Dont know where else to put this:

http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/14092

Is this a flat-panel or rear projection tech?

[Mr.D]

They've tried laser display technologies before but the main problem is modulating the brightness of the spot , lasers tend to either be on or off so to modulate the brightness you have to flicker them and lasers generally don't like being flickered and you have latency problems with the speed at which you can turn the laser on and off.

Multiply that by three for each colour and then maintain the target spot size and the flicker rate between all three lasers... very expensive , very limited technology that doesn't perform as well as more established techs and costs a fortune.

The gamut is also likely to be severely limited in relation to traditional display types ( even plasma and LCD which aren't that greaton gamut anyway)

[Alun]

Originally Posted by Mr.D

They've tried laser display technologies before but the main problem is modulating the brightness of the spot , lasers tend to either be on or off so to modulate the brightness you have to flicker them and lasers generally don't like being flickered and you have latency problems with the speed at which you can turn the laser on and off.

Multiply that by three for each colour and then maintain the target spot size and the flicker rate between all three lasers... very expensive , very limited technology that doesn't perform as well as more established techs and costs a fortune.

The gamut is also likely to be severely limited in relation to traditional display types ( even plasma and LCD which aren't that greaton gamut anyway)

Not sure there, we have a 2.5Gb/s network using lasers. turn on and off pretty quickly.

Agree on the cost front though.

[Mr.D]

Originally Posted by Alun

Not sure there, we have a 2.5Gb/s network using lasers. turn on and off pretty quickly.

Not at any sort of brightness that would suitable for imaging purposes though.

[Alun]

Point taken

[fatbloke99]

Well, they seem to be claiming higher brightness, less power...and a much increased gamut. All for less than Plasma.

I'll wait until it's working and in the shops at a sensible price, then buy one. My plasma can go in the bedroom

it's funny in one article they reckon they will be priced under $1000US for a 50inch.

[HarshKarma]

My understanding from reading some of the articles is that initially the laser light will simply replace the white light in an RPTV (out sometime in 2007). They were talking about 10 inches depth, too big I think to 'hang on the wall', so plasma/LCD will still have a market.

There seemed to be two major advantages - firstly the increased colour range and secondly, the light unit itself will last the life of the TV, so no more changing bulbs and (I'm assuming) no more light reduction as the bulb age increases.

Interestingly, my first thought on reading all this was "are there any devices capable of recording/sending a signal with this increased colour range?" If HD-DVD/Blueray can't and laser light becomes the new standard how long are they going to last before the 'new, improved colour range deviceX become available?' Does anybody know the colour range current devices can handle and how easy/hard it would be to record/send an increased colour signal?

[HarshKarma]

Meant to say that they were talking about DLP RPTV sets.

Presumably the next step would be to put them in DLP Projectors. Now I'm making some guesses here but *I* think they're logical - do you? And can you think of any others?

With the laser lasting the life of the set, the whole light unit could be sealed, since there's no longer a bulb to change. This would also remove any/most issues of dust.

I would expect the laser light to not need fan cooling and convection cooling should be enough for the other electronics - so no more fans.

As the laser is RGB you wouldn't need a colour wheel (?) - at least with 3 chip designs. With 1 chip designs, each laser colour (RGB) could have it's own 'iris' - assuming the iris is fast enough - or they my have overcome the on/off problem that Mr D mentioned, in which case there may be no need for a 3 chip design at all?.

I don't own a DLP Projector (or RPTV for that matter) so I don't know of any of the practicality issues. I also don't know a huge amount about the DLP technology itself, so take these 'guesses' with a pinch of salt.

I'd be interested in other peoples' takes on where this tech could go...

[gandley]

the Gamut will be increased by almost 60% of what the eye can see over current tech, also image brightness is increased. weight and depth is almost half of an equal sized plasma.

( a side to this is that TI is already said to have a working prototype DLP FP with coloued lights and not white, so soon the dreaded colour wheel will be gone, though im not sure if this is LCD, or laser based.)

Novalux also also pushing laser based tech

"Gregory Niven of Novalux discussed laser illumination, another technology being touted as a light source for PTVs though it's over a year away from commercial realization. Lasers, he argued, will last indefinitely with no change over time, may be designed with lumen output scalable to very high levels, including the 20,000 Lumens or higher needed for D-Cinema. It also boasts a wide viewing angle, high contrast, a wide color gamut, low power requirements, reduced weight, and, presumably in production quantities, lower cost. He predicted that 7-10 companies are likely to show laser display prototypes at the January 2007 CES, with commercial designs becoming available by the end of 2007. "

I believe Novalux is working with Epson and TI

But the laser tech has really advanced, its coming and very soon by the looks of it.

[gandley]

Also quoted from Novalux,

AFFORDABLE
Our platform reduces light engine cost on several levels:

* Necsel light sources are more affordable than current pricing of UHP lamps.

* Our sources enable simpler, smaller, less costly light engines. With DLP™ systems, our technology eliminates the need for a color wheel, light tunnel and relay optics. For 3LCD engines, we eliminate the polarizers, color filters, turning mirrors and fly eye lenses.

* They enable less costly microdisplay panels. Our sources project all of their light onto even the smallest microdisplays without a reduction in coupling efficiency. Reducing microdisplay size reduces their cost.

* Our low étendue sources emit at narrow angles, allowing simpler, more affordable projection optics

[Alun]

So realisticly(sp) its not going to be long till we have 'proper 3d' tv's?

