What will be the new black level champion in HDTV's?

Question

It's obvious that Plasma is slowly being phased out. More and more companies are getting out of the plasma business. I was shocked to see Pioneer get out. LCD's are beating plasmas in sales, revenue, and relevance.

As a gamer and movie buff, plasma was really my preferred format but what exactly is going to replace it in terms of something with comparable contrast and black levels? OLED? LCOS? SED? What emerging technology is on the cusp of having economies of scale turn it into a legitimate competitor with LCD tv's?

Personally, I've always preferred plasma, like I've said, due to the contrast and black level advantage. Do you guys know what is on the horizon? I'm going to buy a new HDTV in the next year because the plasma I have right now is on its last legs.

Answer 1

It's not so much what the display technology is, or will be. It's more important to scrutinize the light source. The reason that CRTs work so well is because the electron beam (the light source) inside the tube turns off for black. Projection and rear projection devices such as DLP use lamps that never turn off. I would look towards something in the liquid crystal, liquid crystal on semiconductor or organic liquid crystal arena in the near future.

Sharp's D64 and Sony's XBR5 LCDs have awesome black levels, and they will hang on the wall.

JVC's LCoS projector is amazing with black levels for a device with a lamp. Many say it's best-bang-for-the-buck in higher end projectors, and I agree.

Answer 2

Sony is expecting it to be OLED. They released the first OLED TV already and it has amazing blacks and contrast (They are calling it 1,000,000/1 contrast ratio though how you can tell I don't know). At a recent meeting I attended I believe they said they spent something north of 2 Billion on OLED research and developement. And they have yet to do any marketing to speak of (They probably don't thing the 11" market is wide open at this time)

Sony is in a good spot right now. They just won the HD Disk format war and they returned to the top spot in LCD marketshare. I expect that they will use their successes to  position themselves as the technology leader and continue it with mid Size Oled in 2 or so years. Anybody wanna bet me?

Answer 3

Expect CRT to make a comeback within the next year.