Is Sony’s upcoming display technology pronounced “oh-led” or “O L E D”?
[All laugh]. Eric: That’s a very good question. We normally say “O L E D”. Obviously, OLED technology is still only in small screen sizes. How do you see this situation progressing? Tim: Hopefully you saw the 27 inch model at IFA. We had it at CES too, there’s only two of those in the world, so feel lucky! Sony is opening a new factory for the production of OLED. We’d expect 32 and 40 inch models to appear in 2010. WIthin a few years after that, we’ll likely have more in “living room sizes”. What’s the lifespan of OLED like? Tim: Right now, 30,000 hours is being quoted. By that, we mean that the display drops to 50% brightness after this time. There have been other numbers, but 30,000 is the official line. OLED doesn’t appear to be connected to the BRAVIA brand. Is it an offshoot of BRAVIA? Or it the successor to it? Tim: At the moment, it tends to be separate. It’s separate in America and in Japan. In the future it might come under the BRAVIA brand (like projectors eventually did). It
