The "bigger is better" TV trend has been around since the beginning of television, resulting in some refrigerator-sized monstrosities back in the '80s and early '90s. Today, big TVs are still hot, but thin big TVs are even hotter, with flat-panel displays getting spread out like high-tech crepes. The latest sets to enter the super-thin area are Sharp's new AQUOS X-series LCDs, which are just 1.35 inches thick.

Some are calling the sets the "world's thinnest TV," but we think Sony's 3mm thin OLED set still holds that honor. However, these very well may be the thinnest LCDs out there, and while Sony's OLED comes in at a paltry 11-inches, Sharp's offerings will come in at 37-, 42-, and 46-inch sizes. Contrast ratio (measurement of brightness and darkness of the set) is 15,000:1, which is better than most LCDs. All the new sets will, of course, offer 1080p HD resolutions.

No word on price or U.S. availability, but Japanese consumers will be able to pick them up starting March 1.

From CrunchGear

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Today, Pioneer showed off two significant concept models for its flat-panel plasma TV product line. Under the banner of Project KURO, a sci-fi-sounding internal anthem for change, Pioneer unveiled both the thinnest flat panel TV and a flat panel that boasts an unparalleled contrast ratio.

To give you a better perspective, one TV has a screen frame 9mm thick (thinner than the iPhone!), as opposed to contemporaries that are 3.5 inches thick. The other, in techno babble, eliminates all idling luminance – or, if you prefer an example in English, the screen would not be visible in a dark room when displaying a black screen.

The latter, dubbed the Extreme Contrast Concept Model, adheres to the golden rule of the plasma TV viewing experience: Black is the most important color on a display, controlling where an image starts and the shadows it projects. By developing a screen that gives off no ambient light, the black is the blackest, to put it simply.

The 9mm flat panel, on the other hand, creates a new form factor for 50-inch screens, getting rid of the bulky frames that characterize current models. While the concept models exhibited at CES do not combine the two innovations, Pioneer plans to integrate them when this next generation of flat panels becomes available to the public at some indeterminate point in the future.

In case you hadn't noticed, we're pretty psyched about this announcement. Not only will we get to that holy grail of picture clarity, but the TV will seem to blend into the wall upon which it is attached. And, hey, we're not excitable folk – unless it comes to technology that really matters to you.

From Pioneer

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Samsung will be using the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next week to show off a prototype OLED-TV set, a technology that promises less power-hungry display screens than what you find now in LCD panels.

What is OLED, you ask? The folks at Kodak have a nice summary of the technology to help you get started.

Production is expected to start later this year.

While OLED screens will start out with price tags much higher than LCD -- likely more than $3,000 for the 14-inch Samsung model -- the benefit is in power conservation. At first glance, saving energy may have you thinking of good "green" products, but in this case the benefit is for small, portable devices such as mobile phones and laptop computers rather than bigger televisions since the biggest drain on a small device is often the display. (The challenge for consumer electronics makers is always to make small devices that don't need big, heavy batteries to provide power.) Think about all the times your digital camera has run out of juice before you were done snapping all the pictures you wanted or your MP3 player made it only halfway though a cross-country flight. A low-power OLED screen would have helped you there.

Portability and low-power consumption go hand in hand.

Small screens are not the only use, however, and both Samsung and Sony hope to use the technology in TVs. Sony, in fact, will be introducing a 3-millimeter thick TV to the U.S. market later this year.

Samsung's prototype will be thicker than its production model the 14-inch screen will be sure to impress.

From BetaNews.

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Back in October, Sony wowed us with delicious pictures of a ridiculously thin television, the XEL-1 OLED TV. Its screen enclosure was just three millimeters (about .1-inches!) thick -- or thin rather. Okay, so it's only 11-inches across, meaning you wouldn't want to make one the focal-piece of your home theater system. But it's hard to resist, given its lithe design. It was supposed to be Japan-only, but now Sony's saying we can have one. Unfortunately, we'll have to wait until some undisclosed time next year before the TV gets its U.S. release.

The sets, which dropped in Japan for about $1,700, use a newer type of display called Organic LED, or OLED. The technology isn't altogether dissimilar to that of your typical LCD television, but where an LCD display requires backlights to illuminate the picture from behind, an OLED panel illuminates itself. Without the backlight, the bezel can be made smaller, resulting in the thin set seen here. OLED also can offer brilliant brightness and contrast compared to a traditional LCD, but its biggest problem is degradation. Where an LCD will last you pretty much forever (if you replace the backlights), OLEDs eventually fade and die.

The XEL-1 suffers from this problem, rated to deliver about 30,000 hours worth of viewing before having to be retired. That's less than half your average plasma set, and at the extreme price for the size, the XEL-1 is more a design and technical exercise than anything. We saw it on the show floor at CEATEC a couple of months ago and loved the look of it. We're glad to see Sony will be bringing it to the U.S. ... even if we can't necessarily afford one.

From Engadget

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