Controversy in the Direction Reflects the Confusion of China's Color TV Development

Since the era of the CRT changed to the era of the tablet, the color TV industry has morphed into a disputed industry scene. Different companies have begun to embrace different technological directions to dance, and the focus of this time is on competition.

At the Digital TV Industry Development Conference 2015 recently held, the TCL, Skyworth, Konka, Hisense, Sharp and other color TV giants each have their own judgments regarding the future of “surface” and “ultra-thin”.

"TCL will resolutely do surface television," said Hu Xuejun, deputy general manager of TCL Multimedia China Sales Co., Ltd.. Under the joint promotion of TCL and Samsung, Hisense and other companies, curved television has fully emerged, and this year will become a true universal element for the popularity of curved TV. year. "This is mainly based on curved television technology has entered a mature stage of development, with the basis for large-scale popularization; surface TV prices gradually intimacy, the bottleneck was broken, while user acceptance continues to increase."

It is understood that many TV companies have changed their screens from 2014, and mainstream TV manufacturers such as Samsung, TCL, Hisense, Changhong, and Toshiba have all launched their own curved TV products. According to statistics from the Consumer Electronics Product Survey Office of the China Electronic Chamber of Commerce, there are currently more than 9 brands of more than 40 curved TVs on the market, with more than 55 inches, and most have 4K ultra-high-definition displays.

The industry generally believes that the main appeal of curved TVs is the novelty of the modeling and the improvement of the sense of field. According to the test data of Saixi Laboratories of China Electronics Standardization Institute, the brightness of LCD TVs with a curvature of 4000R on a curved liquid crystal display panel is 13% higher than that of flat TVs, the contrast is increased by 44.6%, and the distortion rate is improved by 63%. Therefore, within a certain range, the more curved the TV screen, the more realistic the audience can get a sense of presence.

"The more TV screens are curved, the more realistic the immersive viewers are." Shen Peng, director of product planning at Samsung SDC, said that the curved structure can achieve a larger display area in a limited space, so the viewing angle is wider.

However, TV manufacturers do not agree with this view. Liu Weizhi, president of Skyworth Group's color TV division, said: "We would rather not be thin and we wouldn't do music." He said, "Curved-LED TVs not only increase the cost of materials, transportation and other products, but also impose a burden on users and reduce the consumer's experience."

Skyworth is even claiming that the upstream LCD panel was originally a flat product, but was artificially twisted by the manufacturers, and that it was impossible to match the effect of the movie theater, regardless of how the surround sound of the curved TV was implied. "We think that the surface is different from the screen shape, and it looks like there is a magnifying glass effect, and the whole picture is not good." In addition, the surface TV faces the hard baked curved explosion-proof screen in the process, and it easily leaks light over a large area; Bright, viewing angle is less than 76 degrees, only suitable for single viewing.

TV industry is keen on concept speculation

Curved TV manufacturers say that they have good curves and fashionable styles; ultra-thin TV manufacturers believe that thin, good, simple, lightweight and provincial manufacturers have their own reasons, but for consumers, it is Is the curved surface still thin? This is a very tangled problem.

In fact, in addition to thin and thin, consumers in the purchase of color TV, but also faced with OLED, ULED, GLED, QLED and other display technology concepts.

Speaking of television, people are most familiar with LEDs at the moment, and they also have a clearer understanding of OLEDs. Although the industry is recognized as the next generation of mainstream display technologies, OLEDs are still in the initial stage of the industry and cannot be mass-produced. The prices of some products that appear on the market are also prohibitively expensive.

In the premise that OLEDs are still difficult to mass-produce on a large scale, some TV manufacturers started the concept of hype and hit the "technology" card. For example ULED TV that appeared in the past two years.

