Check out all that was new last week @ NAB on my Rumor Page...
.http://www.supervideo.com/2004e.htm

Beware of the arm chair referees and Monday morning quarter backs my meisters... 
listening to them... cell phones don't have a chance at plastic phone cards.... achem!

It does not matter what I predict or say, it matters if there is a buck to be made,   
a new product to push, an inventory coming down the pike that has to be sold  
some how and some way.  These OLED's are produced in New factories, in    
       different locations than TFT.  Pana & Pioneer can snap a finger and say, tomorrow 
      we will not sell TFT, everything will be OLED. Kiss Plasma good bye & 'Over Night' 
      it is That Simple.  Uh... two of the plants are in the USA. Think they are going to run
     on empty?  Think TFT and Plasma makers are going to roll over and play dead?  

   Think there will be a price war and FINALLY the buyer will be the winner?  Oh, 1  
 more... Mrs. buyer is walking down the isle or the street and she sees a TV set 
     three times the size of hers... it does not sit on the floor looking like a refrigerator... 
it hangs on the wall because it is so dag-gone thin and light and remember:     

       No Heat!  uh... costs less... getting a picture here... when OLED can look like a live 
    aquarium... or a solar presentation by a planetarium, or even the Grand Canyon 
or better yet... my back yard... Waikiki all on your Family room wall ! Duh!

When TV comes on, you will snap your head back, sharpness that looks 
so real, alive, out a window almost!   Kiss your old TV and your monitor     
Good Bye.     
Plasma TV's will be like selling ... like Black & White TV's !

Need some updating... Phillips a good name to start with? Samsung?    
Like I said.. Sony & Pana will spell the kiss of death to any tube...Here is 
a blurb from this week's (May) news FYI...
PART 3

Organic light-emitting diode (OLED) is looked upon as a promising display technology that if fully realized could consume less power and be thinner than liquid crystal displays (LCDs), which dominate the lucrative multibillion-dollar flat-panel monitor market. But analysts don't expect OLED to unseat LCD anytime soon because, as with all emerging technologies, it takes time to streamline production and boost yields for high efficiencies and volumes.

However, a new way of producing OLED displays could help push the technology toward the spotlight.

 

Philips Electronics developed the new production method with Cambridge Display Technology and has been using the process, which results in polymer-based OLED displays, since the middle of last year. On Tuesday Philips announced that it's the first polymer-based OLED maker to be shipping high-volume quantities, and said it has signed up a leading electronics maker to use the OLED displays in products that will be released later this year.

Manufacturers are using OLED technologies in displays for devices with small screens, such as cell phones and pagers, but some, such as Sony, have been demonstrating the technology for use in large-sized devices, such as notebooks and monitors with TV's coming on fast behind.

Companies backing the polymer-based OLED technology include Dow Chemical, DuPont, Philips and Seiko Epson. A joint venture between Sanyo and Kodak, called SK Display; Pioneer; TDK; and another joint venture between Samsung and NEC, called Samsung NEC Mobile Display, are using OLED technology.
Sincerely with 'FLORIDA' Aloha !
your chuckmeister April 2002

Part 4

This OLED News Just IN... May 2002

Someday, flat panels -- like the screen on your laptop -- will be the standard displays for computers, TVs and cell phones. But today's most common flat panels -- liquid crystal displays (LCDs) -- are expensive, hard-to-manufacture electricity hogs. That's why monitor makers are all a-goggle over organic light-emitting devices, known as OLEDs.

Originally developed by Kodak in the late '70s and since refined by a host of companies (including Cambridge Display Technology, DuPont, IBM, NEC, Philips and Universal Display), OLEDs are based on something called electroluminescence. Certain organic materials emit light when an electric current passes through them. Sandwich such materials between two electrodes and you've got a display.

In addition to soaking up less electricity than LCDs, OLEDs are easier to manufacture. That simplicity, along with lower materials costs, makes them cheaper to build. Yet they're brighter than LCDs, with better color saturation and a wider viewing angle.

