Remember those astonishingly thin, bright and feature-packed 55-inch OLED televisions slated to cost between $8,000 and $9,000? It appears those inordinately priced TVs are now inordinately delayed. The revised ETA is now a very distant "late next year", according to unnamed sources at The Korea Times.

Samsung and LG, the two electronics makers who promised us these exciting, mind-rotting devices, are said to be having worse-than-expected difficulties manufacturing the sets. "Samsung and LG recently scrapped their plans to mass-produce 55-inch OLED televisions this year as the companies are having serious difficulties in improving manufacturing yield" sources claimed.

Samsung and LG have yet to confirm these troubles, however.

After showing off its ultra-thin 55-inch OLED television at CES, LG figured it would have consumer offerings as early as May. Yes, that's right folks: May of 2012. Obviously though, that deadline passed many months ago. Afterward, LG revised its OLED TV's release date to sometime this fall -- an estimate which also appears to be overzealous.

Although the ETA of LG's elusive OLED offering has remained a moving target, Samsung has been hoping to introduce its own 55-inch OLED entry before this year's end. Much like LG though – if sources are correct – Samsung will not have 55-inch models until late 2013.

Earlier this year, Samsung accused LG of having "systematically stole its display technology and poached Samsung employees." Dozens of individuals, including six LG employees and LG itself, were formally charged with stealing trade secrets.

OLED (organic light-emitting diode) technology is superior to traditional LCD in a number of ways and the pairing of OLED + TV should product a delightful consumer experience. 

OLED screens don't require a backlight because each pixel provides its own light source. As a result, such displays can be super thin, provide better contrast, deeper blacks, better viewing angles and do it all with (potentially) less power. OLEDs provide faster response times too, effectively eliminating latency or "ghosting". While large LCD panels typically have response times higher than 20 milliseconds, comparably-sized OLEDs can attain latencies less than .01 millisecond.