Flat-panel makers push screen technology

IDG News Service - After several years of strong growth in the flat-panel display business, where new products often meant bigger panels or higher resolutions, the frontiers are shifting and competition is increasing. Nowhere is that more evident than at this week's international flat-panel display show in Yokohama, Japan.
The changes are coming because the industry has reached a stage where it no longer makes sense to make increasingly larger panels. Already, only the richest consumers can afford the largest flat-panel TVs on the market, so there's little potential right now for selling even bigger screens. And resolution has caught up with the 1,080-line high-definition broadcasts now common in many countries, so there's little room for improvement for now.
Instead, panel makers are trying to push the boundaries of their respective technologies in different directions to increase market share. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the battle between LCD (liquid crystal display) and PDP (plasma display panel) makers.
There has traditionally been a "buffer zone" at around 42-inches where LCD gives way to PDP for building big screens. Now, however, each technology is pushing into the other's territory.
Improvements in manufacturing are helping create LCDs that are both larger and cheaper than has been possible before, while PDPs are getting smaller but retaining high-definition resolution.
This new grab for market share between the technologies will be one of the defining characteristics of the market over the next five years, said Lee Sang Wan, president of Samsung Electronics Co.'s LCD business, during a keynote speech at the event.
"Currently, those barriers [between technologies] are being eliminated, and in order to survive, very tough competition will begin," said Lee.
Much is at stake. Samsung estimates that the flat-panel display market will increase in value from $66 billion this year to $115 billion in 2010.
Competition is also moving in new directions as vendors try to better their rivals. No more are viewing angle, contrast ratio or brightness the only specifications panel makers shout about.
Color gamut, which is a measure of the ability of the screen to reproduce a balanced and wide range of colors, is becoming important. In the CRT era, things were simple: CRTs displayed 72% of the full National Television System Committee (NTSC) television color gamut. But displays are now coming onto the market that boast all of the NTSC color gamut and more. This should mean richer colors for viewers, although because broadcasters tailor their images for CRTs, users won't notice a big difference unless they are watching a DVD or