Hitachi's OLED Tech Demo

Hitachi showed off their latest in Organic LED (OLED) display technology.  What's unique about this technology is that each pixel on the screen emits its own light so there is no need for a backlight like in traditional LCD displays.  The display on the show floor was looping video of bright, colorful scenes that Hitachi put together obviously attempting to show off the impressive color reproduction capability of the display.

The screen measured 7" diagonal with a WVGA resolution (854x480). The video being looped played smoothly with no indication of ghosting, although it did not include any fast motion scenes so we could not get a good idea of the response time.

Though the picture quality was good for a tech demo, what really impressed us was the thickness (or thinness, rather) of the screen.  The display was barely over an eighth of an inch thick and completely flat (excluding the stand).  Hitachi says they have no official plans to release any products using this technology yet, although considering how impressive the demo was, it's safe to assume we'll see this display being utilized in the next few years.

Motorola's In-Ear Bluetooth Headset Hitachi's LCD Display with LED Backlight
Comments Locked

38 Comments

View All Comments

  • Cygni - Monday, January 9, 2006 - link

    Each 7800GTX 512 has a fillrate of 8.8 gigapixels. Normal 7800GTX has a 6.8 gigapixels. 4 512's, and full 512 clocks (I dont know if they ARE actually clocked that high, but lets assume), would give a fillrate of 35 gigapixels for 4.

    Are there many games or displays in the world that can use this power? Hell no! haha
  • jiulemoigt - Saturday, January 7, 2006 - link

    Could I not simply buy a bluray drive and a hddrive and have both formats in my pc? Also R+ and R- had the same probs but they both sit on drives together, so it is just a matter of time for both to play nice. I like that neither is being forced into a compromise that limits the size or quality of the disks.
  • nomagic - Saturday, January 7, 2006 - link

    Just wait for 6 months. I am sure there will be bluray + HD-DVD combo drives. Unless one of the format dies, we are just going to repeat the old situation, in which a burner would feature both + and - format. Ah, this sucks.
  • Cygni - Saturday, January 7, 2006 - link

    IIRC, the HD laser and Blu Ray laser arent backwards compatabile. However, the HD and normal DVD lasers are. Meaning a combo Blu-ray+Normal DVD drive would need 2 lasers... and a Blu-Ray + HD-DVD + Normal DVD drive would also need 2 lasers.

    As long as the HD-DVD laser can ramp up fast enough and be cheap enough, HD-DVD could survive by default.
  • ArneBjarne - Saturday, January 7, 2006 - link

    You are wrong, both Blu-ray and HD-DVD use the same blue laser. The difference between the two is in disc structure. That is what HD-DVD shares with normal DVD, while BD has a totally new structure.

    Both formats need triple lasers to support either CD/DVD/BD or CD/DVD/HD-DVD, and ALL drives that I have seen so far already have triple lasers.
  • Cygni - Sunday, January 8, 2006 - link

    Your right, same 450nm laser. Which brings up the immediate question, why not a Blu Ray + HD-DVD combo drive? It shouldnt physically require another laser, although i doubt either Blu Ray or HD-DVD are super enthused to make products like that.
  • Pete - Saturday, January 7, 2006 - link

    "Wide color gamut even lager [...]"

    Mmmm, colorful beer. *Drool*
  • hoppa - Saturday, January 7, 2006 - link

    1/8" should be thin enough for anyone!
  • Chadder007 - Saturday, January 7, 2006 - link

    Thanks for the great write up. I like the OLED display and the Paper displays. Also on the LCD's with the LED Backlight....couldn't they get some of the LEDs to turn off to give a super high contrast ratio on those? Like instead of the backlight LCDs now which the whole backlight is on and the LCD doesn't represent black that well, wouldn't the LED backlight be able to present a perfect black?
  • Clauzii - Saturday, January 7, 2006 - link

    Basically that sounds like a good idea to me too.. I think thats one of the Upsides with LED backlight.

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now