QD Vision was at IFA on the booth of one of its customers, TCL of China. TCL was showing a 55″ prototype TV using the QD Vision technology to give >100% NTSC colour gamut coverage. We had a discussion about Rec 2020 – there was talk that a Blu-ray committee meeting at IFA was looking at the revised Blu-ray UltraHD specification, which has been delayed until 2015. As a result, players may not be available until the end of 2015. QD Vision was pleased because CNet was quoting a spokesman of the BDA as saying that not only would UltraHD be supported, but also the Rec 2020 colour gamut. On the one hand, wider colour gamut is a good thing for QD makers, as it validates the need for displays with wider gamuts. On the other hand, QDs have a problem reaching Rec 2020 colour gamuts with 100% coverage, even if new colour filters are used. However, there is time to work on new filter technologies, and possibly laser sources.
QD Vision is quoting TCL as saying that TVs with QDs will produce “Oled-like” colour performance but at a third of the cost of OLEDs.
Display Daily Comments
We took QD Vision as suggesting that QD LCD sets will be around $3,000 potentially. That should be competitive. However, we remain somewhat unconvinced that colour alone will drive TV. My view is that High Dynamic Range will be just as important and that the real win will be a combination of HDR and gamut expansion, as seen in Dolby Vision. Frame rate is clearly important. However, here’s the logic. High frame rate is really important only for sports. Let’s face it, half of Hollywood would still like to run at 24fps! However, sport is not an ideal candidate for internet delivery or packaged media – it generally needs to be live. That means that broadcasters have to be the drivers of high frame rate. There is no real problem for the sets to support 100Hz or 120Hz. So could we see the full “Better pixels” concept being driven by HDR and gamut (Hollywood, Netflix et al and Blu-ray), High Frame rates by broadcasters (probably Sky) and resolutions by the panel and set makers? Wouldn’t it be great if they all happened? (BR)
I interviewed Matt Mazzuchi of QD Vision on video for Display Daily.
