Those long enough in the tooth to remember the dawn of the flatscreen TV era—which roughly coincided with the advent of HD programming, DVD players, and Keira Knightley movies—will fondly recall the running debate of the day: LCD or plasma? That was the big question to be answered when shopping for a new set, and it was a toughie. With plasma, you got deep, inky blacks, superb contrast, and excellent motion handling. On the LCD side, you got brighter, punchier colors, a thinner design, and a longer lifespan. One was better for movies and one was better for sports—though few could remember which was which, let alone explain why.
Then, after a few years, a new technology emerged, one promising to deliver the best of both worlds. As impossible as it sounds, these new OLED (Organic light-emitting diode) sets did indeed have it all. You got the deep blacks, wider color gamut, smooth motions, and wide viewing angles of a plasma, but with the zippier colors, brighter picture, and energy efficiency of an LCD. Oh, and they were thinner than any TV you'd ever seen.
OLED was sexy. OLED was the ultimate. And alas, OLED was DOA.
In late 2013, Sony and Panasonic called off a partnership that would have seen the two companies teaming up for OLED production. That’s a shame; both companies showed off stunning OLED 4K TVs at CES 2013. Panasonic in particularly had a wavy wall of OLED eye candy that it printed out using a new manufacturing process. But like a lot of the most-interesting stuff you see at CES, it was a showpiece with no hard-set plans for widespread release.
Beyond LG and Samsung, the TV market leaders in the U.S. haven't announced any plans to explore OLED production in the near future. That field may shrink even further: If its decision to cancel plans for a new OLED manufacturing facility are any indication, Samsung may also bow out of the OLED TV scene entirely. The company didn’t respond to a request for comment on this story.
That would leave LG as the sole producer in the U.S. OLED market, at least for the short term. But according to Tim Alessi, director of new product development at LG Electronics USA, the major growing pains of large-screen OLED manufacturing may already be in the rear-view mirror.
"[More than] 15 years ago, the first HDTVs were tens of thousands of dollars, but the prices came down significantly as the technology was perfected and production ramped up," says Alessi. "Initial yields (for OLED) were low, but are now at the same level as LED TVs were at this stage of their evolution."
Of course, LCD wasn't fighting against similar display technologies as it matured. And even if OLED overcomes its early-stage manufacturing difficulties, it has another two-headed dragon to slay: A coordinated industry-wide push for UltraHD/4K sets, and significant picture-quality improvements from a lower-priced competing technology.
As OLED struggles to gain a foothold, another panel technology is reaching the end of its run. Plasma TVs---traditionally the only sets that can compete with OLED's tremendous black levels, contrast ratio, and motion-handling---are all but gone. Leading manufacturer Panasonic ducked out of the plasma game in late 2013, and they were really good at making plasma TVs.
Samsung and LG are still making plasma sets, but they’re a backseat focus for both companies. The decision has nothing to do with the picture quality that plasma can produce, which is still quite excellent. According to Panasonic, plasma sets are harder to make in sizes larger than 65 inches, and that doesn't mesh well with the manufacturing push to make bigger and bigger TVs. There are also major technical difficulties in building a 4K plasma TV, and 4K is considered the way forward for the TV industry. That may be the ultimate dealbreaker for plasma.
The TV industry wants nothing more than to recreate the HDTV buying frenzy that occurred in the mid- to late-2000s. And building up a massive demand for UltraHD/4K resolution is considered the most-likely way to spur this on. Although 1080p seems to be just fine for most people, the industry is hoping that changes now that Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, and YouTube are ramping up their 4K streaming services. In Japan, the first satellite broadcasts of 4K TV will begin later this month, and the BBC will be conducting in-house tests of live 4K broadcasts during this year's World Cup. But widespread 4K broadcasts in the U.S. are still a year or two away, and you'll need a new set-top box in addition to a 4K set to watch them the right way.
While OLED and 4K are two competing TV buzzwords, they aren't mutually exclusive. OLED is a display technology, while 4K is a display resolution. The combination of the two looks absolutely incredible. And because OLED is 4K-friendly, it should have a brighter future than plasma.
UltraHD sets were once again everywhere at CES 2014, while OLED had a lower-profile presence. Most of the OLED TVs were curvy this year. Some could even transform from flat to curved. They all looked good, but the novelty of seeing UltraHD sets and OLED sets had largely worn off. It was the third straight year they were on display at CES.
Instead, the most interesting developments at the show involved dramatic improvements in LCD picture quality. Advancements in LCD panels are closing the picture-quality gap between OLED and LCD---and the latter are much more affordable and cheaper to produce.
Given OLED’s cost and plasma’s disappearance, LCD sets are in an unchallenged position to dominate the TV market for the foreseeable future. For fans of the new technologies, it’s sort of boring and disappointing. That’s especially true for videophiles who prefer the picture quality of plasma sets, don’t have ridiculous amounts of cash to spend on a new OLED TV, and aren’t crazy about LCD’s traditional contrast and motion-handling weaknesses.
