 Sony WEGA logo, 2004 | |
Native name | Wuerttembergische Radio-Gesellschaft mbh |
|---|---|
| Industry | Electronics |
| Founded | 1923 Stuttgart, Germany |
| Defunct | 2005 |
| Fate | Rebranded as BRAVIA |
| Successor | Sony BRAVIA |
Area served | International |
| Products | Radio and LED television receivers |
| Parent | Sony (1975-present) |
WEGA was a German audio and video manufacturer, manufacturing some of Germany's earliest radio receivers. [2]
WEGA, pronounced "Vega", was founded as Wuerttembergische Radio-Gesellschaft mbh in Stuttgart, Germany in the year 1923. In 1975, it was acquired by Sony Corporation. [2] They were then known throughout Europe for stylish and high-quality stereo equipment, designed by Verner Panton [3] and Hartmut Esslinger. [4] Sony continued to use the WEGA brand until 2005, when liquid-crystal displays superseded the company's Trinitron aperture grille-based CRT models. [5]
Starting in 1998, Sony released a television line called FD Trinitron/WEGA , a flat-screen television with side-mounted speakers and a silver-coloured cabinet.
Sony says that the FD Trinitron WEGA was named after a star ("Vega" in English) in the Lyra constellation, and made no reference to the original WEGA firm. [6]
Sony has also used WEGA as a name for flat-screen televisions with newer technologies than CRT. Their flat-panel LCD televisions were branded LCD WEGA until summer 2005 [7] [8] [9] when they were rebranded BRAVIA. There are early promotional photos of the first BRAVIA televisions still bearing the WEGA label.[ citation needed ] Introduced in 2002, Sony's plasma display televisions were also branded as Plasma WEGA until being superseded by the BRAVIA LCD line. Sony's rear-projection televisions, either Silicon X-tal Reflective Display (SXRD) or LCD-based, were branded as Grand WEGA until Sony discontinued production of rear-projection receivers.[ citation needed ]
The quality of the design by Esslinger was highly appreciated, to the extent that the Museum of Modern Art in New York [10] exhibits one example, the Concept 51k sound-system, for which a special stand was an available option. [11]
In 1980 Sony used half of the production in Stuttgart for its Trinitron televisions. [12] [13]
An aperture grille is one of two major technologies used to manufacture color cathode-ray tube (CRT) televisions and computer displays; the other is the shadow mask. The first patented aperture grille televisions were manufactured under the Trinitron brand name.
Trinitron was Sony's brand name for its line of aperture-grille-based CRTs used in television sets and computer monitors, one of the first television systems to enter the market since the 1950s. Constant improvement in the basic technology and attention to overall quality allowed Sony to charge a premium for Trinitron devices into the 1990s.
A plasma display panel is a type of flat-panel display that uses small cells containing plasma: ionized gas that responds to electric fields. Plasma televisions were the first large flat-panel displays to be released to the public.
A flat-panel display (FPD) is an electronic display used to display visual content such as text or images. It is present in consumer, medical, transportation, and industrial equipment.
A television set or television receiver is an electronic device for viewing and hearing television broadcasts, or as a computer monitor. It combines a tuner, display, and loudspeakers. Introduced in the late 1920s in mechanical form, television sets became a popular consumer product after World War II in electronic form, using cathode-ray tube (CRT) technology. The addition of color to broadcast television after 1953 further increased the popularity of television sets in the 1960s, and an outdoor antenna became a common feature of suburban homes. The ubiquitous television set became the display device for the first recorded media for consumer use in the 1970s, such as Betamax, VHS; these were later succeeded by DVD. It has been used as a display device since the first generation of home computers and dedicated video game consoles in the 1980s. By the early 2010s, flat-panel television incorporating liquid-crystal display (LCD) technology, especially LED-backlit LCD technology, largely replaced CRT and other display technologies. Modern flat-panel TVs are typically capable of high-definition display and can also play content from a USB device. In the late 2010s, most flat-panel TVs began offering 4K and 8K resolutions.
A liquid-crystal-display television is a television set that uses a liquid-crystal display to produce images. It is by far the most widely produced and sold type of television display. LCD TVs are thin and light, but have some disadvantages compared to other display types such as high power consumption, poorer contrast ratio, and inferior color gamut.
