The FlatHDTV Blog

One of the big questions most HDTV buyers have these days is: which of the three most popular technologies (LCD, Plasma, DLP) should I choose? Or, should I wait for the next big thing I’ve been hearing about, OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode)?

The answer is no- unless you’re willing to wait several years. Buy your favorite HDTV that’s on the market now, and when that one wears out, you will probably be seriously considering an OLED. Here’s why:

• OLED screens are made with a synthetic organic substance, which is similar to the chemical that lights up fireflies and deep-sea fish. This substance shines bright and cool, doesn’t need a backlight like LCD sets, and so consumes very little energy.
• The construction process allows OLED screens to be extremely thin- an 80-inch HDTV might be as thin as a quarter inch.
• The OLED screen will be more durable, will handle greater temperature ranges, will change images quicker, and will even be flexible.
• They will eventually be produced in much larger sizes then current HDTV sets, and should be cheaper when production gets up to a certain level.

There are still a few bugs to work out, though. Here’s an example: the OLED screen is made of several layers of the organic substance, each of which is responsible for displaying a different color. The red and green layers have proven to last up to 40,000 hours in some laboratories, but researchers are having trouble getting the blue layers to last more than 4,000 hours in prototype screens.

The bugs aren’t preventing the big HDTV companies from spreading the word, though. Here are some recent updates and press releases on OLED:

http://techblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2008/05/sony-previews-03mm-or-is-that.html

http://www.current.com.au/2008/05/29/article/RXKLVDONVA.html

http://gizmodo.com/393734/giz-explains-oled-the-future-of-tv

http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/05/sony-to-acceler.html

Sony makes what is arguably the highest-quality LCD HDTV on the market, the Bravia XBR series. Over the past few years, the latest model has been the XBR, XBR2, XBR3, XBR4, and XBR5. Now, to the surprise of no one, they have named their new model XBR6.

The word on the street is that this one has a little bit better picture than the XBR4 and 5, and a lower introductory price, but it is lacking a few of the advanced features. The first ones to be available online are the 32 inch, at about $1100, and the 37 inch at about $1500.

Check them out here:

Sony 32 inch XBR6

Sony 37 inch XBR6

NASA (the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, of the US government) has recently restored hundreds of hours of space footage from the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions in the 60s and 70s. Much of this footage had only existed on film, and has been converted to digital files with HDTV resolution.

The main archive for NASA’s HD video is here: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/hd/HDGalleryCollection_archive_1.html

The restored footage might not be on the site quite yet, but that’s where it will be available soon. And for a little more information, check this news item or NASA’s Home Page.

To see this footage in its full glory, you’ll have to connect your HDTV to your computer. For some tips, check here: Connecting your HDTV to your PC