And because they can be quite thin, OLEDs make all sorts of sci-fi scenarios possible. Imagine stock quotes scrolling across your pen, or movies playing on your handheld. Already, Pioneer has released a car radio-cum-navigation device that uses a 64-by-256-pixel OLED screen to display traffic conditions. Motorola's Timeport P8767 phone, which just debuted, sports an OLED screen. Seiko plans to release an OLED phone capable of full-color video in 2002. IBM has announced plans for fist PDA's & sub notebooks OLED

Pioneer of America, the only company to mass-produce OLED (organic light emitting diode) displays, has tried to go one step further by being the first company to show prototypes of active-matrix OLEDs at the Society for Information Displays conference.

OLED displays use emissive technology, meaning they emit light themselves, like a CRT (cathode ray tube) television or a plasma display, eliminating the need for the backlight required by LCDs. By cutting out the backlighting, display makers can create panels that are both thinner and consume less power.

Pioneer's current OLED displays are passive-matrix and used currently only in car stereo displays and in Motorola's TimePort 8767 phone. But by the third quarter, the company expects to see its active-matrix OLEDs, which will have a higher refresh rate and thus higher image quality, in devices. However, the one problem is that applications that can take full advantage of these displays do not exist on mobile phones or PDAs.... Yet!

Pioneer, in Tokyo, is showing a 1.8-inch and a 4-inch full-color active-matrix OLED display. Just 2 millimeters thick, these full-color screens have a refresh rate about 1,000 times faster than traditional LCD screens, Wzorek said.

Pioneer is currently in talks with device makers to get the active-matrix OLEDs in products, but declined to disclose any names. When the screens do hit the market, they will likely be in high-end mobile phones and high-end PDAs, and Pioneer plans to sell the screens to manufacturers for "about 1.2 times to 1.5 times the cost of a full color LCD screen, with a quick ramp downward,"

Earlier this year, Tohoku Pioneer, Semiconductor Energy Laboratory, and Sharp formed a company called ELDis to work on technology to accelerate OLED development. The new company works on the development of continuous-grain silicon TFT (thin film transistor) substrate, a key technology in OLED development, Pioneer said in a statement.

Display vendors this week will show the public what they believe screens of the future will look like at the Society for Information Display's annual symposium, seminar, and exhibition when they fight for attention with tiny OLED displays.

OLED displays use emissive technology, meaning they emit light themselves, like a CRT television or a plasma display, eliminating the need for the backlight required by LCDs. By cutting out the backlighting, display makers can create panels that are both thinner and consume less power, said Kimberly Allen, director of technology and strategic research for analyst group Stanford Resources.

The market for OLED displays is set to explode from a $29 million market in 2000 to a $1.6 billion market in 2003, according to a Stanford Resources report.

Although consumers probably will not see OLEDs in their notebooks this year, the technology will probably make it to PDAs within the next few months.

In Asia, some companies use the term OELD (organic electroluminescence display) to refer to the same technology.

Currently, Pioneer is the only company with OLED technology on the market. Pioneer launched the first OLED product, a car stereo display in 1998, and Motorola Timeport phone uses a Pioneer OLED display, Allen said.

"There are more products expected this year," Allen said. Products including another car stereo, a handheld game display, and more mobile phones are all expected to be rolled out onto the market this year from various vendors.

However, until prices fall, the manufacturers will not make displays much larger than mobile phone and car stereo displays. "They just don't have the manufacturing technology to make large panels reliably and at a reasonable price," Allen said. "But manufacturing cost is expected to be much lower than that of LCDs somewhere in the near future," she added.

Although OLED is not yet as common as LCD to consumers, there is a lot of development going on behind the scenes. "Every large Japanese display company is involved in OLED," Allen said. There is also a partnership between Samsung Electronics and NEC working on OLED, and Konin-Philips Electronics has been working on the technology as well.

Nearly 500 booths will fill the McEnery Convention Center for the display show, ranging from household names like Toshiba, NEC, and Sharp Electronics to lesser known companies including Candescent Technologies and LCD manufacturer Optrex America.

Tohoku Pioneer, a unit of Pioneer, will be demonstrating its three-inch color OLED panel, aimed at PDAs, which it created with Semi Conductor Energy Laboratory. The companies have also teamed up on a 1.8 inch color OLED display that they will be showing.

