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Digital Displays - The Making & Its Evolution

By Andy Sim - on 04 Nov 2010, 1:53pm

Not exactly a relevant image, but we do feel like we are on a cloak and dagger mission during some of our overseas junkets. Le sighs.

As a tech writer covering the AV beat, I do get to visit display factories on a sporadic basis.

Indeed, it would be nice if I could share their manufacturing processes with you. Being a big fan of LEGO and Gundam kits, it would be awesome if I could reveal how these CE giants piece their technological toys together, albeit on a larger and more complex scale compared to my paltry plastic models. When it comes to LED-based HDTVs, I can tell you all about light diffusers, edge LEDs and matrix backlights, but it wouldn't be as awesome as understanding the entire fitting process, would it? 

The unfortunate thing is, such sponsored junkets often come with a mesh of red tapes. While we are able to glimpse their assembly works, the temporary ban on imaging equipment during our tours is an annoying handicap towards our reporting duties. Someone did say a picture is worth a thousand words, didn't they? What's more, publishable content is mostly restricted by what the makers dictate. You can mention this, like a very insignificant detail for example, but not that, they say. At the end of the day, such cloak and dagger missions often leave us with little to pen about but boring stories no one really cares about.

Apart from this rant, I would like to share with you an article I stumbled on FlatPanelsHD recently. It isn't terribly new, per se. But it does offer some insight into Eizo's manufacturing procedures for its brand of LCD monitors. The entire she-bang is there, from assembly to aging to testing to the final packaging. It's nice to know Eizo trusts the human eye more than machinery when it comes to judging mid-tones and hues. The factory is based in Japan, with "supplied" images from Eizo themselves. Meh. Hit this jump to find out more.

And if I may digress a little, WIRED blogged about a rather intriguing campaign recently. Titled as "Making Future Magic", ad agency Dentsu London teamed up with design consultancy BERG to produce some interesting ideas on product convergence and unexpected platforms for info-sharing. Not in your usual GPS-marries-smartphone way, mind you, but strangely, in a simple yet effective manner which I hope would turn into reality sometime soon. At least for some of the concept products. Think about digital clocks-marrying-news bits, or turning HDTVs into a one-stop media update machine. Best of all, it is the dissemination of news snippets on ephemera such as paper receipts which got me. Also, I found out that BERG is actually the futuristic brain behind Olinda, a digital radio with funky social networking functions built in. Check out the vid below, and you'll know what I mean. Enjoy. 


Andy Sim

Andy Sim / Former Senior Tech Writer

Andy is a self-made geek with a penchant for good music and a hearty pint. His domain includes swanky TVs, notebooks and networking gizmos.

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