Samsung previews new ultra large LCDs now headed for CES

NEW YORK, N.Y. - At a pre-CES press event in New York City last night, Samsung previewed two new flat screen technologies, one suited to both ultra large TVs and 100-foot-wide billboards and the other to outdoor viewing in broad daylight.

At CES in January, Samsung plans to show new innovations in flat screen technologies, including one type of panel geared to LCD displays of up to 100 feet -- as opposed to today's limit of about 100 inches -- and another variety of panel touted as "the brightest in the world to be mass produced."

Last night, Yong Park, Samsung's director of LCD marketing, contended that Samsung's new "46-inch supper-narrow-bezel Digital Information Display (DID)" panel will make it much easier for manufacturers to build extra large LCD displays than with the "DLP lightbox" technology. "The lightbox form factor does impose limitations," said Park.

Speaking with BetaNews during the CES Unveiled@NY event, Park predicted that manufacturers will use multiple 46-inch panels to put together displays of various dimensions for TV viewing along with advertising, gaming, and command and control applications.

The DID panel's black, powder-coated bezel is billed as 90% narrower than a typical LCD TV bezel and 75% narrower than even the thinnest of previous bezels. At the event, Samsung showed a display made up of four panels.

Samsung's new outdoor display, on the other hand, is designed to accommodate HDTV (1080p) display in a huge range of lighting conditions, ranging from darkness to bright sunlight.

The 2000nit, 70-inch LCD panel "mitigates its added power consumption" by continually adjusting brightness is precise "localized" increments, according to Park. As a result, only the areas of a display that need to be brightened do get brightened. Through this "local dimming" technology, it's also possible to boost dynamic contrast ratio to 200,000:1, he said.

Weighing only 80 kilograms, the panel is designed to provide an ultra-wide viewing angle of 178 degrees. It can be used in either landscape or portrait mode.

Park foresees use of its new outdoor DID panel in applications ranging from bus terminals to shopping malls.