Optrex America, which was founded as a joint venture between Asahi Glass and Mitsubishi Electric, will also be showcasing its own OLED technology, which it expects to see in production of automobiles, most likely used in displays on stereos and climate control panels, by 2004.

Toshiba will show a prototype of its full-color polymer OLED at the show this week. The 2.85 inch display supports 260,000 colors in Q-CIF format. The current OLED technology on the market is small-molecule technology; polymer OLEDs have not been put into mass production yet, Allen said.

The only difference between polymer OLEDs and small-molecule OLEDs is the technique used to produce the display. "I wouldn't say that one is technically better than the other, but polymer is in an earlier state of development," Allen said.

Toshiba expects to start production of the polymer displays in fiscal 2002, initially targeting the mobile phone and small to midsize PDA markets, the company said. Following that, the company will target midsize and large displays, including high-end portable PCs that require higher resolution, Toshiba said.

Eastman Kodak is key patent holder for small-molecule OLED technology and may be the first to market with a Wall Hanger TV!

MAY 2002

Part 5
This is getting difficult to keep posted... your best
bet will be to keep a "Page Watch" look-out on  
the Rumor Monthly Reports....
So Far we have OLED reports on 
August 2002...
September was the announcement of 15" soon
October 2002...
November 2002 shows the Oct 16th release of 15" ...
and on and on gang!   help!!!  
Part 6
January  2003 CES in Las Vegas
Laptops from Toshiba and a Great In-Booth
Display by Sharp of a OLED PC Monitor

Sharp... makers of our Muramasa @ SV  
showed a preview of a 1/6" screen that     
would make a REALLY thin Laptop or   
PC Monitor a distinct possibility later     
this year!

Toshiba story...
I am flying First Class in seat 2C and to
my left next to me (we're on a 777) is a  
           Toshiba exec and are traveling from Japan     
     to Honolulu. And then onto Las Vegas for
         CES.  He has a Laptop neater than my Sony
         PictureBook that looks at first glance like a 
           normal 15" Laptop... that is until it's turned  
        on.  It is Cobalt metallic blue in color, has a
           80GB HDD, 1GB Ram, DVD-RW burner &  
               a 4 hour battery and P4 2.4GHz processor &    
               this screen... it is called SuperClear.  And it is! 
                It has to be the sharpest image I have ever seen.

                 It is sharper & more clear than a photograph,   
               than a page from National Geographic. I have 
              never seen such a sharp image or razor sharp 
                text.  There are no dots, squares or pixels to be
                    seen... just a crystal clear screen that BTW seems
                    to almost have no border or Bezel... edge to edge 
                     screen!  You're in for a treat later this year folks.
                         We're talking resolutions that exceed.... almost   
                          anything!           What's after UXGA folks?
                     more later from your meister...   

---

PART 7
March 2003
March 12, 2003 -- Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corporation (CMO) of Taiwan today announced a fully functional prototype of a 20-inch full-color display based on organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). The revolutionary prototype by International Display Technology (IDTech, a subsidiary between Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corporation and IBM Japan, located in Yasu (Japan)) was jointly developed with IBM Research laboratories in Switzerland, the US and Japan. At the core of the breakthrough is the use of amorphous silicon transistors enabling low-cost fabrication. The technology will provide competitive full-size computer displays and flat-panel TV screens that consume less power than possible with flat panel technologies available today. The demonstration will be launched in May at CMO and IDTech’s showcase at SID 2003, USA.

OLED displays have long been heralded as the display technology of the future but have so far failed to compete with more conventional technologies beyond displays of small size and low information content, such as car radio or cell phone displays that are already available on the market. A major limitation has been the expensive polycrystalline silicon transistors required for the circuitry which drives light-emission in the organic layers. The revolutionary prototype now presents a solution in which amorphous silicon suffices, i.e. an “unordered” material structure, which is widely used with liquid-crystal displays (LCD) today and can – unlike polycrystalline silicon – be implemented easily and cost-effectively over large areas. T

This technology also features a milestone in the industry. With this technology, the use of existing TFT-LCD manufacturing technology and facility for OLED’s commercial production becomes feasible; certainly breakaway the common belief in low-temperature polysilicon (LTPS). Namely, the TFT-LCD companies can thereafter easily transform its products into OLED without massive investment in new facilities. This will result in a very competitive production cost for OLED.

