Canon Kills Plans For Consumer SED Television

Sadly, the world will have to live with one less competitor for LCD, OLED and CRT. As if CRT is still around. Canon, the same company responsible for selling millions of EOS digital cameras, once had a plan to truly rival the other television technology producers in the world. But for one reason or another, SED never really took off. There were prototypes shown off and promises made, but no launch schedule was ever followed. Now, years after SEDs initial introduction, Canon is finally hoping to put the technology behind them and forget all about what could've been.


This week, the company officially killed plans to further develop a SED television, which comes as little surprise to those following the tech but a big blow to competition in general. SED TVs will still be used for commercial use (such as in hospitals), but it won't ever make it to consumers in the form of new flat-panel TVs in Best Buy. The main problem with continuing SED develop was cost; LCD price drops made it difficult for Canon to compete, and since SED was significantly more expensive, there was never really a market for their niche technology.


The company won't say how much was spent over the past decade in a (failed) attempt to bring SED to the consumer market, but it's safe to assume that hundreds of millions were probably dished out. Of course, so long as there's a SED for commercial markets, there could always be a run in the consumer market as well, but it's certainly no longer in the cards officially.