10. OLED

OLED stands for "organic light emitting diode" and was original developed by Kodak, but has been since refined by Samsung and Sony. OLED technology does not require any type of backlight like LCD, so they are very bright, durable, extremely thin (thinner than LCD) and have the potential to be flexible in design. You may have heard of electronic newspapers in our future? Well, OLED might make it possible. Also, OLED displays are already being used in mass-produced mobile phones and mp3 players. At CES 2007, Sony had a 27" OLED on display with 1080p resolution and an incredible 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio. Sony president Stan Glasgow has been quoted as saying OLEDs could be in the market as early as 2008, so I would take that as the minimum.

Verdict: If you are not in a huge hurry and have a large budget, you may want to wait it out, but it could be a couple of years.

Quad Full Resolution

This is not a new HDTV type, but an increased resolution compared to current HDTV. The pixel count is 3,840 x 2,160, which is 4x the amount of 1080p. Che Mei and Westinghouse have had prototypes at recent electronics shows, but due to HDTV programming and resource constraints, it appears for now that this technology will be limited to specialized applications like medical imaging or video conferencing.

There are some other emerging technologies that have limited interest (NED, FED, etc.), but none of them have any large market presence or concrete timetable for full-scale mass production.

Conclusion

This is pretty nice time to enter the HDTV market. Sure prices will continue to drop, but all technologies have dropped a great deal in the past few years, and spending $1,000-$1,500 can get you a high-quality 720p or 1080p display 50" in size or greater. Also, with the drastic reductions of flat panel and front projection technologies, you now have over a half-dozen types of reasonably priced HDTV display technologies to choose from. While each type of HDTV has strengths and weaknesses, the bottom line is that it's a lot more difficult to make a bad purchase these days as most models and technologies are well-refined with good overall image quality characteristics.

Join our discussion on this topic