On an LCD set, there is always a source of light coming from behind the pixels; the backlight system must be blocked to produce the color black. And so, black levels on an LCD TV can look gray because there’s a bit of light seeping through. When you’re looking at black on an OLED screen, you’re looking at a true absence of light. Individual pixels on an OLED screen are their own light sources, and that light can be turned off completely as needed.
But LCD’s backlight system isn’t all bad news, and it introduces one big advantage that LCD sets have in comparison to OLED TVs. They can get really bright without fear of burn-in. If LCD manufacturers are able to solve the black-level problems, they could conceivably produce sets with contrast ratios that surpass those of OLED.
Compared to other types of LCD TVs, those with full-array backlight system with local dimming tend to have the best black levels. Traditionally, these types of sets have only been found at the upper reaches of major manufacturers' TV lineups, costing several thousand dollars. Compared to edge-lit LCD TVs, which are cheaper but can show bands of light around the bezel of a set, a full-array LED backlight system can create a brighter, more uniformly-lit image.
But in order to create the deep blacks needed to rival a plasma or OLED set, you need to be able to turn that backlight system off at the individual pixel level---or as close to it as possible. That’s where the local-dimming system comes in.
None of this is new, but it is getting much more affordable. Over the past few years, Vizio has been developing its own backlight and local-dimming system, focused on making the traditionally expensive system cheaper to implement. The company’s lowest-end sets feature full-array backlighting with local dimming, and their higher-end models have a greater number of zones of local dimming. This gives the sets more-granular control when it comes to making areas of the screen as black as possible, thus enhancing contrast ratio and making images "pop."
And because an LED backlight system can get brighter than an OLED set, these budget-friendly sets may offer a greater contrast ratio than high-priced competitors. According to DisplayMate tests, LG’s first-generation OLED set had a peak brightness of around 370 nits. According to Vizio, peak brightness reaches up to 800 nits on some of its new TVs.
"What your perceived contrast ratio is on your eyeballs is the difference between the darkest pixel and the brightest pixel," explains Vizio CTO Matt McRae. "We can get all the way down to zero (with local dimming), but we don’t have quite the resolution of OLED. Because of our 800-nit panel, that white pixel is way brighter than what you’re seeing on OLED."
While improvements in LCD's ability to enhance contrast ratio and dynamic range are right on the horizon, OLED still has the upper hand due to its pixel-by-pixel light control. "A full-array set with local dimming can never achieve the black levels of OLED unless light bulbs can be produced at the size of a pixel," says LG’s Alessi. And that’s not the only advantage they hold over LCD TVs in terms of image quality.
OLED TVs are also capable of displaying a wider range of colors---color gamut---than LCD displays, but that may not be the case for long. Quantum-dot LCD displays, which use nanoparticles between a set’s backlight and color filters to fine-tune the hue of light with OLED-like precision, are already on the market. Amazon’s Kindle Fire HDX tablets and Sony’s Triluminos TVs both use quantum-dot technology, and both products have received accolades for display quality. Apple’s next iPhone is rumored to use quantum-dot technology, as well.
Other developments in the color-gamut space may shrink the performance gap between LCD and OLED, too. Sharp’s “Quattron” technology, which adds a fourth yellow subpixel to the standard LCD setup of red/green/blue subpixels, has been around for a few years now. But this year, the company is trying to squeeze the most out of that technology by optimizing its sets for a new color-grading process dubbed Dolby Vision.
So if LCD sets continue to close the picture-quality gap at a lower price, is OLED already dead? Not if you care about the following things.
Although LCD black levels can be improved with local-dimming features, they won’t ever be able to match OLED’s pure-black perfection until individual pixels can be directly turned on or turned off. That’s really the secret of OLED’s stunning picture quality: A pure black pixel can appear right next to a bright white pixel with no light bleed. That translates to razor-sharp contrast.
Another one of OLED’s advantages is that its pixels have a near-instantaneous response time, which translates into buttery-smooth onscreen motion. The first-generation OLED TVs currently need the same kind of motion-enhancing tweaks as your average LCD set when watching fast-moving video. This results in a "soap-opera effect" or a darker or flickering image. Still, that’s bound to improve.
Especially when compared to the full-array LCD panels that come closest to OLED picture quality, OLED sets are incredibly thin. While edge-lit LCD displays have a very slim profile, they can’t achieve the image uniformity and brightness of a full-array set, and a full-array set needs to be thicker to accommodate that beefier backlighting system. The first OLED TVs are less than a quarter of an inch thick and are bound to get even thinner.
Finally, one of the biggest checkmarks in OLED’s pros column is its wide viewing angles---if it would just get out of its own way. Several of the first OLED sets to hit the market have featured curved screens to "enhance immersion," but that’s really only the case if one person is watching it at dead center or everyone is huddled together in the middle of the couch.
For a panel technology that’s so wall-hangable and vivid from side angles, curvy is an odd design choice. It's a self-imposed hurdle. And OLED TVs clearly have enough obstacles to overcome.