This major advancement has been achieved through use of IDTech’s advanced amorphous silicon technology, a novel circuit design, together with superior performance characteristics of the light-emitting layers themselves as well as the overall device architecture, leading to a display which compares to a high-end LCD of the same size and resolution with two times less power consumption at typical desk-top display brightness, better color saturation and larger viewing angle. In addition, the full video capability extends its usability to a huge emerging market for large flat-panel television.

Note to Editor:

Technical details: The 20-inch prototype is a top-emitting full-color active-matrix display. It has WXGA resolution (1280 x 768 pixels) and a power consumption of 25 Watt at a brightness of 300 cd/m2 (its desktop display brightness, can exceed 500 cd/m2). The organic layers are fabricated on a substrate with an array of amorphous silicon (a-Si) thin-film transistors (TFTs) . Improved color reproduction, which is better than with CRTs, and extremely high efficiency have been achieved specifically by the use of tailor made organic materials in combination with a unique optical device architecture.

World's largest 20" OLED full color display, WXGA 
(1280x768) with Low power consumption driven by Amorphous Silicon TFTs.

 

About Chi Mei Optoelectronics (CMO)
Chi Mei Optoelectronics, headquartered at Tainan Science-based Industrial Park, Taiwan, is the world's leading TFT-LCD company. Its key products are large-size TFT-LCDs for notebook, desktop monitor, and TV applications. It now has one 3.5G fab and one 4G fab. Its 5G fab is ready for mass production from Q4 2003. CMO is the first Taiwanese TFT-LCD company with its own in-house color filter production facility. Established in August 1998, CMO currently has 5000 employees. For further information, please visit CMO website: www.cmo.com.tw

About IDTech
International Display Technology is a joint company created by Taiwan's Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corporation (85%) and IBM Japan(15%). IDTech develops and manufactures large-screen, high-resolution TFT-LCDs of unsurpassed precision and quality, using state-of-the-art production systems.
True to the IDTech slogan, "New Visualization," the company's goal is to manufacture TFT-LCD screens capable of expressing images at a resolution that standard displays simply cannot achieve. For more information on IDTech, visit http://www.idtech.co.jp

About IBM Research
IBM Research is the world's largest information technology research organization, with more than 3,000 scientists and engineers at eight labs in six countries. IBM has produced more research breakthroughs than any other company in the IT industry. For more information on IBM Research, visit http://www.research.ibm.com.

PART 8
September 2003

OLED production makes a beeline to China

By Kim Allen  Friday 29 August 2003 Display technologies historically have followed a pattern of initial production in Japan, followed by a migration of manufacturing to South Korea and Taiwan, then a shift to module assembly in China, which paves the way for eventual full panel making in China. However, the latest emerging display technology, OLED (organic light-emitting diode) displays, has bypassed this migration process and is making a beeline for China, with production commencing in the country even before assembly has been established there. Truly Semiconductor of Shanwei, Guangdong Province, a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based Truly International Holding, last month completed the installation of an OLED production line that processes 200W200mm substrates. It was acquired from Japans Evatech at a cost of about US$13 million and will have an initial monthly production capacity of 200,000 cell-phone panels. Final capacity will expand to one million panels per month. Truly expects to invest up to US$77 million for OLED development. Furthermore, Truly Semiconductors parent company, Truly International, has purchased a license from Kodak for passive matrix displays. Thus, it can use materials and processes from Kodak to ramp up production. Truly Semiconductor also acquired an evaporation system for the OLED line from Koreas ANS and other OLED production technologies from Viatron Technologies, also a Korean company. Testing of the line has just begun. An early challenge for Truly Semiconductor will be to develop a workable process with adequate yield for mass production. The company said that achieving color is an important goal for the future. Solving the technical issues is the immediate concern; Truly has not stated when it plans to ship products. However, it is speaking with potential customers in China, Japan and Korea. This move appears to be part of a general strategy on Trulys part to expand its display capabilities. The company now has three lines that produce TN and STN LCDs and touch screens, and also plans to invest between US$320 million and US$500 million to build TFT LCD production lines in the future. Although it is likely to take a few quarters for the OLED line to become productive, the implication of having a fully functional OLED line in China is that panel prices could drop in the areas that Trulys products are serving. Another issue to consider is that China prefers domestic suppliers, meaning that Truly would have an advantage selling its products in China. Kimberly Allen, Ph.D. is director of technology and strategic research for iSuppli/Stanford Resources and is the editor of the monthly Emerging Displays Review report, from the Emerging Displays Technology service.

