Samsung Modular MicroLED TV - Bringing The Fight To OLED

[dizmo]

Samsung is showing off a modular 146" TV (4k from some sources, 8k from others) at CES this year called fittingly called The Wall.

It uses a technology called microLED, which is supposed to rival OLED in black levels and color reproduction, since it doesn't require a back light.

It also gets much brighter than an OLED panel, and doesn't get affected by burn in as much as an OLED panel will.

 

 

The TV is bezel free, and Samsung says when released consumers will be able to buy modules to increase (or take away to decrease) the size of their TV to suit the room they buy it for.

You'd have to keep the standard 16:9 aspect ratio for it to work, but hopefully they consider 21:9 in the future.

At the show, people say that up close you can see where the individual panels connect to each other, but at a distance it's indiscernible. Not bad, considering the product still has to go through a lot of polish before it's considered ready for market.

 

 

 

 

I think this is an awesome idea, but since it's a concept I think it'll be at least a couple years until we see it enter the home. The modular aspect would be neat, provided they can make it so that you don't see how the panels are stitched together when it's on.

I do wonder how they'll work the i/o, processors, etc. A separate box that plugs into the grid of panels perhaps?

 

The only thing that worries me is response times. If they're comparable with an OLED panel, then I think this is what I'd go for.

What do you guys think? Would you be down with being able to increase the size of your TV when you want?

 

There will be a launch event sometime this spring.

 

Source: https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/1/7/16861790/samsung-the-wall-microled-modular-tv-announced-ces-2018

 

[Shreyas1]

The module thing is pretty cool

[ItsMitch]

Looking at this with my eyes makes me wallet wanna fall over and die

[Doobeedoo]

Interesting, so I guess we'll see this in monitors as well eventually. 

[Okjoek]

Cool!

[Bananasplit_00]

cool, but i dont see much point in changeing the size of your TV really

[AnonymousGuy]

13 minutes ago, Bananasplit_00 said:

cool, but i dont see much point in changeing the size of your TV really

You start off poor and make your TV bigger as you get more money.

[TorqueS]

25 minutes ago, AnonymousGuy said:

You start off poor and make your TV bigger as you get more money.

Or you initially get a top of the line spec TV but you have a modest room, then move house and find yourself in a bigger living room that needs a bigger TV.

 

[GoodBytes]

After QLED being a "fake" LCD version, I have my doubts on this technology. Looks like, again LCD panel, and not actual microLED's forming a pixel on the screen. In other words, stop playing with backlight, and actually bring a new tech on the table.

[dizmo]

5 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

After QLED being a "fake" LCD version, I have my doubts on this technology. Looks like, again LCD panel, and not actual microLED's forming a pixel on the screen. In other words, stop playing with backlight, and actually bring a new tech on the table.

It's not. These don't make use of a back light.

QLED has also gotten massive improvements this year that bring it closer to what it was supposed to be. 2017 was edge lit, 2018 will see full array local dimming. There's also talk of a TV with 10,000 local dimming zones.

[paddy-stone]

Like the concept, in reality though these will probably be outside most people's budgets IMO especially given that it's 8K from some sources. This will most likely be a fad if it ever comes to reality. Although it would be cool if the price is realistic, so say you'd pay the same or at most 10-20% on top of how much a similar size TV would go for to have the modular panels. Any more than that and you're looking at niche territory IMO and people would most likely just stick with a regular TV. There are a LOT of people that now own a TV for 5 or less years before they upgrade again, or it breaks. For that reason alone I would never pay more than like £1000 for a TV, and would pay less if I could get a decent picture and sound quality still.. there have been some fantastic deals over the past few months, seen 4K HDR 10 bit panels going for as low as like £500 or so, and for 8 bit panels have seen a 49" 4k for around just over 320 IIRC, if I were in the market for one I would've been all over that, lol. Yes I'm a cheapskate

 

I would rather have a projector where I can increase the size with just a few tweaks, but I don't think the colours and brightness is good enough on those yet... but haven't looked at the top of the line projectors as they are outside my budget too. I really like the look of the short throw projectors as I don't have the space for setting up the old style projectors in my house.

[snortingfrogs]

MRW I will have this TV in my home.

 

[Matu20]

Yes yes yes, more OLED like tech is awesome, shitty LED has lived for too long.

[dizmo]

1 minute ago, Matu20 said:

Yes yes yes, more OLED like tech is awesome, shitty LED has lived for too long.

It's not OLED...

[Mira Yurizaki]

Thank God. I thought when I heard Apple bought the company originally developing this technology we would never see it outside of Apple's products.

[Matu20]

16 minutes ago, dizmo said:

It's not OLED...

OLED like, as I said.

[NumLock21]

There it goes with them exploding chalks...

[Trixanity]

44 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

Thank God. I thought when I heard Apple bought the company originally developing this technology we would never see it outside of Apple's products.

There isn't a single company developing it. Like many other pieces of tech it was invented at universities and multiple companies are trying to get a slice. This has been in development for almost two decades.

[Mira Yurizaki]

3 minutes ago, Trixanity said:

There isn't a single company developing it. Like many other pieces of tech it was invented at universities and multiple companies are trying to get a slice. This has been in development for almost two decades.

However there have been plenty of other tech that was developed by a single company and they held onto it tightly with patents. DLP and IMOD for instance are tied own to TI and Qualcomm respectively.

 

Considering how little press microLEDs were getting and the only major headline I saw about them was Apple purchasing a company developing them, you can see where I'm coming from.

[Notional]

Interesting technology. Not just the µLED's themselves, but the small panel parts linked together. It's kinda designed like an AMD Threadripper CPU, in that it's stitched together with smaller parts. I assume the reason is the same: higher yields. My worry right now though is the pixel density that seems too low. No monitors or smaller tv's anytime soon.

[Camoxide]

I don't understand why Samsung won't make OLED TVs when their smartphones are OLED... 

[Trixanity]

25 minutes ago, Camoxide said:

I don't understand why Samsung won't make OLED TVs when their smartphones are OLED... 

Because the techniques they use for phones suck for making TVs and if they use more standard techniques the yields are awful.

 

The organic material is generally bad to work with as it's in many ways fragile which is why the industry might just use OLED as a stopgap solution because the drawbacks and scaling problems are too great.

[Notional]

2 hours ago, Camoxide said:

I don't understand why Samsung won't make OLED TVs when their smartphones are OLED... 

Like @Trixanity said. Also, µLED is superior to OLED in terms of lifespan and colour degradation. As well as light emission too. The only downsides so far seems to be pricing and pixel density. µLED's success depends on these two things to improve.