HDGuru have entered my dreams and have released some advertising pricing on some new models from Sony and Sharp, with those models being the BX, EX and HX lines, and the 640, 745, 844, 847 and 945 lines from Sony and Sharp, respectively. Panasonic pricing has been revealed by Value Electronics and for Samsung, we're seeing preorders at Vanns, which even includes the preccioouuusss itself, their top-of-the-line 75-inch ES8000 priced at $7,999.

If the ES8000, $7,999-priced model is too much, how about the 46-inch model? That's just $2,699.

Last week at CES, ASUS showed off a new monitor designed for professional artists and photographers, the ASUS VA278Q. The VA278Q is a 27-inch, sporting an LED backlight, IPS-based panel, a native resolution of 2560x1440 pixels, and 178/178-degree viewing angles.

ASUS' widescreen includes a "Smart Contrast Ratio" of 80,000,000:1, DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort connectivity, a stand enabling tilt, pivot, swivel, and height adjustments. This is something most monitors don't have, which is something professional users crave for.

Splendid Video Intelligence Technology also provides six pre-set modes which are Theater, Scenery, Gaming, Night View, sRGB, and Standard, these "optimize colors and image fidelity for onscreen content". No information on pricing or availability of the VA278Q.

CES 2012: BenQ's two XL Series Gaming Monitors have been teased previously, but have now been announced to launch in North America at CES. The XL Series comes in a bunch of sizes, 17-, 19-, 21.5-, 22-, 23- and 24-inch, with pricing at of the XL2420T and XL2420TX at $549 and $649, respectively.

The XL2420T and XL2420TX were engineered in conjunction with ZOWIE GEAR, who are a manufacturer of high-end professional gaming gear and R&D partner to BenQ. President of BenQ America Corp., Lars Yoder, says:

The new XL Series models prove that 'gaming is in the details,' building on the technology of our popular XL2410T monitors, which were featured at huge gaming events such as DreamHack Summer 2011, Global Starcraft II League, and GamesCon 2011, ESEA. Offering a 120-Hz refresh rate, 2-ms GTG response time, and 12M:1 dynamic contrast ratio, the XL2420T and XL2420TX not only provide the fundamentals essential to mastering FPS gaming, but also possess exclusive features meticulously constructed to provide FPS gamers with the ultimate sense of ease and control.

CES 2012: LG have announced during CES 2012 that it is adding voice recognition and 3D gesture control to their Cinema Screen range of 3DTV products in 2012. Not only are LG putting the Smart in TV, but they're adding interactivity.

They unveiled an 84-inch "ultra-resolution" TV that has a 1mm bezel, other displays will arrive in 55- and 60-inch and will be slimmer than 5mm. The new Cinema Screen lineup sports an upgraded LG Smart TV platform with a redesigned Magic Remote and touch-screen plasma. It will also include voice recognition and a 3D gesture interface to enable gaming and searching by gesture. You'll be able to talk to the TV and gesture commands at it, too.

LG didn't stop there with the unveiling and announcements, they also mentioned Smart Share Plus with Wi-Fi, which lets you watch whats on your TV, directly on your mobile device. The new platform will also reportedly make it easier for developers to create new apps for the TV.

CES 2012: Samsung's president of consumer electronics took the stage of CES in an Apple-like fashion to tell the world the future of where Samsung's Smart TV's are headed. He said that they will eventually be able to "listen, see, and do" without any interaction with a remote control.

Samsung showed off a demo video which teased the motion control capabilities, with Kinect-like controls of the TV. Tim Baxter, president of Samsung America then introduced something we should be seeing and hearing much more of: the Samsung ES8000 Smart TV. This isn't just a name, either, "Smart TV". The Samsung ES8000 Smart TV includes a dual-core processor and support for multi-tasking. It also sports a built-in camera and microphone.

It also includes a revamped Smart Hub with a "cleaner, more intuitive design" for navigating, and finding apps. There's also a new U-shaped stand as well, that got quite a few gasps from the CES crowd. Baxter also announced something that will keep the casual gamers happy: Angry Birds will be available on their Smart TV platform, as well as a free channel featuring Angry Birds cartoons.

Samsung have an exciting screen to show off at CES next week, where they'll unveil for the first time its new Series 9 premium monitor. It's a new slim widescreen called S27A970, which is a 27-inch PLS (Plane Line Switching) panel capable of a resolution of 2560x1440.

The Samsung S27A970 also sports an anti-glare edge-to-edge glass display, an aluminum stand and base, a response time of 5ms, 178/178-degree viewing angles, a static contrast ratio of 1,000:1, a maximum brightness of 300 cd/m2, two 7W built-in speakers, a 2-port USB 2.0 hub, DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort inputs, as well as a Mobile High Definition Link (MHL) enabling connectivity with MHL-supporting smartphones and tablets.

The Samsung S27A970 is expected to launch in March priced at $1,200. Now all we need is Samsung to release this identical screen at 120Hz, and I'll buy three of them, tomorrow.

Let's keep going with some display news, shall we. The industry, customers and everyone in between have been excited for the next-generation OLED display technology for not only consumer TVs, but computer monitors and should roll out this year.

LG are set to show off some OLED TVs at CES over the next few days, and Sony were also due to intro some OLED TVs to consumers. But, Sony kept their face mangled and the wind changed, so now they have to live with the following consequences: their OLED plans have been shelved, according to The Daily Yomiuri. Sony will only continue to sell the technology to corporate customers like broadcasting companies, as well as associated research and development into better displays.

The reason for dropping the consumer market is said to be due to poor business performance in this area, with Sony cutting back on capital investment, which in turn reduced its price competitiveness with its Korean-based rivals such as LG and Samsung. It's a strange move indeed, but maybe Sony see the market not being strong in 2012. There's sure to be a number of investment, banking and debt problems throughout this year and the last thing people are going to spend their money on is some next-gen OLED displays.