SED TV Reviews

An interesting interview with Canon President Uchida yesterday in Monaco. He discussed SED TV as well as Canon’s future growth forecasts. Full story at link below:

MONACO (Reuters) – Japan’s Canon Inc. is still focused on globally producing the next generation of flat panel televisions despite a legal setback that has thrown the debut and rollout of the new product into doubt.

“We are not limiting our views to the Japanese market. We have the global market in mind,” Canon’s President and Chief Operating Officer Tsuneji Uchida told Reuters in an interview.

Speaking in Monaco, where the company was celebrating its 50th year in Europe, Uchida said on Monday that Canon was keen to resolve the dispute and sort out production constraints involving both the new screens and across the entire business.

Last week, a U.S. court ruled that Canon does not have to pay additional damages to Texas-based Nano-Proprietary Inc. over the violation of a licence for making flat-panels known as surface-conduction electron-emitter displays or SEDs.

Canon, the world’s top maker of copiers and digital cameras, began research on SED panels in 1986 and had been collaborating with Toshiba Corp. over the new TVs, which promise high clarity, faster response, greater energy efficiency and a wider viewing angle than existing LCD or plasma TVs.

“We currently have a facility for production of SEDs, but it is still limited, the capacity is limited, therefore we can only produce as much as the capacity will allow,” Uchida said.

When Canon and Toshiba set up the joint venture in 2004 to develop the panels, the initial plan was to mass-produce the new SED TVs in time for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

The court ruling that Nano could terminate the licence after Canon tried to share the technology with Toshiba prompted Canon to buy out Toshiba’s share of their display joint venture.

DIFFERENT TECHNOLOGIES

The SED rollout poses a challenge for Uchida, particularly as the company is trying to stay ahead of rivals that are pursuing different technologies such as ultra-thin TVs using organic light-emitting diode (OLED), which Sony Corp. plans to introduce this year.

Uchida said he did not want to comment further on the Nano legal dispute because it was ongoing and subject to appeal.

“We need to resolve this current situation before we can decide on when and how much we will produce and sell,” he said, as Canon has so far only said it will produce a limited number of SED TVs in Japan by the end of the year.

Note: As far as I know, and a commentor mentioned this as well, Canon still has to renegotiate a new licensing agreement with Nano before they start production.

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