Audio Video News

A next-generation flat-tube display called FED may give videophiles much of what we had hoped for from the frustratingly delayed SED.

FED, fruit of a partnership between Sony and TCI, stands for Field Emission Display. To would-be fans of the Surface-conduction Electron-emitter Display, the name will sound as familiar as the acronym. The 19.2-inch prototype shown at a Japanese trade show has resolution of 1280 by 960 pixels, contrast of 20,000:1, supports frame rates of 24 to 240 frames per second, and shows no dead pixels even if up to 20 percent of the emitters fail. The developers say FED beats LCD and plasma in resolution. Availability and pricing are yet to be announced.

According to Gizmodo, which broke the story to the English-speaking world, the difference between SED and FED is that the Sony/TCI version "uses a grid of carbon nanotubes to emit the electrons that excite phosphor dots in order to create the image." If I understand the original Japanese report correctly, which is highly debatable, the distinction between SED and FED lies in the shape of the electron emitters. SED fires electrons from a thin-film "nano slit" while FED fires them from a cone-shaped "supinto" emitter.

If you'd like to figure it out for yourself, here's the Gizmodo story, the Japanese original, and the Google translation.

This may be a cheap shot, but the translation concludes: "FED technology degree of completion is high, stopping development this way, the stripe sea urchin endures and or, it is wasted to bury social property."