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KW

Ken Werner

30 articles
HDTV Expert - Smart Watches Have Not Excited Consumers - But They're About To

HDTV Expert - Smart Watches Have Not Excited Consumers - But They're About To

The smart watch market remains nascent, with Samsung's first-generation Galaxy Gear selling roughly one million units at $299 despite poor reviews and suspected warehouse stockpiles. Motorola's Moto 360, running Google's Android Wear OS with a round full-color LCD and refined watch-like design, is positioned as a potential breakout product if priced at $250 or below. With LG, Samsung, and fashion brand Fossil also adopting Android Wear, the OS could establish platform dominance similar to Windows on PCs, making display technology choices - LCD, OLED, mirasol, and emerging Pixtronix MEMS - a key differentiator.

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HDTV Expert - January's TV is February's Digital Sign

HDTV Expert - January's TV is February's Digital Sign

Technologies debuted at CES 2014, including 4K Ultra HD panels and multi-touch displays, rapidly transitioned to commercial digital signage applications at the Digital Signage Expo just weeks later, with LG's 105-inch Ultra HD display and 55-inch OLED Gallery TV among the crossover products. Transparent LCD panels, demonstrated by LG-MRI and others in commercial refrigerator doors and retail kiosks, showed notably improved color saturation alongside genuine transparency. For signage professionals, the convergence of gesture control, customer analytics, and large-format touch interfaces signals a significant shift toward interactive, data-driven display deployments.

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4K Ultra HD

HDTV Expert - Thursday Evening at a Sony Store

Sony's 84-inch 4K LCD TV at $25,000 MSRP anchors a broader discussion of the company's strategic pivot away from PC hardware toward a media ecosystem built around smartphones and televisions. Quantum-dot enhanced LCD panels, which deliver expanded color gamut at modest added cost, illustrate how quickly hardware advantages erode in consumer electronics. Sharp's Quattron+ four-subpixel technology offers near-4K picture definition at roughly half the price of true 4K sets, though patent protection may prove a temporary shield in a fast-moving display market.

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OLED TVsLCD TVs

HDTV Expert - QD Vision Co-Founder Predicts Death of OLED-TV

QD Vision co-founder and CTO Seth Coe-Sullivan argued at the SID Los Angeles Chapter conference that OLED-TV will become irrelevant within five years, citing quantum-dot-enhanced LCD backlights as capable of exceeding OLED color gamut while consuming less power than OLED panels displaying a white screen. He systematically dismantled eight pro-OLED arguments, noting that mature LCD fabs maintain yield and cost advantages over OLED manufacturing processes such as ink-jet printing and OVJP, which have proven harder to scale than anticipated. For consumers, this suggests that quantum-dot LCD televisions - already appearing in 2013 Sony and Amazon Kindle Fire HDX products - may deliver premium picture quality at lower prices than OLED alternatives.

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HDTV Expert - Samsung was King of the CES Hill
Events & Trade Shows4K Ultra HD

HDTV Expert - Samsung was King of the CES Hill

Samsung dominated CES 2014 with a sweeping UHD TV lineup spanning 50 to 110 inches, featuring PurColor wide-gamut technology, a quad-core processor, and UHD upscaling claimed to deliver near-native-4K image quality. A joint announcement with M-Go and Technicolor confirmed that native-4K streaming requires 15 Mb/sec bandwidth while optimized upscaled content needs as little as 3 Mb/sec, giving streaming providers meaningful flexibility. Samsung also previewed a 4K content partnership with Amazon and an Evolution Kit for firmware upgrades, signaling a long-term ecosystem play that extends well beyond the display hardware itself.

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HDTV Expert - Quantum Dot Makers Defy Conventional Wisdom

HDTV Expert - Quantum Dot Makers Defy Conventional Wisdom

Quantum-dot display technology from QD Vision and Nanosys/3M is defying early assumptions about natural market segmentation, with QD Vision's Color IQ element appearing in Sony VAIO Pro Ultrabooks and Flip PCs as small as 11.6 inches, while Nanosys/3M's Quantum Dot Enhancement Film is being used in HiSense UHD TVs up to 85 inches. QDEF's cost scaling with the square of screen diagonal was expected to limit it to smaller displays, but Nanosys notes that QD Vision requires higher quantum-dot density, narrowing the anticipated cost gap at large sizes. These shifts have real implications for display buyers, as both Full HD Triluminos notebooks and wide-gamut large-screen TVs now leverage QD technology across previously unexpected form factors.