An active shutter 3D system is a technique of displaying stereoscopic 3D images. It works by only presenting the image intended for the left eye while blocking the right eye's view, then presenting the right-eye image while blocking the left eye, and repeating this so rapidly that the interruptions do not interfere with the perceived fusion of the two images into a single 3D image.
WEGA, Wega, or WeGA may refer to:
Bravia is a brand of Sony Visual Products Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony, and is used for its television products. Its name is a backronym for "Best Resolution Audio Visual Integrated Architecture". All Sony high-definition flat-panel LCD televisions in North America have carried the logo for BRAVIA since 2005. BRAVIA replaces the "LCD WEGA," which Sony used for their LCD TVs until summer 2005. In 2014, BRAVIA was made into a subsidiary rather than simply a brand of products.
FD Trinitron/WEGA is Sony's flat version of the Trinitron picture tube. This technology was also used in computer monitors bearing the Trinitron mark. The FD Trinitron used computer-controlled feedback systems to ensure sharp focus across a flat screen. The FD Trinitron reduces the amount of glare on the screen by reflecting much less ambient light than spherical or vertically flat CRTs. Flat screens also increase total image viewing angle and have less geometric distortion in comparison to curved screens. The FD Trinitron line featured key standard improvements over prior Trinitron designs including a finer pitch aperture grille, an electron gun with a greater focal length for corner focus, and an improved deflection yoke for color convergence. Sony would go on to receive an Emmy Award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for its development of flat screen CRT technology.
XBR is a line of LCD, OLED, Plasma, Rear Projection, and CRT televisions produced by Sony. According to Sony, XBR is an acronym for eXtended Bit Rate, although there is evidence that it originally stood for "Project X, Black Remote" which was meant to distinguish it from the then-standard line of Sony televisions. The XBR range is typically derived from equipment that has been released in Japan and Europe as mid and high-end models, usually with some small upgrades. For example, in Europe and Japan, the Sony X-Series 1080p TVs had two HDMI inputs, whereas on the American XBR version, there were three. Some XBR televisions may cost up to $25,000 USD.
The Sony Watchman is a line of portable pocket televisions trademarked and produced by Sony. The line was introduced in 1982 and discontinued in 2000.
Hartmut Esslinger is a German-American industrial designer and inventor. He is best known for founding the design consultancy frog, and his work for Apple Computer in the early 1980s.
frog is a global creative and design consultancy founded in 1969 by industrial designer Hartmut Esslinger in Mutlangen, Germany, where it was initially named “esslinger design”. Soon after the company moved to Altensteig, Germany, and then opened a new studio in Palo Alto, California, and ultimately to its current headquarters in San Francisco, California. The company has studios in North and Central America, Europe, and Asia.
The NeXT MegaPixel Display is a range of CRT-based computer monitors manufactured and sold by NeXT for the NeXTcube and NeXTstation workstations, designed by Hartmut Esslinger/Frog Design Inc.
A handheld television is a portable device for watching television that usually uses a TFT LCD or OLED and CRT color display. Many of these devices resemble handheld transistor radios.
Large-screen television technology developed rapidly in the late 1990s and 2000s. Prior to the development of thin-screen technologies, rear-projection television was standard for larger displays, and jumbotron, a non-projection video display technology, was used at stadiums and concerts. Various thin-screen technologies are being developed, but only liquid crystal display (LCD), plasma display (PDP) and Digital Light Processing (DLP) have been publicly released. Recent technologies like organic light-emitting diode (OLED) as well as not-yet-released technologies like surface-conduction electron-emitter display (SED) or field-emission display (FED) are in development to supersede earlier flat-screen technologies in picture quality.
An LED-backlit LCD is a liquid-crystal display that uses LEDs for backlighting instead of traditional cold cathode fluorescent (CCFL) backlighting. LED-backlit displays use the same TFT LCD technologies as CCFL-backlit LCDs, but offer a variety of advantages over them.
The following table compares cathode-ray tube (CRT), liquid-crystal display (LCD), plasma and organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display device technologies. These are the most often used technologies for television and computer displays. A less detailed comparison of a wider variety of display technologies is available at Comparison of display technology.