Toshiba demos OCB LCD technology, but doesn't deliver

Now that SED technology is on the verge of kicking the vapor filled bucket, how about another advanced display technology to tie your insanely high hopes to? Optically compensated bend -- oh wait, this isn't new -- technology is supposed to provide clear viewing in sunlight, "wide viewing angles, and high speed response" (and that's a quote from a post exactly a year old). Toshiba has developed and shown off a new OCB LCD, which at only 4.3-inches diagonal is actually half the size of the prototype they were talking about in May '06. Frankly, we'll settle for a little less optimism in return for actually being able to see these improvements make their way into real products. Unfortunately, Toshiba seems to be content with continually teasing us: maybe they won't be so content when we all start playing Duke Nukem' Forever on holographic displays.

[Via I4U News]

[Sean @ May 27th 2007 9:57AM]

I plan to play Duke Nukem Forever on my kicken' new holodeck on deck 8.

[treetrunk @ May 27th 2007 1:07PM]

Today's LCDs are the culmination of about 40 years development, from research into liquid crystals from about 100 years ago. These things take time! Getting from announcement to prototype in a year is actually very good.

A current area of research in LCDs which would make things like this much easier and at far quicker response time is to make them "driven" in both directions. At the moment the default alignment of the crystals is defined by etching on the glass on either side, and applying an electric field causes the alignment to shift rapidly, blocking light from getting through. The reverse process is driven by the diffusion of crystals back to their original configuration, which is much slower. Unfortunately there's no simple way of doing this with the current arrangement of etching-based alignment. A possible candidate is a helical arrangement along the axis of the display (as opposed to out of it) which can be made to move in both directions, but this makes alignment very difficult as the shape can not simply be defined by such straightforward etching on both surfaces.

[shimman @ May 27th 2007 2:24PM]

this isn't really new; 2005 samsung showed 32" ocb-lcd screen that was really popular that it was hard to even see the screen. 500lit & 85w was the claim.

ocb-lcd screens would use less power for same brightness & faster response time + better color space (due to led back lighting) & easier to make higher resolution.

in addition, it does not have color filters, it can be made cheaper as long as required led back lights & faster electronics' prices are getting lower.

however, current challenge is the ocb-wv filter & the flickering.

samsung is considered as the leader in ocb-lcd technology

[Adeptus @ May 27th 2007 10:09PM]

So, this is better than OLED? I thought that was the next big thing.
(Any idea if/when they're going to release full-size OLED monitors?)