# Rumor Mill: Samsung Ready to Re-Enter OLED TV Market



## Todd Anderson (Jul 24, 2009)

As we’ve learned over the past several years, definitive R&D commitments from OLED television manufacturers have been sketchy at best. It’s a wishy-washy bunch. Sony and Panasonic enjoyed a brief 18-month OLED TV venture before calling it quits in December 2013 (they re-joined in 2014 to explore OLED displays for smaller devices). Samsung has also been on and off with the technology, announcing (last year) that it was shelving its OLED interests for all of 2015. Then there’s LG, which is the only manufacturer holding-down the fort. The company is chips-all-in and is actually running primetime OLED advertising to back its currently available models. 










_Is Samsung putting their iron back in the OLED flame?_​

There has been speculation – for nearly a year – that OLED’s once rosy prospects are destined to crash in a ball of flames. The mere thought of this potential collapse has sent videophiles to their knees. How can this be, they cry! How can an ultra-thin and energy efficient technology with vivid colors, infinite blacks, buttery smooth motion, and wide viewing angles fail without flight? The answer is dollars and cents. Large screen OLED displays have proven to be incredibly difficult to produce reliably, which doesn’t make it cost effective. This factor, and this factor alone, makes LCD technology temptingly attractive to companies looking to attack the 4K-UHD segment on the cheap.

LG has been a glimmer of hope in the OLED world and it’s quite possible that their old adversary, Samsung, is ready to get back into the game. Over the last several days, multiple industry news sites have reported rumors that Samsung will dust-off their OLED aspirations this year. Both Display Daily and ETnews (Korea) have published reports fueling the speculation. According to ETnews, Samsung thinks that OLED TVs have a higher earning upside as compared to the company’s current LCD panel business. In other words, Samsung is choosing to look a bit further down the financial road and sees bigger profits. One can speculate as to the reasoning behind this: perhaps the 4K market hasn’t been the draw that manufacturers assumed it would be? Or, maybe, LCD profits truly are razor thin.

What’s more interesting is that Samsung is said to be ditching its original method of OLED development. Previously, Samsung was using separate red, blue, and green sub-pixels (RGB), which required a highly accurate manufacturing process that proved to be complex and expensive. Now, reports are saying Samsung will adopt LG’s method of development known as WRGB, which layers red, green, and blue to create white that passes through filters (very similar to how the backlight of an LCD screen is filtered).










The upside to the WRGB method is that it’s cheaper and more reliable on the manufacturing front. The downside is that WRGB panels have less light output than RGB OLED and LCD TVs with LED backlighting. This factor will make it much more difficult for WRGB OLED panels to produce High Dynamic Range (HDR) images, which is one of two technology advancements (the other being a wide color gamut) that absolutely trump 4K’s pure pixel count in overall image impact and performance.

It’s entirely impossible to know if Samsung will re-establish large screen OLED aspirations. Hopefully this rumor is more reality than hope or corporate games. At the minimum, it keeps the dream of a non-LCD alternative alive for discerning eyes. 


_Image Credit: oled-a.org, Samsung_


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## willis7469 (Jan 31, 2014)

Nice Todd! It does keep a glimmer of hope alive. But man, there's a lot of question marks in there. I'm gonna go kiss my plasma now, and hope that keeps her goin for awhile longer. For me, dreams of a screen over80" rest on fixed display tech. Reality can be rough.... Not as much as WAF though.


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## Todd Anderson (Jul 24, 2009)

Definitely!

The untold stories really are the leach technologies that companies are gunning to add to 4K. I believe the average consumer will hear "4K, UHD...four times the pixels" and instantly assume that means "better." As we know this is not the case...and this isn't new. The dummied-down "more pixels is always better" argument has always been, in most cases, a poor argument since 720p/1080p was brought to market. So many other variables (e.g., contrast, color uniformity, etc) can make or break pq. 

OLED has all of the plasmatic offerings (plus!) that we love dearly...so hopefully it will gain traction in the consumer market and manufacturers can figure out how to streamline manufacturing. _I'll also add...hopefully these first rounds of OLED sets have operating longevity once in the home._ But the wide color gamut and HDR techs are what will make the coming years really interesting and could potentially be the true game changers.

I'll look at a few angles to cover those techs in the future.


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## JimShaw (Apr 30, 2012)

Very interesting

Makes my decision more difficult.

I have been seriously considering LG's 65EF9500 flat OLED when it arrives. Now, do I wait longer to see what Samsung does?