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HDTV Expert - The RCA Brand Prospers
Smart TVs4K Ultra HD

HDTV Expert - The RCA Brand Prospers

RCA, now a licensed brand managed by Technicolor and manufactured by ON Corporation of Korea, is entering the Ultra HD TV market in 2014 with 55-, 65-, and 84-inch sets featuring native 4K resolution of 3840x2160, LED backlights, and the Google TV platform providing access to over 100,000 on-demand titles. The more affordable HDTV tier, ranging from 28 to 65 inches, integrates smart features via a Roku Streaming Stick inserted into an MHL port. Buyers considering value-tier 4K sets will find RCA positioning itself competitively as UHD adoption accelerates, with the brand reporting sales growth exceeding 20% in the past year.

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HDTV Expert - Display Surprises at CES 2014
OLED TVsEvents & Trade Shows

HDTV Expert - Display Surprises at CES 2014

CES 2014 surfaced several notable display advances, including 3M's Quantum Dot Enhancement Film (QDEF) deployed in the Kindle Fire HDX 8.9-inch tablet, boosting color gamut from 60% to 72% NTSC while substantially improving battery life. Sharp demonstrated an HDR TV prototype using Dolby professional monitor technology, potentially targeting consumer pricing by 2015, and LG disclosed an internal yield target of 75% for its new OLED TV panel plant opening in Q3. For consumers, these developments signal meaningful near-term improvements in display quality, power efficiency, and OLED availability across price tiers.

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Events & Trade Shows4K Ultra HD

HDTV Expert - At CES, Sharp Calls Its Quattron+ Almost-4K TV a "Game Changer"

Sharp's Quattron+ display technology uses a four-sub-pixel pixel structure (red, green, blue, and yellow) to generate two luminance peaks per pixel both horizontally and vertically, effectively upscaling a 1920x1080 Quattron panel to a 3840x2160 near-4K output via its proprietary Revelation Technology. Demonstrated at CES 2014, the resulting image quality is described as nearly indistinguishable from true 4K at typical living-room viewing distances, at roughly half the price of native 4K sets. Sharp's roadmap reportedly extends this approach to 4K panels delivering 8K output by CES 2015.

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LCD TVs

HDTV Expert - There's a New QD Maker in Town

Quantum Materials Corp. (QMC) is entering the quantum dot display market with tetrapod-shaped QDs that offer a 20nm FWHM emission spectrum, roughly half the width of conventional spherical QDs produced by rivals QD Vision and Nanosys. Using a patented microfluidic continuous-flow reactor derived from Rice University technology, a single unit can produce 100 kg of tetrapod QDs per day, addressing the throughput limitations of colloidal batch processes. For display manufacturers, this combination of narrower emission peaks and scalable production could enable wider color gamut LCDs at competitive cost, with QMC targeting a commercial product launch in 2014.

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4K Ultra HDMarket Trends & Analysis

HDTV Expert - UHD-TV, Small OLEDs, and Market Forecasting

UHD-TV (4K) panel shipments reached 0.4 million units in Q2 2013, with IHS Displaybank projecting 1% unit penetration in 2013 rising to 8% by 2017 and revenue penetration hitting 20% by 2017 - figures the author finds credible despite the inherent unreliability of early-lifecycle market forecasts. Samsung's years-long struggle to achieve high-yield, low-cost manufacturing of small OLED displays serves as a cautionary parallel for how difficult new display technologies can be to scale. For consumers, the near-term question is whether aggressively priced Chinese and Japanese UHD-TV sets will deliver genuine 4K image quality.

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HDTV Expert - Financiers Focus on Flexible Displays

The Samsung Galaxy Round, launched in South Korea on October 9, 2013, uses a 5.7-inch Full HD Super AMOLED flexible display to achieve a rigid curved form factor rather than a truly bendable device. Limited availability likely reflects manufacturing constraints tied to flexible moisture barrier films, which remain costly and difficult to produce at scale. For consumers and investors, the distinction between bend-once and flex-many display technologies is critical, as fully rollable devices face unresolved engineering challenges across every component, from backplanes to batteries.

