What Technology Will Replace LCD TVs?
I remember our huge CRT television we had in the front room, I used to think that was as good as a TV could get, even if the back of it stuck out literally 2 feet! Then the plasma TV erupted onto the market and turned it on its head with a TV that was so slim you could actually hang it on the wall. Finally LCD TVs came out and started to compete with the plasma ones, and HDTV came onto the scene recently too, so where are we going now?
A recent development has been the use of LEDs for the backlighting of an LCD TV, previously they used CCFLs (cold cathode fluorescent lamps) which are bulky compared to LEDs. There are two versions of this technology, one where the LEDs go all the way across the back of the screen, which is the best way, or one where the LEDs are at the side and the light is directed to where it is needed, either way you get a TV much slimmer than the CCFL versions.
Just starting to emerge now are the 3DTVs, although that technology is still in its infancy so the reaction has not been that good at the moment. The concept of 3D television is excellent, and I have seen firsthand how powerful 3D movies can be, but at the moment you have to wear funny glasses that make it less usable. The ‘active shutter’ glasses currently being used give you a strange flickering effect you have to look through, and reports suggest the 3D effect doesn’t work when you sit more than a few feet away from the TV.
Remember these are the first generation of 3DTVs though, so the people who like to have the newest toys will buy these models, then the rest of us will wait for them to improve the technology and buy the later versions of them. There are one or two companies working on commercial applications of 3D viewing without having to wear glasses, so hopefully that will filter down into our TVs soon.
OLEDs (organic light emitting diodes) are something to watch out for, but at the moment they are stuck with screens no bigger than about 13 inches in size. They are still working on it though to make larger screens which we can have in our homes, but if they do crack the current problems then the resulting TV will be just millimeters thick! So the future of TV is certainly interesting, I can’t wait to see what things will be like in 5 years time…
If you want a huge 55 inch LCD TV while you wait for 3D TV to take off, then consider the Samsung UN55B6000 which is really popular at the moment.
