[potshot]

I didn't know where to put this, there used to be a thread.

Here is a laser tv in action.


http://www.laser-tvs.co.uk/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DS6wsJRGqnQ


Its is still being said xmas for america and mid 2008 uk.

Saying that has anybody else heard anything more about laser TV, most of the google search's bring up articles back to 2006.

[Mr_Fantastic]

Sounds great if you have the space necessary but for the majority of UK homes I doubt it will be much use. It does sound like it is a form of projection technology so I would imagine it will require room for the laser projector some distance from the screen. No one and nothing in the way = large space.

Something more compact is needed IMO.

[Otto J]

Originally Posted by Mr_Fantastic

Sounds great if you have the space necessary but for the majority of UK homes I doubt it will be much use. It does sound like it is a form of projection technology so I would imagine it will require room for the laser projector some distance from the screen. No one and nothing in the way = large space.

Something more compact is needed IMO.

Actually, in the long term Laser projection has the capability of projection onto a surface from any angle. This means that it's possible to create not only better projection (front or rear), but to make rear projection tv's as flat as LCD or plasma's (at least in theory). I suspect it will still have the disadvantages of any other rear projection regarding viewing angle etc, at least the prototypes I've seen did. Re: Front projection, laser projection has the capability of mounting the projector on a wall, projecting the picture up on the same wall it's being mounted on! Imagine a wall mounted 32 inch LCD for TV viewing, with a projector on top which will project a 100" picture on the wall for movie viewing. Lasers will revolutionize the projection business, opening up new ways to think about projection. If it will actually mean that we get better picture quality remains to be seen... No technology will producen high quality pictures, if the manufacturer don't care about displaying pictures accurately. High contrast and wide color gamut doesn't do it alone - Pioneer already has this, on top of the possibility of a fairly accurate picture. Without accuracy, no new technology will touch Pioneer's position.

What about viewing angle?

Will it be as good as a plasma's viewing angle?

[Otto J]

Originally Posted by Phantoma

What about viewing angle?

Will it be as good as a plasma's viewing angle?

I would believe that viewing angle would depend on the projection screen, not the technology behind it. So, if the same screen is used, you'll have the same viewing angle as a DLP or DILA rear-projection set (which means nowhere near as good as plasma). However, laser may introduce new ways of thinking about rear projection, so perhaps we will see new and improved rear-projection screen technology with better viewing angles, as the laser technology evolves.

[joshua_bond]

More general info here....

http://lsrtv.com/lasertv/wordpress/about/

I wonder if I should wait. before forking out.

[buccaneer]

Wouldn't hold your breath over seeing it anytime soon. If it was as good and as cheap as they say I would of thought they'd be far much more noise made about it. Any new technology has its initial bugs to, so i'm not sure i'd even want a 1st gen model. I still haven't got an LCD or plasma yet and they still have their drawbacks.

This article:

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquir...killer-delayed

refers to this one:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/technolog...036860110.html

which says:

"Laser TV was supposed to debut this Christmas and relegate the humble plasma to the scrap heap, but now it is unlikely that Australians will be able to buy one before at least 2009.

The technology's main proponent, Mitsubishi Digital Electronics, has told the television industry to expect a major laser TV announcement at a US trade show in January, but it is not yet clear how long after that they will go on sale there.

..."

[NicolasB]

Originally Posted by Mr_Fantastic

Sounds great if you have the space necessary but for the majority of UK homes I doubt it will be much use. It does sound like it is a form of projection technology so I would imagine it will require room for the laser projector some distance from the screen. No one and nothing in the way = large space.

Laser TVs will be very much like current rear-projection TVs. In fact they will be exactly like them, except that they will use three lasers as a light source rather than a single bulb with coloured filters.

This provides a number of advantages, including better contrast and more accurate colours.

Originally Posted by Phantoma

What about viewing angle?

Will it be as good as a plasma's viewing angle?

No.

[Otto J]

Originally Posted by NicolasB

This provides a number of advantages, including better contrast and more accurate colours.

Accurate colors? Only if the design of the tv allows it. Most available technologies have reached the HD color space by now, there is no need to extend it further, unless we start seeing X.V.Color source material soon (which I seriously doubt that we will)

[Welwynnick]

The Samsung LED RPTVs have a reputation for the best colours around when properly calibrated, and laser should be slightly better. The advantage is that the output of the light source is engineered rather than adapted.

UHP bulbs produce a spectrum of light from violet through red. It's generally low on red, and it has to be filtered to get what you want. The filters are pretty broad, and transmit a range of colour, rather than a specific wavelength.

The colours available to generate the end colour are therefore mixed from three "splodges" of what are already mixtures of primaries, rather than the specific colours that the camera originally captured. With "point source" primaries, the TV will be able to generate precisely what the video signal calls for. Nothing to do with the gamut (though that can pretty much be whatever you want it to be with lasers - the points can be anywhere around the periphery of the usual CIE chromaticity chart, so anywhere inside can be accurately re-created).

Nick

[Tyler Durden]

Originally Posted by Mr_Fantastic

Sounds great if you have the space necessary but for the majority of UK homes I doubt it will be much use. It does sound like it is a form of projection technology so I would imagine it will require room for the laser projector some distance from the screen. No one and nothing in the way = large space.

Something more compact is needed IMO.