Every living room an imax

[jcw1407]

I'm actually in Sydney this week at the unveiling of the first 50" model using this technology, developed by an Aussie company Arasor with Mitsubishi. It is rear projection, but the display is flatter than a plasma, much lighter and really looks tremendous, with a tiny bezel, it's probably the best looking flat panel I've ever seen, if i can sneak a few photos tomorrow, I'll get them posted, but there are guards checking for cameras everywhere :-(.

And as for the image quality, it simply blew me away, it's 1920 x 1080 progressive, the blacks were black, the colours vivid and I couldn't see any flickering. Panasonic, Pioneer and Samsung were all here in Sydney, all promising sets for Christmas 2007, and all significantly cheaper than current Plasma. To say I can't wait is an understatement.

To see them yourself, apparently these will be the big unveilings at the next CES

Cheers
James

[jcw1407]

Actually you can see them - I should have my own TV company instead of being a techy :-)

See http://www.arasor.com.au/investor/prospectus.asp for videos that were on Channel9 and 10 over here. Clearly you won't be able to see the real quality difference, but at least you can see it's not vapourware.

[Mr.D]

Interesting how lacking in contrast it was compared to the : I assume, plasma next to it.
And it appeared to be flickering relative to the plasma as well.

As for colour ...nothing matches the real world for colour , what that bloke said was meaningless with regard to a video display device.

[gregh]

so how likely are these TV's to be available by Xmas 2007??

[jcw1407]

I think the flicker might be a TV camera scanning artefact, the image was rock steady, and the contrast was good, admittedly it looks a bit more washed out in bright light than plasma, so that may be a problem.

[Mr.D]

Originally Posted by jcw1407

I think the flicker might be a TV camera scanning artefact,

Which is worrying as the plasma doesn't exhibit this on the same footage.

[gandley]

Thanks for your comments, sounds fantastic, more so that a few more names are jumping on the technology.

2007 will be very interesting and i look forward to CES

[Welwynnick]

Are laser TVs really that much of a big deal? My understanding was that they simply used solid state lasers (not unlike LEDs, but with coherent rather than narrow-band light output) to illuminate a conventional digital micromirror. I think this would have great potential advantages. Mitsubishi have already hinted that they may take advantage of the ability to modulate the source to provide much better contrast than has been achieved with RPTVs so far. That would really be worthwhile.

The disadvantage that I've heard relates to the coherent light - there are constuctive/destructive interference problems caused by the single wavelength (per colour) that results in a speckling effect. Still, keeping my eyes and ears peeled...

Nick

[NicolasB]

Originally Posted by welwynnick

The disadvantage that I've heard relates to the coherent light - there are constuctive/destructive interference problems caused by the single wavelength (per colour) that results in a speckling effect. Still, keeping my eyes and ears peeled...

If you read the Novalux website, they're quite insistent that by using 30 or so lasers on the same chip, they eliminate speckle.

It's rather an ingenious system, actually. Rather than trying to use red, green and blue diode lasers (which are a pain to get working, especially the blue) they use conventional infra-red diode-lasers that are then frequency-doubled.

I'm also fascinated by their "pocket projector" concept: the idea is to have something no bigger than a mobile phone that it is capable of projecting a sizeable image on any convenient surface (such as the nearest wall). That would be brilliant for phone or PDA displays, or even laptops.

[Reign-Mack]

would not mind a laser projector

[arfster]

Originally Posted by Reign-Mack

would not mind a laser projector

Wouldn't much fancy walking through the projection beam though..... **clasps eyes, screams in pain**

[Reign-Mack]

Well its stupid to look directly into an LCD,DLP or CRT projector, so you would get what you deserve (along with a Darwin award) for doing the same with lasers.

[Welwynnick]

I'm changing my mind on this one. It seems like laser TVs may be the biggest thing since DMDs. It may even be very suitable for DILA / SXRD micro-displays, and better than LEDs. The key thing seems to be scalability - the substrates can be manufactured with as many sources as you like, giving whatever brightness you want in principle. They may be little more efficient than LED or UHP, but the filtering and/optical coupling losses are very much better, so you get a cheap, bright, reliable, display with low power consumption. But the really exciting thing for me is that the source CAN be modulated quickly enough to do something approaching real black. Same ANSI contrast, but fantastic nonetheless.

For what it's worth (and in case anyone is under any misaprehensions) the laser does not scan the screen. A single, small, source array illuminates a DMD that reflects through optics onto a large rear-projection screen. The configuration is much like an LED DLP RPTV, except that the laser chip illuminates the DMD directly, as the light is already collimated (and polarised). It's also tunable and very narrow-band, so the primary colours can be precise points anywhere round the edge of the CIE chomaticity chart, rather than being three spodges somewhere within the chart.

I suspect laser sources would make good front projectors, too. I like the sound of this.

Nick

http://www.smarthouse.com.au/TVs_And...ustry/R7J2X7Q3

All a scam?

[Moviebuff]

If you were holding your breath for LTV, then that doesn't make for good reading,

That was a good find Ciaran.

[Welwynnick]

Originally Posted by Ciaran500

http://www.smarthouse.com.au/TVs_And...ustry/R7J2X7Q3

All a scam?

No, not at all; this is mis-information.

Like any global conglomerate, there are lots of automonmous Mitsubishi companies, all working independantly of each other, and largely ignorant of what ALL the other cmopanies are doing.

The Mitsubishi they are talking about there I believe is Mitsubishi Australia, who probably make air-conditioners and not TVs. Mitsubishi have already demonstrated a prototype laser TV at CEDIA this year, and have stated that they plan to launch production in autumn next year.

This is for real.

Nick

[gandley]

Agree with Nick, and while i cant speak for Arasor, Novalux is very much a real company and is developing laser/LCD tech at full speed.

I would expect annoucments at CES 2007 or a little later at CEDIA.