Transparent TVs are high on my list of problems I urgently don’t need solved. R&D team must be freebasing whatever modern sci-fi VFX designers are on.
Perhaps combining a transparent display with a pure black gives better blacks for displays but until there's better color control this would result in a much worse television.
Samsung and LG have the problem of how to to create the next desirable product.
A Terrace can do 1500+ nits, and it's about the best you can get for full-screen brightness, though for 50%-of-screen brightness rtings lists some TCL models as beating it and some several other models as being close.
The 2 screens on the top left in this image (https://mediaim.expedia.com/destination/1/7b3980b3f80540d120...) have no trouble displaying bright white or other colors in the midday sun. (note: that photo itself looks edited, over saturated, high contrast) but those displays look great in person.
Separating the power-bits* from the light-emitting bits (even just to have them on opposite sides of a PCB) lets each of these bits dissipate more heat.
The nature of their use (where we only generally pay close attention to huge outdoor screens occasionally) also has lets the big, bright outdoor displays get away with artifacts (like sometimes-noticeable scanlines, or terrible color gamut) that just won't fly on a TV that is meant to be watched day after day -- by the same small group of people -- for years.
(*No, OLEDs don't switch themselves on and off; they're still just diodes like other LEDs are. There's transistors integrated into the panel to do that part.)
One has transistors that can't really be seen with the human eye (TFTs), and the other has transistors in SMD packages that can not only be seen, but also kicked and replaced when needed.
And one has tiny [O]LEDs that are integrated tightly together into one unit (which must be replaced at one time in the event of a pixel failure). The other has relatively enormous PCB-mount LEDs (which can be serviced individually on a bench by a tech of sufficient skill), which in turn are mounted on modules that can be swapped by a field tech fairly rapidly.
They're very different in construction methods, just as car engines are different compared to big marine engines. They'd also appear rather similar in function if one were to draw a block diagram of each.
For a junior display, you can have some guys with hand tools swap out broken modules in a giant outdoor display, but doing the same kind of repair stuck pixels in a few thousand living-room screens is a no-go.
That changes the trade-offs in terms of performance versus expected lifetime.
There are higher-refresh displays as well. This one advertises 60 Hz refresh and colour (it's not clear whether colour can drive at 60 Hz).
<https://www.tomshardware.com/monitors/new-open-source-high-r...>
<https://www.modos.tech/blog/modos-paper-monitor-pre-launch-o...>
Video demo: <https://yewtu.be/embed/pXn-bAwzNv4>
It's true that some colour displays currently run slower.
There's also an "e-paper" technology, based on LCD, which offers far higher refresh and AFAIU no ghosting.
(I've been using an e-ink tablet for the past 3+ years, and frankly love it.)
And yes, I'll also freely admit that e-ink is better tuned to less-active text displays. That said, it absolutely can refresh multiple times per minute if necessary, and that's sufficient for quite a number of display applications.
With black and white you can probably get a clean frame change in a second. With color, if you want it to look good it's going to take a long time to swap images.
And even then the people you're trying to impress will not like the whole screen flashing when it clears ghosts.
> There's also an "e-paper" technology, based on LCD
That's just a marketing name. It's worth talking about but pretty separately. And if you want color the brightness is going to be awful.
Fact is that e-ink delivers acceptable multi-Hz update capabilities. I've used one such device (Onyx BOOX Max Lumi, with E INK Mobius and Carta HD display). I use it for interactive applications, animations, and video regularly. Yes, it's advisable to change the display mode, but at anything but the highest display quality, most animations are tolerable. Not ideal, but tolerable.
And you don't have to take my word for it, there are numerous reviews and videos showing performance.
And if you're specifically designing applications or use-cases for the devices capabilities, you can do far better than that. Which would include frequent updates. Appropriate use of technology means playing to strengths, and e-ink has numerous capabilities emissive displays simply cannot match which I've discussed previously, e.g., <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31396797>.
For a large-format display application you absolutely can have frequent updates. More than once a minute is trivial, and as often as several times a second involves very few distractions or compromises.
No, you're not going to prefer e-ink for gaming or as your principle display for streaming video over an OLED or similar monitor. But both of those uses are reasonably within achievable capabilities of products shipped years ago.
