Future Displays And Their Limitations

karatekid

Limp Gawd
Joined
May 9, 2006
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Will future display technologies (oled, laser, etc.) have shortcomings? I was thinking how lcds are far from perfect with their color issues, response times and viewing angles and thought, will we ever have a display that won't have any issues? Will it be possible to have a screen that has pretty much zero serious problems? I hope so.
 
FED/SEDs combine "best of both worlds", thanks to similarity to CRTs with tiny "electron gun" behind every pixel. (instead of one for whole screen)

SED would be actually quite a close... but looks like lawyers have been doing their best to delay it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface-conduction_electron-emitter_display

Flat panel with CRT colours, response time and viewing angles... that's what I would call as mature flat display technology!

"If advertisers spent the same amount of money on improving their products as they do on advertising then they wouldn't have to advertise them."
-Will Rogers
 
I remember reading about "FlatCRTs" in a magazine a LONG time ago. I'm thinking 1997 or earlier. Advance to reality in 2008, and those are nowhere to be seen.
 
What's also important I think (it is to me at least) is the ability to display non-native resolutions with the same sharpness, contrast, and detail as the native resolution.

Some old games like Command & Conquer Gold are basically stuck at 640 x 480 resolutions, and certain slow-to-catch-on systems like Nintendo Wii only go up to 480p

These things all look terrible on LCD/Plasma displays.

CRT displays on the other hand, can show any resolution just fine.

So, in my opinion, we'll have just about the best display once we can do that, have perfect sharpness, and perfect response times.

OLED, and FED/SED both boast about being able to have perfect response times, and amazing contrast ratios (LCD quality sharpness is simply assumed,) but none of them talk about how they'll be able to handle being a 1920x1200 native, and displaying a 640x480 image

It's important in my opinion. I hope they can pull that off.
 
I think what I'm really trying to put forward is (I know no one knows cause we're talking about the future) whether these screens will have other problems. In other words maybe we'll have a screen that has great colors, little to no response times and no viewing angle issues but we'll have other unforeseen problems. I guess its hard to come up with something perfect and if there is a screen that has what I mentioned then I think we'll be taken care of.
 
It's hard to foresee unforeseen problems.

I mean, burn in as a general problem will probably return.
But it won't be like plasma, and burn in, in less than five minutes or something.

And there's a reason we have screen savers that can be set to turn on in five minutes.

Hopefully there won't be backlight bleed.

All we can really predict are problems that we currently have.
 
What's also important I think (it is to me at least) is the ability to display non-native resolutions with the same sharpness, contrast, and detail as the native resolution. I hope they can pull that off.
You might be out of luck. In order to get that kind of 'perfect' scaling you need a system where there are not discrete pixels. The pixels aren't fixed in place and size and can be put anywhere.

I'm not an expert, but I think CRT is the only technology that can do exactly this because its electron beam is controlled in an analogue way. The beam moves using variable magnetic fields and is not confined to discrete positions.

The other popular projection method, DLP (which includes Laser), uses lots of discrete tiny mirrors, and if I'm not mistaken that means the picture will look best when each mirror works on a single pixel. I heard something about "Wobulation" so I could be wrong here.

Flat panels, like LCDs, Plasma, OLED, and SED/FED all have discrete pixels. That's why they're flat.

Maybe your best bet is to find a high quality tri-gun RPTV before they're all gone (Sony has recently announced it will only make DLP rear-projection TVs). I hear that if you get them properly calibrated they can be awesome, just don't expect to wallmount.

But it won't be like plasma, and burn in, in less than five minutes or something.

Hopefully there won't be backlight bleed.

All we can really predict are problems that we currently have.
Plasma Burn-In is highly overstated. Plasma has come a long way in that regard and the only way you'll suffer burn in is if you use it for a PC monitor and you never use screensaver/powersave and never change your wallpaper. If you're like me, and you only have the computer on when you're playing games, it's a non issue.

Backlight bleed is unique to LCDs and other technologies that block light, rather that emitting light. OLED, SED, FED, and Laser are all emissive.

I'll tell you what the biggest limitation to Future Displays is going to be: Price. Let's face it, the average consumer doesn't really understand what makes a good display. They will see that cheap LCD in a bright showroom with a bright backlight showing bright scenes and wonder why in the world anyone would pay 2-5 times as much on those other, dimmer screens. Black level? What's that?

Without popular demand, future display tech is going to stay pricey for a while, I imagine.
 
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