Sony, Panasonic to partner for OLED TV push
Money spinner?
Sony may have shown off its Crystal inorganic LED TV at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) earlier this year, but it clearly reckons there's money in organic LED technology or it wouldn't have agreed to partner with Panasonic on OLED TV development and production.
The pair's work will, they said today, come to fruition in the form of OLED TVs mass-produced in 2013. Neither has given any details about the TVs they will ship at that time.
That's no great surprise to us: Sony's Deputy President of home entertainment products, Noriaki Negishi, confirmed to Reg Hardware earlier this year will be aggressively promoting OLED technology within a year.
“2013 will be the year when we will really fight back with new technologies," he said in March.
OLED failed to ship in any appreciable volume during Q1 2012, market watcher DisplaySearch recently revealed, despite both Samsung and LG showing off flash new models at the start of the year.
Sony's Crystal LED concept TV: solid offering or vapour?
Their OLED TVs, both 55-inchers, aren't expected to arrive in shops until much later this year, and they'll be hugely expensive when they arrive: $10,000 (£6425), according to hints dropped by both firms.
But expensive appeals to TV makers hard hit by a slowdown in TV sales and a business that delivers negligible margins.
OLED will not, of itself, revive TV makers' fortunes, even if the cost to consumers is a lot less than it's going to be. No, Sony and Panasonic, and Samsung and LG, are going to have to come up with a more compelling reason for punters to abandon the perfectly acceptable flap-panels they now already own.
And what of Sony's Crystal LED TV with its array of 6m inorganic LEDs? It still can't say when - or even if - it will bring it to market. ®
COMMENTS
Re: OLED's time has come
But will it really matter? I doubt a picture quality improvement is enough to get people to upgrade from their current HDTVs. The problem for all the TV manufacturers is that the bulk of the HD upgrade cycle is done in the western world. Most people have at least one now and aren't going to rush out and get a shiny new TV without some real reason to do so. While the picture may be much better on these TVs the fact is most people can't tell the difference unless you put the 2 TVs side by side.
Re: OLED's time has come
I agree. 2HD or 4HD would be even better.
Sure the amount of bandwidth would be high, but if we sacrificed 1/2 of the 500 useless cable channels, we could get the necessary bandwidth for 2HD.
Maybe that will also kill off this reality TV madness killing 2birss with one stone?
I guess japanese companies are now behind in new technologies and they need to partner to compete with the korean brands. End of an era… Anyway that lg oled tv seems amazing. Oled is definitely the future of tv and I'm glad lg was the one to gamble on it first because I always thought they made good televisions.
I've seen the lg oled telly in action and the difference with lcd or plasma is not marginal. You've never seen a picture quality like this. I actually remember thinking that the image looked almost better than with my own eye! Ok it's stupid but you see my point ;)
£6.5k? For a marginally different TV?
Righty-oh. Jog on!
It's an incremental development, at best. Quite simply nothing exciting, at all. Oh look, the picture is marginally better. I think I'd rather get out of the house for a bit. Outside my house is the most HD image I've ever seen. You can smell it and touch it too, now THAT'S amazing ;)