"Gaming on e-ink" turns up numerous demos. No, it's not what you'd get on a gaming rig, but despite everything you've said and doubled-down on, it is possible:
<https://yewtu.be/watch?v=gPwiNVcppmg> (Actual usage starts around 8 minutes in.)
Similarly, that gaming rig doesn't do so hot in direct sunlight, persisting display, or low-power consumption. Each tech has its strengths and weaknesses.
The distinction between "E Ink" and "E Paper" is made because they're both extant shipping technologies, similar in some regards but based on distinct and different processes, and with different display capabilities. Accuracy, truth, and distinctions all matter.
In the context of a color display, getting good brightness, and not tolerating visible artifacts, I stand by that claim.
Compromising on some of those lets you go a lot faster. But it's also a lot less impressive to look at. You lose the advantages over a bright (by TV standards) TV.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transflective_liquid-crystal_d...>
There was a recent HN discussion (and additional submissions), see: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40921511>
One concern I have is that if the screen is LCD-based, it'll interact poorly with polarised sunglasses.
All that said, there are 60 Hz e-ink displays, see my earlier comment.
E-Ink[tm] is electrophoretic, and works by migrating dark capsules across a charge gradient. That physical migration takes time, and is subject to degraded effectiveness at higher response speeds. This is why e-ink display quality increases with slower responses, and decreases with faster responses, giving a fundamental trade-off. Even given this, it's possible to drive e-ink at 16--60 Hz, and I've definitely seen the lower end myself. With only a slight degradation in display quality (slight ghosting), multi-Hz refresh is possible (roughly 4-8 Hz in my estimation). I've used that extensively.
E-Paper, a term I'm only recently acquainted with, is based on transflective LCD (liquid crystal display) technology. That's a distinct process in which the polarisation of a crystal matrix is directly manipulated under an applied current, which is an electronic process and correspondingly much more rapid and reliable than electrophoretic transitions. A key difference is that whilst the image on an e-ink display will persist indefinitely without power, an LCD screen requires constant, though low, power. "Transflective" means that the background layer can either reflect incident light (e.g., under bright indoor or outdoor sunlight conditions) or transmit a background light.
LCD response times range from ~60 Hz (16 millisecond) to 180 Hz (5 millisecond). There may be a slight decay time to the display, again, I've not seen large tablet-style displays, though the basic technology is the same as has been used in digital watches for decades, also the OLPC (one laptop per child) project launched in 2005, 19 years ago, and the Pebble smart watch. It's a mature technology.
The principle relative drawbacks of E-Paper relative to E-Ink are probably greater power consumption (though still lower than emissive displays), a narrower field of view (due to the top polarising layer), and difficulty viewing through polarised sunglasses for those wearing them. I suspect that the overall contrast of E-Paper is low (given the polarising filter which blocks half the incident or transmitted light, one source gives a 30:1 contrast: <https://www.newvisiondisplay.com/transflective-lcds/>), though E-Ink has a similar issue. Advantages are going to be faster response and no ghosting.
Color E-Paper probably has similar low-saturation properties to e-ink. You're not going to get vivid colour, but you can probably get some colour distinction in a desaturated / pastel appearance.
For large displays of the type suggested by TFA, E-Paper should be reasonably well suited, particularly in strongly-backlit transparent displays (e.g., windows or similar panels), and where mains power is directly available. Rapid and/or continuous updates (up to 180 Hz), for scrolling, animation, video, or other updates) would be readily supported.
Both E-Ink and E-Paper would be well-suited to daylit greyscale or multicolour (though generally not true-colour) displays, updating as much as a few times per second to every few seconds, suitable for largely textual / graphic displays without extensive animation or video.
Please do educate yourself.
The media calling these "Transparent TVs" instead of "Transparent Displays" is inaccurate and doing a disservice to both their readers and the devices.
Honestly I am a bit impressed, I am not sure I could have designed a clock face that is simultaneously too dark on a dark background and too light on a light background.
"I can hear something but I don't see anything." Luke squinted up at the twin suns. "3PO, help me get this little R2 unit inside where it's dark. Maybe I'll be able to see the hologram in there."