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At Gigazine, someone with sharp eyes spotted a help wanted ad from SED Inc. looking for operators of clean room manufacturing equipment.

While the advertisement might mean nothing at all, it could also mean that SED Inc. is at long last ramping up for production of the elusive SED TV … having put their lawsuit with Applied Nanotech Holdings Inc. behind them. Although we’re leaning towards the former but hoping for the latter, all this may be irrelevant because improvements in LCD, LCD/LED, OLED and AMOLED displays keep whittling away at the SED advantages.

??research began 20 years, finally next-generation display “SED” will start production later – Gagazine, September 1 2008

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Sony intros their Bravia XDV-W600 4-inch 272×480-pixel compact lightweight waterproof TV for your bathing enjoyment.

The TV reception is based on the 1seg system, which means you’re out of luck unless you reside in 1 of either ?? or Brasil.

Sony Bravia XDV-W600 – Sony press release, 2008?9?2?

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Sharp showed off their 108 inch-world’s largest LCD TV way back in January 2007, and it’s just now becoming available.

The TV has been given a model number, LB-1085, a price of about $101,000 and subsequently consigned to the industrial/commercial market because of it.

1080p resolution, 1200:1 contrast, 6ms response.

The world’s largest industrial 108 V-inch LCD display products, orders started – Sharp news release, 2008?6?13?

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LG updates its XCanvas family of LCD TVs by announcing the ‘David’ series. ‘David’ improves on ‘Scarlett’ by halving the pixel response time to 2ms, improving the contrast ratio to 60,000:1 etc. The 52-inch model 52LG70ZD is expected to sell for about 4.8 million won, or about $4,600.

LG Electronics, the extras LCDTV ‘David’ – LG News, 2008/05/26

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Hitachi is letting loose with their new Wooo family of LCD and Plasma TVs.

The Plasma version is called Wooo Series 02 and about $5000 will buy you the high-end model P50-XR02. It features a resolution of 1920×1080, 30,000:1 contrast ratio and a 250GB HDD recorder.

And in the LCD-based Wooo UT Series, the 42-inch model UT42-XP770 sells for about $4370 and delivers 1920×1080. The UT line supports wireless operation via Multiband OFDM for UWB with a data rate of about 160Mbps – that, and the 35 mm depth make the UT a candidate for wall mounting.

Wooo World

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Laser TV looms larger with Mitsubishi’s recent renaming of its new laser-based line of DLP TVs from LaserTV to LaserVue and a firming up of the ship date to 3rd Quarter of 2008.

Mitsubishi showed off the laser’s performance last week at a dealer’s conference via a side-by-side comparison of (see pic) of plasma, LaserVue and LCD. While the laser (middle) is alleged to produce better reds and greens, the plasma (the left-most of the 3 sets) looks pretty good … maybe it’s just the lighting or viewing angle or something…

…about time…its been more than two years since we first made note of it way back in Feb ‘06.

Mitsubishi Unveils LaserVue, And New LCD and DLP Lines – Dealerscope, April 7 2008

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Here’s more good news and not-so-good news in the form of yet another world’s first for Samsung…they just announced a 3D plasma TV, model PAVV Cannes 450, but to get the 3D effect, the viewer still must wear those goofy 3D glasses.

The Cannes 450 provides 1000000:1 contrast ratio, something called a ‘Down Firing Speaker’ and comes in a 42-inch or 50-inch size – the 42-inch model will sell for about $1869 USD.

What about content you ask? … in order to display 3D games or movies, the Cannes 450 must also be hooked up to a PC running 3D software. Electronic Arts is apparently under contract to create some content, expected to include the game Need For Speed.

…o did we mention that you gotta wear those silly glasses to see in 3D?

Samsung Electronics, the industry’s first 3D PDP TV, “Fabrizio Cannes 450″ released – Samsung press release, Feb 29 2008

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Sony just keeps sending those 1seg portable TVs into Japan…must be a reasonably good market for them over there. Last year we made note of model XDV-100, and now 11 months later, we have on offer the new Bravia XDV-D500.

The XDV-D500 has a 3 inch 16:9 LCD screen, is a bit smaller at 98×59.3×14.3 mm than its predecessor, and having lost 3 grams, its now down to 107 g. The resolution has been improved from QVGA to WQVGA at 240×432, and continues to have AM/FM radio…thanks to Japan’s one-segment (aka 1seg or One-Seg) digital broadcasting system. Sony’s also added 2 GB of internal memory, enough to record of 10 hours of broadcasting, thus conferring PMP status on the device.

…and the ‘Bravia mobile engine’ video processor is supposed to improve image quality via noise reduction and contrast enhancement. Japan only = unfortunate.

Sony Bravia XDV-D500 – Sony Press Release, February 6, 2008

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The Bordeaux line of LCD TVs has fairly sold well, and so Samsung is adding to the product model lineup. Samsung introduces 2 new 1920×1080 models at 40 and 46 inches, LN40/46A550P1F both with a contrast ratio of 30000:1.

The PVV Bordeaux 550 series (a 32 inch 3rd model will be added later) promises to improve picture quality in 4 ways:-

The 550’s provide 2.2-channel sound, and 3 entertainment modes, namely: Sports (deblurring and gamma & saturation control), Movie (interpolation of frames in fast moving scenes) and Game (deeper dark colors, sharpness control, faster response time, better sound).

Samsung Electronics HD LCD TV, “PAVV Bordeaux 550″ released – Samsung press release, Jan 31 2008

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The Sony XEL-1 OLED TV was announced in Japan back in Oct 2007 and demo’ed at CES 2008…so it’s not exactly new but worth noting again because of some nice features.

The OLED display panel as used in the XEL-1 provides good color quality at 105% of NTSC, 1000000:1 contrast ratio, pixel response time of about 0.01ms, wide viewing angle of 178 deg. Slim at just 3mm because no backlight is required. A great spec for the XEL-1, except it’s only 11-inches…but apparently Sony is working on a larger model. $2500.

See also OLED TV vs. LCD TV for a comparison of those two technologies.

…Sony assures us that no living/organic matter was harmed in the making of the Organic Light Emitting Diode panels used in the XEL-1.

OLED Digital TV – Sony website

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