Mar 4 2010
Touting the start of a new age in consumer demand, a Samsung Vice President today told display industry executives that consumers want energy-efficiency, ultra-thin designs and a rich, movie-like viewing experience in their TVs – that will include 3D programming over time.
Speaking at the 2010 U.S. Flat Panel Display Conference (sponsored by the DisplaySearch market analysis firm), Scott Birnbaum, Vice President, Samsung Electronics’ LCD Business, said consumers are buying TVs in droves, in spite of a lackluster economy and high unemployment rates, because TV’s presence in the household is changing dramatically. He said television is being transformed from power-hungry, space consuming floor furniture to increasingly energy-efficient, extremely thin and vibrant wall hangings that look like enhanced “windows to the world,” even outside of a home theatre setting.
“Consumers are no longer satisfied with a decent picture and a good warranty. Today, they are looking at TVs as chic liquid-crystal wall displays; Energy-Star-rated pieces of living art; and providers of crystal clear, movie-like viewing experiences,” Birnbaum said.
Ultra-thin TV panels are extremely popular right now, with LED TV displays between 3.9 mm and 10.8 mm, Birnbaum said. Only a couple years ago, the norm was 3-5 inches thick, while the CRT TVs of the last four decades were up to a couple feet thick. “People increasingly want their TVs not only off the floor but flat against the wall, and the display industry is moving quickly to accommodate that desire,” Birnbaum further said.
Consumers also want a rich viewing experience. For television, the new age of consumer demand is coalescing around “picture perfect” enhancements that began a few years ago with much higher contrast ratios, a 16:9 theatre-like aspect ratio and faster refresh rates.
- Faster refresh rates of 120Hz and 240Hz make fast-moving action appear smoother and clearer, and allows new-age LCD and LED TVs to provide the clearest action viewing experience ever.
- 16:9 is the measurement of length compared to width, which is referred to as the aspect ratio. Wide aspect movies have been around for decades, and only now with “vidified” high definition viewing has TV caught up.
- The move to high contrast ratios has leaped from being rather stagnant for years at 500:1 or 1000:1, to 10,000:1 static contrast (or up to 10,000,000:1 dynamic contrast).
Birnbaum said the next step in TV realism will be adoption of 3D technology and while it may take a few years to gain wide mainstream traction, “the move to 3D for a very large percentage of consumer TVs is unstoppable.” “No one realized when Cameron started filming the most popular movie of all time that Avatar would be seen as the avid star of 3D TV or that the film soon will be followed by an amazing number of TV components and sets that embrace 3D,” Birnbaum added.
The other compelling trend in flat panel TVs is greater energy efficiency. This push for energy-efficiency really took off with the introduction of the enormously popular LED TV, Birnbaum noted. LED TV panel shipments jumped 1850 percent (YoY) to 4.07 million units sold worldwide in 2009 (DisplaySearch Q4 ‘09) in part because of their extreme thinness and in part because of their high energy efficiency.
Improved power consumption now has spread to much-improved ratings for conventional TV backlighting (cold cathode fluorescent lamp or CCFL) too. Edge-lit LED displays can reduce power consumption by as much as 40 percent over the conventional backlighting of recent years. Now, active dimming technology is allowing some CCFL-backlit TVs to consume about 20 to 70 percent less energy than conventional CCFL-backlit TVs, depending upon the brightness of what is being viewed at any given moment.
In his presentation, Birnbaum called on TV OEMs and retailers to work more closely together to provide clear comparative data on relative thinness and energy efficiency, as well as contrast ratios, aspect ratios and the importance of faster refresh rates.
“Consumers are becoming more selective buyers, but they have shown that they have an insatiable taste for advanced TVs, a buying explosion that will only mushroom if choices become easier to make,” Birnbaum said.