SED is a hot new technology coming down the pike from Toshiba and Canon. For more on SED, see my SED archives. Below is a link to a video of a SED display. Which, come to think of it, is pretty worthless. Because you’ll be viewing it on a CRT or LCD display, thus tossing out all the SEDness of the video. Hmmm….

But anyway.

SED is a promising new technology. Well, actually, it’s a mixture of old and new technologies. It uses a screen of phosphors like a CRT display. And like a CRT, particles are shot at the screen to make it glow. But unlike a CRT, which uses one gun for that purpose, a SED display uses thousands of tiny micro-emitters. Given all that, it means that a SED display will have all the advantages and disadvantages of a CRT display, except for size. A SED display can be much larger than a CRT, measured diagonally. And a SED display is much thinner than a CRT. Like a plasma or LCD display, SED displays will be very thin.

So what are the advantages of a CRT? Wonderful black levels, depth of image, colour, etc. What are the disadvantages? Brightness and burn-in, really. The brightness I can deal with - I don’t need my televisions to be torch bright anyway. The burn-in, on the other hand, is an issue. I currently have a CRT rear projection HDTV, and after less than a year of use for both 4:3 material (using gray bars) and widescreen HDTV and DVD viewing, I already had burn-in of those gray bars. So I had to switch to one of the set’s zoom modes to watch 4:3 material. Not the optimum solution. So I decided, for myself, that my next display technology would have to be immune to burn-in. And that would rule out SED.

Don’t weap for me. I’ll live.

Oooh! I almost forgot. Price. It’s almost an assured fact that SED panels will be more expensive than equivalent-sized plasma brethern. It’s a new technology and production costs will be high at first. These will be great displays, but you’ll have to pay dearly for them.

So personally, SED is not an option for me. At least until all television programming is widescreen. And who knows when that day will come.

HD Beat - SED TV demo in Flash