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Manufacturing

HDTV Expert - A True Revolution in Display and Touch-screen Manufacturing Begins

Cambrios, TPK, and NISSHA have formed TPK Film Solutions to volume-produce ClearOhm, a silver nanowire-based transparent conductor that achieves near-100% optical transmission at sheet resistances as low as 25 ohms/square on PET substrates, outperforming the industry-standard indium tin oxide (ITO) on every key metric. Unlike ITO, which cracks and loses conductivity by a factor of 1000 or more after a single flex cycle, silver nanowire film maintains stable resistance over 50 bend cycles, making it viable for flexible and thin-form-factor devices. With Lenovo already adopting ClearOhm in its Flex 20 touchscreen and volume production targeted for Q2 2014, this transition has direct implications for the cost and design flexibility of consumer touchscreens worldwide.

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HDTV Expert - E Ink Raises the Electrophoretic Bar

E Ink's new Carta electrophoretic imaging film delivers a contrast ratio of 15:1 and 50% reflectivity, up from Pearl's 10:1 and 41%, achieved through reformulated black and white pigments and revised assembly sequencing. The companion Regal waveform reduces full-page refresh frequency from every 5 pages to every 100 pages by more precisely controlling particle deceleration. Readers gain sharper text, less display flicker, and a new use case in snap-on Samsung Galaxy S4 covers integrating 4.3-inch E Ink panels from PocketBook and TCL-Alcatel.

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OLED TVs

HDTV Expert - Samsung and LG Offer Curved OLED TVs - but Why?

Samsung and LG have begun shipping 55-inch curved OLED TVs at prices of $8,999 and $14,999 respectively, with LG's panel featuring a 5,000 mm radius of curvature - well beyond the typical 8-foot viewing distance. Geometric analysis confirms LG's claims of improved horizontal viewing angle and color uniformity are technically valid, though the flat-screen equivalent would need only about one inch of additional width to match the curved display's included viewing angle. The practical takeaway is that the benefits are real but marginal, and the curved form factor appears driven more by manufacturing optics and marketing than by meaningful display science.

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Standards4K Ultra HD

HDTV Expert - Technicolor's and THX's 4K Certification: No Competition

THX and Technicolor have each developed distinct 4K certification systems that address different layers of the video pipeline. THX certifies TV displays against strict standards for black-and-white uniformity, motion artifacts, and mura, while Technicolor's algorithms upconvert 2K signals by synthesizing 3 pixels for every original pixel, restoring texture and removing jaggies before the signal reaches any display. In practice, the two certifications are complementary rather than competitive, and the Toshiba BDX 6400 Blu-ray player with its Marseille Networks VTV-122X chip represents the first consumer product to carry Technicolor's signal-level certification.

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4K Ultra HDStandards

HDTV Expert - Technicolor's Remarkable 4K Algorithms and Certification

Technicolor's 4K upscaling certification program synthesizes three-quarters of the pixels per frame (roughly 6 million per frame) when converting FHD content to 4K, using a multi-stage algorithm that removes noise, inserts synthesized pixels, restores film grain texture, and sharpens edges. Quality is validated using PSNR, SSIM, and Technicolor's proprietary WQA metric, alongside subjective testing with 20 viewers per ITU-R Recommendation BT.500-11, with original native 4K footage serving as the high anchor. For consumers, this means certified 2K-to-4K upscaling on compliant Blu-ray players can deliver a perceptually near-native 4K experience without introducing visible artifacts.

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4K Ultra HD

HDTV Expert - THX Certifies Up-converted 4K Television

THX has launched a 4K certification program addressing two pressing industry challenges: the absence of native 4K content and the threat of low-quality budget sets from Chinese manufacturers. Sharp's 70-inch 4K TV, the first globally certified product under this program, undergoes rigorous testing for panel uniformity, motion artifacts, and jaggies, with up-converted material rendered in the Rec. 709 color space. For consumers, THX certification provides a meaningful quality benchmark when purchasing 4K sets, ensuring that 2K-to-4K upscaling processing does not degrade the original image.

