DUBAI: I remember the first color television broadcast I ever watched. It was the Miss America Beauty Pageant in 1966. RCA introduced color TVs in 1954, but they were much too expensive for my family to afford. Even when I did get to see color TV for the first time, it was at a neighbor’s home. She had invited all her friends to come and watch the beauty pageant. So that everyone could get a good view, all us kids had to sit on the carpet, packed in between the 21-inch TV screen and our mothers, who were squashed together on the sofa. Now, we casually compare the merits of LCD, PDP and OLED TVs. We consider whether a 40-inch screen is big enough or if perhaps we should buy one that’s 50 or even 60 inches. Technology has come so far.

Boo-Keun Yoon is someone who is intimately familiar with the changes in television technologies that consumers take so much for granted. He joined Samsung Electronics more than three decades ago, when cathode ray tube (CRT) TVs were the latest technology in any home.

“At first I joined Samsung’s television development team. At that time we didn’t even think of winning against or even really competing against Sony — they were the clear leaders. However, an opportunity came for Samsung Electronics because of the major global shift from analog to digital,” Yoon explained. “With analog technology, Sony was so far ahead that we couldn’t really catch up. With digital it was a very different story. And so as televisions have changed from CRT and then to LCD or PDP — now Samsung has top-notch technology in terms of the panel and also screen quality. We have been number one since the year 2006 in LCD televisions and it is our quality digital technologies that have helped Samsung achieve worldwide recognition.”

Yoon is executive vice president and GM of the Visual Display Division in Samsung’s Digital Media Business. Samsung recorded sales of 8.94 million television units with revenue of $6.47 billion in Q3 2008, holding on to the top spot in the list of worldwide TV shipments for the 11th quarter in a row. Samsung is one of the few manufacturers with significant R&D in all major areas of display development including liquid-crystal display (LCD), plasma display panel (PDP) and organic light emitting diode (OLED) television.

“LCD, PDP and OLED are technologies with different strengths, which is why Samsung has an interest in each one,” commented Yoon. “The one with the most merits would be the OLED. However, because of the characteristics of its production process, it is still very low yield – especially when it comes to large sizes. And to clarify, more than twenty inches is currently large for OLED. Even as we develop OLED further, we really don’t see it as a product that will be replacing LCD or PDP because of price issues and yield.”

So for now, consumers must select between LCD and PDP.

“The general guideline,” said Yoon, “should be that if it’s a very bright location, then the choice for a display should be LCD. Within homes, where it’s a little bit darker than say outdoors or in a shopping mall, PDP might be better. Another guideline is that if you are a movie buff or really into sports, then choose PDP — otherwise, go with LCD.”

At home in South Korea, this visual display aficionado has both types of televisions. He generally prefers to watch the family’s 52-inch LCD TV, but his wife, who is a movie lover, convinced him that they should have a 63-inch PDP, too. He uses 22 and 26-inch LCD desktop monitors with his PCs.

Like many other consumers globally, Yoon upgraded his visual display technology at home to high definition (HD) products and has installed a home theater system. Production gains and increased competition have made the prices of HD flat panel displays much more affordable than just a few years back and their popularity continues to grow. But don’t expect that prices will continue their downward spiral.

“In terms of prices for the coming year, 32-inch LCDs are priced right now very close to their cost level,” Yoon advised. “For the larger sizes, there’s a bit more room for maneuver on price. However, when we look at the fall in prices between 2007 and 2008, I don’t believe that next year’s price drops will be as steep.”

The difficult economy in most geographies is likely to impact sales in the consumer space. This is one reason that Samsung is working to develop other markets for their visual display technologies. One of the newer areas that they are aiming to conquer is the Large Format Display (LFD) market. Samsung built tremendous momentum in the LFD segment last year achieving close to 90 percent growth to reach $276.8 million globally. LFD monitors are used for large scale public displays, such as in hotels, airports and shopping malls. Samsung is targeting these displays to replace some visual graphics which would have been printed in the past – such as advertising or information signage.

It is also developing software solutions which will allow LFDs to offer public entertainment and information in ways that were previously impossible to implement — whether in single or multi-display composition modules. The company imagines that LFDs will be dynamic, able to change and be responsive to the requirements of the audience. Some LFDs incorporate touchscreens or even cameras allowing an operator at a distance to view audience reaction to the images. Since the displays can be controlled remotely from a PC it is a simple matter to change the digital feed to one or all displays in a commercial facility at any time.

“We really believe that LFDs in this market will take off in the future and there is a lot of potential, especially because we are working not only on the hardware, but also on the solutions. Samsung Electronics is developing both of them together,” said Yoon. “This is one area though where it will be necessary to work with our partners and channels in order to grow.”

With the global economy in the doldrums, consumers may be content with the current high definition LCDs and PDPs for a few years, but Samsung believes that better financial times will come around again. Then folks will be ready for something more. That’s why the company is already demonstrating its “Quadruple full-high definition” (QFHD), which refers to a visual display with a screen resolution of 3,840 pixels by 2,160 pixels. This is four times greater than the resolution of a typical high-definition display. Yoon mentioned that the company also thinks that IPTV will become increasingly important as broadband capacity grows.

Plus, don’t imagine that OLED will disappear. Yes, it’s definitely a next generation product that will take years to become commonly seen in homes. But with OLED TVs weighing 40 percent less than LCD TVs of the same size, while boasting a contrast ratio of one million to one, color gamut of 107 percent and brightness of 550nit, these displays are too good to ignore. Samsung plans to begin commercial production of mid- to large-sized OLED TVs around 2010.

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