PART 9
OLED 2004 News
According to an article published on Yomiuri Online, a Japanese newspaper, Sony is planning to begin using OLED, or Organic LED screen technology, in new handhelds due in the spring of 2004.

The article in the Yomiuri claims that Sony will begin using a new OLED screen in a handheld in the spring of 2004. The company has not released a new model since October. Sony may also debut a new model at the upcoming CES show in January, as they did with the NZ90 last year. First Camcorder will be Sept !

About OLED Screens
Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) is a generic term for a whole group of possible screen types. OLEDs are made up of thin films of organic materials that give off light of various colors when voltage is applied to them. Like LCDs, OLEDs have both active matrix and passive matrix forms.

The main advantages of OLED screens over current ones is the screen itself glows so there is no need for a back- or side-light. This means they require less power and take up less space, two important factors in a handheld. They also cost less to make.

OLEDs have a faster response time so they are also better able to show video. They can be seen from wider viewing angles. They are less susceptible to heat and cold. OLEDs have fewer manufacturing steps and use both fewer and cheaper materials than LCDs do.

Numerous companies are working on developing OLED screens, like Sony, Pioneer; and TDK. Research scientists at Kodak invented the OLED in the early 80s and the company continues working with them today.

---

Sony, Toshiba, Sharp & IBM
Have Demonstrated OLED
Laptop Screens in 2003

OLED would be about 1/8" and this Laptop = 1/2" !!
Look for VERY FIRST in 2004 late Second Quarter

http://www.supervideo.com/DVLaptop.htm

 

---

Serious Magic Ships; Less than $100 
Software Breakthrough That Lets Anyone Create Pro-Quality Videos in Ten Minutes On The Cheap!!

Personal and business videos made in minutes with a webcam or camcorder can now feature TV-style 3D effects, titles, graphics, music and Hollywood green screen effects  This package for $149 complete is worth well over a Thousand Dollars just last year!

Sacramento, CA - April 22, 2002 --- Serious Magic, Inc.™ (www.seriousmagic.com) today began shipping a new type of software application that gives everyday PC users the ability to create and share videos that have the polished look of a network TV broadcast - without video editing. The product, Visual Communicator™, is based on a remarkable a new process that enables users to create professional-looking video messages, presentations or shows in just minutes using a standard webcam or camcorder. Visual Communicator is available now for $99.95 from www.seriousmagic.com, and will begin selling in major computer stores throughout the United States in May.

Visual Communicator brings several noteworthy features to business and personal desktops for the first time, including a built-in TV teleprompter to help users speak more clearly and confidently, and Hollywood green-screen effects that allow users to superimpose themselves over a digital image or video clip with the same technique used to place actors in front of computer-generated environments in feature films. After recording their videos, users can immediately share them via the Internet, corporate network or recordable CDs and recipients can view them with industry standard media players.

"Visual Communicator gives businesses, schools and consumers the ability to communicate with videos that have the effectiveness of a real TV broadcast, as quickly as writing some emails," says Mark Randall, president of Serious Magic. "It's easy enough for the average person to use, it doesn't require a studio, and yet the final result has the professional look of real TV shows like those seen on CNN or ESPN." Typical business applications include quarterly reports, investor relations, employee orientation, product demos, and more. Visual Communicator is also ideally suited for educational applications such as video term papers, distance learning, campus news, and media training. Home users can put the Visual Communicator technology to a wide range of personal uses including online auctions, narrated photo albums, holiday video greetings and video resumes.