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LCD TVs

HDTV Expert - Display Panels in the News

LG Display unveiled the world's slimmest Full HD smartphone panel at 2.2mm thick with a 5.2-inch diagonal, achieving 535 nits peak luminance and a 3.74:1 ambient contrast ratio at 10,000 lux, making it potentially readable in direct sunlight. Sharp's IGZO backplane technology is gaining momentum, with rumors of Apple adoption in H1 2014 and a new $2.84 billion joint venture with China Electronics Corp. targeting 7.2 million panels per month. Quantum-dot-enhanced backlights for Ultra HD wide color gamut TVs are also emerging as a competitive differentiator, with Innolux reportedly pursuing Toshiba and Panasonic supply deals.

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4K Ultra HD

HDTV Expert - Seiki Introduces Bargain-Basement 4K-TV; Sharp Aims Higher

Seiki unveiled a 39-inch Ultra HD (3840x2160) television at CE Week with an MSRP of $699, achieving its low price by omitting Internet TV, WiFi, and 3D features. Reviewers at CNET and PC Magazine raised concerns about color accuracy and the HD-to-UHD up-conversion quality on Seiki's 50-inch 4K sibling, a critical weakness given the scarcity of native 4K content. At the other end of the spectrum, Sharp's 70-inch Ultra HD set at $8,000 includes THX-certified dual-core up-scaling and 4K-capable Bluetooth shutter-glass 3D, illustrating the wide performance gap buyers must weigh against price.

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Home Theater4K Ultra HD

HDTV Expert - Marseille's Spectacular 4K Up-Converting Chips

Marseille Networks unveiled the VTV-122X family of video processing chips, which up-convert SD, HD, and 3D video to 4K resolution and are the first chips to pass the Technicolor 4K Image Certified test suite. The VTV-1223 specifically integrates an HDMI 1.4b receiver and transmitter, supports xvYCC wide color gamut, delivers up to 2160p output at 24 or 30Hz with 8-10-12 bit color depth, and fits in a compact 169-pin 12x12mm TFBG package. Toshiba confirmed the chip powers its upcoming BDX6400 Blu-ray media box, meaning consumers may soon access credible 4K upscaling from existing HD content without requiring native 4K source material.

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LED TVs4K Ultra HD

HDTV Expert - Two Words for InfoComm: LED and 4K

InfoComm 2013 showcased a rapid evolution in LED display technology, with pixel pitches reaching as low as 2.5mm and roadmaps targeting 1.0mm, a threshold that could make LED panels competitive with LCDs in large-scale applications. Sharp made a notable announcement with the immediate commercial availability of its 4Kx2K 32-inch professional monitor featuring an IGZO backplane, priced at $5,859 MSRP and targeting high-detail workflows such as financial trading and CAD-CAM. For display professionals, these developments signal a market shifting decisively toward higher pixel density and Ultra HD across both LED signage and flat-panel categories.

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HDTV Expert - Digital Signage at SID 2013

HDTV Expert - Digital Signage at SID 2013

SID Display Week 2013 in Vancouver surfaced a range of display technologies with strong digital signage potential, including Sharp's 13.5-inch QFHD OLED demonstrator, E Ink's award-winning three-color Spectra display using SiPix Microcup structure, and LiteMax's resized SpanPixel LCDs reaching 2000 nits luminance. Samsung's 85-inch 4Kx2K LCD with full-matrix local-area dimming and Shinoda Plasma's flexible tube-based panels with 1mm-diameter glass tubes also drew attention. Readers evaluating display investments for signage applications will find useful context on emerging form factors, color gamut expansion via quantum dots, and the practical trade-offs of transparent and curved LCD panels.

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HDTV Expert - LCD Always Wins
LCD TVsOLED TVs

HDTV Expert - LCD Always Wins

Quantum-dot-enhanced backlights, already available in Sony's Triluminous TVs using QD Vision's Color IQ optical element, deliver OLED-like color gamut at a price premium estimated around $300 per set. At SID Display Week 2013, 3M also announced volume production of its Quantum Dot Enhancement Film (QDEF), targeting small to medium-size screens including potential 1920x1080 smartphone panels. These developments suggest LCD could close the image quality gap with OLED-TV before large-screen OLED manufacturing yields become commercially viable, potentially repeating the historical pattern of LCD neutralizing rival display technologies.