Liu Weidong is a senior scientist of Hisense Group and a technical leader of the ULED project. He stated that the most fundamental technology of ULED lies in the optimization of backlight technology. ULED is the abbreviation of Ultra LED. ULED optimizes the backlight of the LED TV through additional circuits and algorithms. In simple terms, there are two key points for optimization. One is to set the backlight for the partition block, and the other is to increase the maximum brightness of the single block. For example, the screen is divided into 240 blocks, each block can independently control the brightness of the backlight, so the color will be more brilliant than the ordinary LED, and the maximum brightness of each block can reach 550 nits, so the contrast can be done To the level of one million to one.

ULED technology has obviously improved the display effect, but Skyworth has jumped out and shouted that its own GLED is better than ULED.

GLED full name Geek LED, also known as geek Internet TV, is a new generation of LED TV independently developed by Skyworth, using 4 color 4K+ technology, equipped with the first intelligent TV processor with domestic independent intellectual property rights. In terms of display technology, Skyworth said that GLED has achieved a breakthrough change over previous LEDs, with comparable or even superior image quality.

Just as OLEDs and ULEDs chatted endlessly, TCL stood out and said that its own QLED TVs had more advantages than OLEDs.

It is understood that QLED is called quantum dot technology. Quantum dots are extremely tiny semiconductor nanocrystals that we cannot see with the naked eye; and QD nanotechnology displays are brighter but consume less. The energy; Compared to OLEDs, OLEDs have higher energy efficiency and lower manufacturing costs.

Li Dongsheng, chairman of TCL Group, believes that QLED TV technology is a potential technology that may replace OLED. On the one hand, its performance does not lose OLED products; on the other hand, its price is much lower than OLED products.

China's corporate strategy is in confusion

China's color TV industry has never lacked new terms, and since 2014, the color TV market has ushered in a time when the “type” is the most abundant and most lost. Many manufacturers are seeking new business opportunities with the method of “throwing and asking the way”. .

The reason why this is the case, Lu Jiebo, deputy secretary-general of the China Electronic Chamber of Commerce, said that this is because China's color TV manufacturers are relatively weak in terms of innovative R&D capabilities. Today, for the innovative technology introduced by foreign companies, many domestic manufacturers are still accustomed to adopting a wait-and-see attitude, and then follow suit.

Liu Buchen, an observer of the household appliances industry, believes that on the surface, this seems to be due to the fact that domestic and global television technology has been updated too quickly. In fact, what is behind this is more of a marketing concept and does not have much substantive significance. While the panel industry does not have the right to speak and the patented technology does not have much competitiveness, China's TV companies are more likely to strive for consumers through conceptual marketing.

According to industry sources, whether it is the current competition between the quibbles or the various "LED" trusses, the ultimate goal is to expand product sales, ease operating pressures, and overcome difficult times, and snatch limited new purchases. In addition to the updated consumer, the only way to promote a new concept is to lower the price of the product.

Hong Shibin, executive chairman of the China Home Appliances Commercial Association Marketing Committee, said that the various directions of the dispute reflect that China's color TV industry is currently caught in the confusion of the "unrecognized development road." Because Japan and South Korea's brands have been firmly in control of the right to speak in technology, domestic companies have only to keep up with the pace, and the refurbishment concept is also very helpless. Without grasping the right to speak in technology, Zhongnei TV companies must constantly refurbish the concept and increase the price of their products to increase their profits. With the cancellation of home appliances to the countryside, and the gradual saturation of consumer groups, etc., they have only to explore new consumer groups through innovative concept products. At present, the competition in the industry is too fierce. Color TV companies can only increase the price of the entire product line through the introduction of a new technology or new product.

However, the behavior of companies "compromising" through competing products and "muting" each other in technology research and development is not conducive to the development of China's color TV industry, which is already difficult and has shortcomings in the development of core technology innovation. Lu Jianbo suggested that for China's color TV manufacturing companies, it is imperative to focus on strengthening the research and production of key core technologies and the ability to create "intellectualism," and continuously improve the product's audiovisual quality and manufacturing level.