At Flat Panel Display International 2009, held October 28-30 this year in Yokohama, AUO, CMO, Samsung, LG Disploay, and Shinoda Plasma were aggressively showing public information displays (PIDs), as they - along with Sharp and LG Display - have done in the past.

Ken Werner
Senior Analyst and Editor

The problem with LCD-based PIDs has been their sub-1000-nit luminance, which made them unsuitable for outdoor and even brightly-lit indoor applications. But last year Samsung began showing large 2000-nit panels for outdoor use, and its competitors have been following suit with 1000-plus-nit panels. This, along with autostereoscopic 3D and other innovations, promises to significantly accelerate the growth of displays for the category in 2010. The growth will follow a significant revenue dip in 2009, which was a dismal year for advertising of all sorts - including the sort that appears on PIDs.

According to DisplayBank revenues dropped from $4.4B in 2008 to $3.5B in 2009, but are projected to rise to $4.9B in 2010, $6.1B in 2011, and $7.2B in 2012. Units will grow even more rapidly as ASP steadily declines, from $1221 in 2008 to $770 in 2012. Clearly, most of these PIDs are not the stunning 65-inch (or larger) behemoths that capture our attention at trade shows. The category covers a wide range of sizes.

Several significant PID panel launches are planned for 2010. Samsung will introduce a 52-inch autostereoscopic lenticular display, along with 70- and 82-inch sunlight-readable displays with 2000 nits luminance, among others.

LG Display will introduce a 42-inch 3D display, a 42-inch mirror display (which looks like a mirror when no image is being displayed), a 42-inch sunlight-readable display with 2000 nits, and a 47-inch display with less-than-5mm bezels for tiling.

Sharp will have 46- and 52-inch narrow-bezel displays, and a 60-inch with white-LED backlight.

AUO will introduce a 46-inch touch PID, and a 46-inch sunlight-readable PID.

Shinoda Plasma (SHIPLA) will celebrate the first actual installation of its innovative bendable, lightweight plasma display. Tsutae Shinoda told me the company will install a panel in a planetarium in Akashi City near Kobe. The panel being shown at FPDI drew a lot of attention and looked good overall except for a not-very-dark black level in the bright lighting of the show floor. SHIPLA’s Manabu Ishimoto said some customers have mentioned black levels as an issue, but filters and a black matrix should improve that greatly. It’s not a problem in principle, said Ishimoto. All it takes is some more engineering.

The high luminance and contrast of some of these new PIDs make it possible to be used outdoors in sunlight and indoors under very bright lighting. Autostereoscopic 3D and mirror displays allow PIDs to be used for novel attention-getting functions, as well as for conveying information. Narrow-bezel displays allow large tiled displays to have more impact than ever before. And SHIPLA’s extremely lightweight plasma design allows displays to be placed in locations that could not be used for displays before (at least not without great inconvenience and expense).

The result will be more public information displays in more places and used for a wider variety of functions, which is exactly what’s reflected in the projections of rapid market growth.

Is there any surface that will be free of digital information and advertising in the future? I once suggested to a client that we place small displays over each of the urinals in the men’s rooms at a trade show. The client declined to implement the idea, but now an autostereoscopic image could reach out and….

Maybe that is too much. But part of the mirror in that convention-center washroom could turn into a display at any time, and Shinoda’s lightweight plasma panel could be mounted on the ceiling over the bed in your hotel room.

Do some of these ideas make you feel just a little queasy? Wait. Just wait.