Another wrinkle: HDR and wide color gamut: Which I think Samsun's new JS9500 has, correct? mShould I wait and hope Samsung creates a flat JS9500???????? Get LG's 65EF9500 OLED????? Or wait for more rumors from Samsung????

Too many decisions.

Thanks Todd for making my decision that much tougher:bigsmile:



m


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## Todd Anderson (Jul 24, 2009)

JimShaw said:


> Very interesting
> 
> Makes my decision more difficult.
> 
> ...


Sorry to throw a fly in the ointment.:devil: At some point, the "buy and blindly enjoy" strategy is a good one. There is no way that Samsung will roll-out an OLED set for consumers this year. Perhaps they'll have a few models at CES 2016 (hope I'm not fast forwarding this year by typing those numbers).

You're definitely in that "early adopter" stage. At least HDMI 2.0 has been accepted. No telling how long it will take HDR to shake-out (the industry has no standard in place for it)...same goes for WCG. 

Honestly, if I were you, I'd call Robert Zahn at Value Electronics. While this may seem to be a shameless plug for a forum sponsor...it's not. If you're not familiar, Robert's shop runs a yearly display shootout that attracts the attention of the tech press (both big and small). It is THE shootout of all shootouts. He knows his stuff and has eyes on all of this tech as it rolls into his inventory. I can guarantee he'll give you an honest assessment as to whether you should wait or go ahead and pull the trigger based on your wants and needs. 

If you'd rather PM, you can send him a personal message right here on Home Theater Shack (just search for his name). Just mention you're a member on HTS. :T


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## JimShaw (Apr 30, 2012)

Todd Anderson said:


> Sorry to throw a fly in the ointment.:devil: At some point, the "buy and blindly enjoy" strategy is a good one. There is no way that Samsung will roll-out an OLED set for consumers this year. Perhaps they'll have a few models at CES 2016 (hope I'm not fast forwarding this year by typing those numbers).
> 
> You're definitely in that "early adopter" stage. At least HDMI 2.0 has been accepted. No telling how long it will take HDR to shake-out (the industry has no standard in place for it)...same goes for WCG.
> 
> ...


Todd

Thanks for the input.

Yes, I am an early adopter. I have had my 64F8500 for a year and a half. Getting old.

Robert and I have talked many times by phone and e-mail and I cannot wait until this year's Shoot Out. It will be fantastic. I was considering going this year but decided to save the $800 fly, motel, car rental, food costs and save to replace my "old" TV which I ordered from Robert with Kevin Miller calibrating.

No shame in plugging for Robert. I do it all the time. He spends a ton of money doing the Shoot Out and we all reap the benefit. So, I plug and plug. There was one time on Blu-ray.com that I was scolded for talking about Robert too many times.


m


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## Todd Anderson (Jul 24, 2009)

Jim, this is knocking off some cobwebs in my brain... I think we've had this conversation before? 

But, yes, I agree...Robert is the man to turn to when it's time to buy. No shame in supporting a real contributor to the industry!


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## Talley (Dec 8, 2010)

Interesting news.

Will be curious to see if plasma would be regenerated. Doubtful but who knows anything possible.


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## Todd Anderson (Jul 24, 2009)

Talley said:


> Interesting news.
> 
> Will be curious to see if plasma would be regenerated. Doubtful but who knows anything possible.


Unfortunately, plasma looks to be buried.


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## Axiomite (Dec 18, 2013)

Todd Anderson said:


> Unfortunately, plasma looks to be buried.


:sad: My 7 year old Kuro isn't, and most likely won't be for a long time, more than enough to wait for the perfect affordable OLED to be released. :bigsmile:


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## macromicroman (May 17, 2014)

I had the pleasure of viewing LGs 1080p OLED set at my local big box store. It blew all the 4K sets out of the water. I have not seen LGs UHD OLED sets. Their prices are out of my budget for a new TV. My plasma sets will have to last a lot longer.


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## ILOVEMYHDTV (Oct 4, 2010)

i be waiting until QUANTUM DOTS... picked up a 2014 SAMY, 657150
http://informationdisplay.org/IDArchive/2014/MayJune/EnablingTechnologyTheVirtuesQuantum.aspx


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## ILOVEMYHDTV (Oct 4, 2010)

http://www.businesskorea.co.kr/article/8631/expansion-competition-quantum-dots-vs-oled-tvs


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## typ44q (Apr 7, 2008)

Very good to hear about Samsung returning to the large screen OLED market. Hopefully the extra competition can push the technology and bring prices down faster. Until then I am still very happy with my Panasonic plasma.


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