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Streaming HDMarket Trends & AnalysisSatellite HD

HDTV Expert - Zero-TV Households and the Second-Season Crunch

Nielsen's Q4 2012 Cross-Platform Report identifies over 5 million Zero-TV households, up from 2 million in 2007, with 67% consuming video via PCs, smartphones, and tablets rather than traditional sets. Network broadcast ratings are declining sharply, with shows like New Girl dropping from 8.4 to 6.16 million viewers in their second season, while cable originals such as Homeland and Game of Thrones command stronger audience loyalty. Notably, 23% of Netflix subscribers have cancelled cable or satellite subscriptions, signaling a structural shift that improved smart TVs and faster streaming will likely accelerate.

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HDTV Expert - The Wacky World of OLEDs
OLED TVsManufacturing

HDTV Expert - The Wacky World of OLEDs

Samsung's Galaxy S4 features a Full HD, 440 ppi, 5-inch AMOLED display that has earned strong reviews, while Displaybank data shows 88.4% of OLED shipments in Q4 2012 were 4 inches or larger, confirming a mature small-screen market. Large-screen OLED TV, however, remains commercially marginal, with LG's curved 55-inch set launching in Korea above $13,000 and flat 55-inch OLED production still in the low hundreds. Manufacturers are pivoting to 4K x 2K LCD-TV as a more immediately scalable path to premium display sales.

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HDTV Expert - Panasonic Shows Best Plasma TV Set the World has ever Seen
Home TheaterPlasma TVs

HDTV Expert - Panasonic Shows Best Plasma TV Set the World has ever Seen

Panasonic's 2013 ZT Series plasma HDTV introduces a 3000Hz focused field drive, up from last year's 2500Hz, and a new subfield technology capable of expressing 30,720 gray levels compared to the 6,144 levels found in conventional PDPs. A redesigned red phosphor and front-surface filter enable a color gamut covering 122% of the ITU standard and 98% of the DCI standard, while a gapless laminated panel filter reduces reflections in ambient light. Side-by-side testing against the legendary Pioneer Kuro revealed the ZT's clear superiority in motion handling and shadow detail, making it a compelling reference-grade display for serious home theater buyers.

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Smart TVs4K Ultra HD

HDTV Expert - Samsung features Smart TV and Kate Upton - both impressive - at New York Line Show

Samsung's 85-inch 9000 Series UHD-TV, priced at $39,999 and built on a Gen 8 LCD panel line, delivers native 4Kx2K resolution with full-array local dimming across 720 processing cells for color, contrast, and detail. The set includes 2GB of app storage, a quad-core processor via the $299 Evolution+ upgrade module, and a full Smart Hub with voice control, gesture control, and facial recognition. Buyers considering this set should weigh its impressive 2K-to-4K upconversion and four-year hardware upgrade path against a price point that rivals entry-level luxury vehicles.

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HDTV Expert - With Galaxy S4, Apple Eats More of Samsung's Dust
Mobile HD

HDTV Expert - With Galaxy S4, Apple Eats More of Samsung's Dust

Samsung's Galaxy S4 features a 5-inch Full HD AMOLED display at 441 ppi, outpacing the iPhone 5's 326 ppi Retina Display and signaling a broader industry shift as multiple panel-makers demonstrate comparable 440-ppi LCDs. The phone adds an IR gesture sensor, IR LED for universal TV remote functionality, dual simultaneous cameras (13 MP rear, 2 MP front), a 2600 mAh battery, and runs Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean on an octo-core processor in select markets. For consumers, the S4 raises the bar on display sharpness and sensor integration at a time when Apple's competitive response remains uncertain.

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LCD TVsEvents & Trade Shows

HDTV Expert - Digital Signage Expo Grows in Size and Energy

The 2013 Digital Signage Expo in Las Vegas drew 22% more exhibitors than the prior year, with major panel makers and technology vendors showcasing advances including 4K 84-inch touch displays from LG and ViewSonic, Corning Gorilla Glass directly bonded to Christie 55-inch LCDs, and E Ink electrophoretic panels that survived the 2011 Sendai tsunami. Sharp leveraged its Gen 10 fab to deliver panels up to 90 inches, while BSI demonstrated a resized and curved 26-inch LCD at 1366x384 pixels using Tovis heat-bending technology. Transparent display refrigerator doors and interactive demographic-sensing signage signal where the industry is heading in real-world retail deployments.

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