Samsung Electronics Co. in a heated race in the premium TV technology with LG Electronics publicly highlighted the downsides in the rivaling organic light-emitting diode (OLED) panel.

The two Korean household technology names are in a battle over the lead in the next-generation TV market with Samsung’s self-developed quantum-dot-based light emitting diode (QLED) pitted against more widely preferred OLED technology where LG is an unrivaled leader.

Samsung Electronics on Monday posted an article titled ‘Useful facts on TV - Why TVs have a burn-in problem?’ on its company blog with a detailed coverage of the burn-in issue or image retention problem that occurs when a static image is left on screen for a long time.

Industry watchers find the article as Samsung’s an offensive against LG as the latter is the predominant leader in fast-expanding OLED technology, which has been constantly challenged with its burn-in problem.

In its blog, posted in Korean, Samsung Electronics explained about TV screen’s image retention problem by citing U.S-based IT specialist RTings.com’s burn-in test outcomes. Recently, burn-in has become one of hot discussion topics on a global online community on audio, visual products AVS Forum.com and U.S-based IT specialist RTINGS.com joined the heated battle by launching a project to study the burn-in problem on three different TV technologies - OLED, QLED, and LED (light emitting diode).

For the burn-in problem comparison, RTINGS.com has left three different types of TVs on for 20 hours per day, seven days a week, running its test pattern in a loop, and checked for any static left on the screen. The test began in early September with an aim to run for a year.

Samsung, citing RTINGS.com’s test results on the burn-in issue, stated that QLED TV scored 10 while OLED TV received only 5.5, with a score of 10 indicating the best in not creating image retention problem. It also said, quoting display specialists, that OLED display’s burn-in issue may not be a problem for a device with short product life such as smartphones but it could come as more serious for TVs and monitors for PC games that are often left on for much longer period of time.

Samsung in late September also uploaded a video covering its 12-hour burn-in test of QLED and OLED TVs on the global video portal site Youtube.

By Song Sung-hoon, Lee Dong-in, and Cho Jeehyun

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business News Korea & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]