Sophisticated Technology Required to Make Hollywood Magic Simple
Serious Magic's engineering team created several unique technologies to enable high quality, real-time video creation at home, school and work. First, is Serious Magic's V-Screen algorithm which utilizes sophisticated image processing to allow the creation of remarkable green screen effects with inexpensive cameras in typical office and home lighting. Serious Magic's Ultra Engine™ technology allows users to see Visual Communicator's dazzling visual effects without rendering delays. Ultra produces advanced TV-style visual effects that only a few years ago could require tens-of-thousands of dollars of equipment to create in real-time. Visual Communicator also includes an innovative Wizard technology that automatically generates world-class, TV-style graphics based on user selected styles and topics.

Availability
Visual Communicator is available now for $99.95 from www.seriousmagic.com. A second version, Visual Communicator Plus, is available for $149.95 and includes Serious Magic's V-Screen foldable backdrop, which is 6' x 5' of color-matched material for green-screen effects. Visual Communicator Plus also includes a custom, professional-level microphone that users can clip directly to their shirt. Both versions are designed for Windows 98, ME, 2000 and XP.

About Serious Magic
Serious Magic, Inc. was founded in early 2001 by a team of industry executives with a twelve year track record that includes two of the most popular digital media tools of all time; the best-selling Snappy Video Snapshot and the Emmy award-winning Video Toaster. The company is passionately committed to fulfilling its mission - creating the next generation of visual communication tools. Serious Magic, Inc. has assembled a world-class engineering team to invent the fundamental technology required to achieve this goal. The name Serious Magic was inspired by Arthur C. Clarke's observation: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." For more information, please visit     http://www.seriousmagic.com

Premiere Pro: No More Compromises
Adobe's new editing application leaves
others in the dust...

Adobe Premiere Pro is an all-new version of the company's popular nonlinear editing software, and it's a remarkable product that boasts interface improvements, better performance and more professional features. Offered for Windows only, the software is designed to take advantage of the hyperthreading built into the newest Intel chips, and uses the processor to eliminate much of the rendering usually required when working with video. It's a great improvement overall. Let's take an in-depth look.

When you first open Premiere Pro (it's actually Premiere 7.0), you immediately notice it's drastically different from the previous version, Premiere 6.5. Its icons look more refined -- now they appear downright "pillowy," reminding me of Avid DS. There are lots of ways to adjust the interface to your liking, too. For example, if the windows look too bright or dark for you, clicking on Edit/Preferences/General lets you change the overall brightness of the insides of the windows. This is a neat feature I haven't see before. If you'd like to jump between several preset window layouts, Premiere Pro offers a new menu item that lets you choose specially-designed configurations for functions like audio editing, color correction, compositing and video editing, and lets you save your own favorite looks, too.

Another plus you'll notice right away is Premiere Pro's newfound ability to handle multiple timelines -- now called sequences -- and the ability to apply an effect to an entire sequence. No more futzing with those old Virtual Clips from Premiere's non-Pro past. And, you can drag and drop an entire sequence onto another sequence, a routine that could be helpful, for example, if you have a certain boilerplate tag you use every week.

---

Beyond that important new capability, the software is packed with little enhancements that you'll appreciate, like the way a new track is created for you automatically when you drag a clip into a gray area on the timeline. Another unusual feature is the ability to group clips together, even if they're not contiguous, and then they behave as a single clip. I certainly welcome the non-global nature of the track height, too. Now you can individually drag a track to make it a lot taller (or shorter) without affecting any others. That's a Vegas (nee "Vegas Video", another popular Windows-based video editing program, not the city) feature that I'm glad to see in Premiere Pro.

It's also worth noting that not only are there superficial improvements in Premiere Pro -- the whole basement of the program has been overhauled as well. The new way of doing things is all-YUV color space, where there is no chasm to be crossed into the computer-centric RGB color space. Since YUV is the native format of video, this makes great sense, and I think it's responsible for some of the improved performance I noticed while working with Premiere over the past month.

Thankfully, the ability to do scene detection on capture is a long-awaited feature that's finally found its way into Premiere. It's a huge convenience to tell Premiere to just capture each shot on a DV tape, or to start capturing shots from a particular place on a tape. Then your captured clips are all sitting there in your bin when you're ready to start editing. It's surprising that it took this long for scene detection to be implemented in Premiere, given that this feature has been a staple of lesser programs for years. It's a welcome addition that I like a lot.