In the video by the OP, it says they will be the same thickness as current flat panel TV's

[Otto J]

Originally Posted by Tyler Durden

In the video by the OP, it says they will be the same thickness as current flat panel TV's

Laser has infinite focus. As I understand it, this means that it is possible to project the image from a very steep angle, so you can make a rear-pro as flat as current LCD's. I'd guess the first ones coming to market would be based on more current technologies, so they won't be as flat yet, but that's pure speculation. In any case, it's not something that'll hit the shelves next month anyway.

[nomadd]

Originally Posted by buccaneer

I still haven't got an LCD or plasma yet and they still have their drawbacks.

I felt the same way until I purchased my Pio Kuro 42" about 2 months ago. No drawbacks that I've noticed. Blows my old Sony CRT out of the water.

Remember, you've gotta buy sometime! :-)

Nomadd

[erikaustria1974]

Company Outsources “Necsel” Wafer Processing to Ramp-Up for High-Volume Consumer Display Applications.

Novalux, Inc., developer of Necsel™ laser technology, has sold its Sunnyvale wafer fabrication facility to an undisclosed Silicon Valley company in a transaction that closed November 21, 2007. Novalux is now outsourcing Necsel wafer processing to large-capacity contract manufacturers in Taiwan. This is a key step in the company’s transition from low-volume prototype manufacturing to mass-producing lasers for high-volume consumer electronics applications.

http://www.oled-display.info/novalux...lley-wafer-fab

Originally Posted by potshot

I didn't know where to put this, there used to be a thread.

Here is a laser tv in action.

Its is still being said xmas for america and mid 2008 uk.

Saying that has anybody else heard anything more about laser TV, most of the google search's bring up articles back to 2006.

Having just sold a 61" rear projector I have to say there is no way I'd ever buy one again. Power consumption was ~350w - I had to remember to switch it off at the wall because even in standby it ate 160w and my electricity bills were astronomical.

Rear projection is a last-gen technology IMO. Too big and consume too much power.

Personally, I would be more interested in having a laser projector than a rear projection TV.

[joshua_bond]

Hopefully we should see a demo at the electronics show in Vegas later on this month

[NicolasB]

Originally Posted by MrWTF

Having just sold a 61" rear projector I have to say there is no way I'd ever buy one again. Power consumption was ~350w - I had to remember to switch it off at the wall because even in standby it ate 160w and my electricity bills were astronomical.

Rear projection is a last-gen technology IMO. Too big and consume too much power.

My SXRD rear pro burns 0.5W in stand-by mode, and uses less power than any plasma or LCD when running. Laser- or LED-powered devices would be even more efficient. Power consumption really is not an issue.

If you're the sort of person who cares far more about a TV being thin than about the quality of the picture, that's your prerogative; but not everyone agrees with you. (Sadly enough people do agree with you that rear pro is rapidly dying out in this country ).

[plague1392]

Originally Posted by MrWTF

Rear projection is a last-gen technology IMO. Too big and consume too much power.

Neither of your criticisms are valid. As is stated in many of the laser TV articles and as Otto J has already pointed out laser TVs will be as thin as LCD or plasma sets so size is not an issue.

Your second point is a bit like saying all cars use too much fuel because your Dodge Ram only gets 14mpg. Just because one model of RPTV used 160w on standby it doesn't mean that all RPTVs are energy inefficient; it just means the model you had was either very poorly designed or possibly faulty. Besides, laser based RPTVs are considerably more energy efficient than lamp based sets since the light is finely focused so most of it ends up on the screen instead of being lost. As a result much less light is required to be genreated than in lamp sets to produce an image of the same brightness.

It sounds like you've written it off before reading anything about it as to me this sounds extremely promising, with a greater colour gamut, more accurate colours, energy efficiency and (when combined with a DLP chip) instant response times and less likelihood of imperfections such as dead pixels and vertical banding. I'm really looking forward to seeing what Mitsubishi announce. I just hope TI get their act together and stop selling those wobbulated chips.

[NicolasB]

Originally Posted by plague1392

I just hope TI get their act together and stop selling those wobbulated chips.

What exactly do you have against wobulation?

[plague1392]

Originally Posted by NicolasB

What exactly do you have against wobulation?

Wobulation is a technology developed by HP to cut down the size, and thus cust, of DLP chips. All current 1080p DLP RPTVs use a chip with a physical resolution of 960x1080 mirrors and each mirror addresses for two pixels. I'm not completely clear on how this is done but I think it's something to do with "wobbling" the chip side to side once for each frame so each mirror can project the two pixels it's responsible for.

You may know it as SmoothPicture since that's what TI called it after they licneced the technology of HP.

[NicolasB]

Originally Posted by plague1392

Wobulation is a technology developed by HP to cut down the size, and thus cust, of DLP chips. All current 1080p DLP RPTVs use a chip with a physical resolution of 960x1080 mirrors and each mirror addresses for two pixels. I'm not completely clear on how this is done but I think it's something to do with "wobbling" the chip side to side once for each frame so each mirror can project the two pixels it's responsible for.

I know perfectly well what it is, thank you very much.

(The way it works, incidentally, is that each mirror has three possible positions rather than two: instead of "reflecting light to pixel" and "off", there is "reflecting light to pixel 1", "reflecting light to pixel 2" and "off").

My question was: why do you have a problem with it?

[plague1392]

Originally Posted by NicolasB

My question was: why do you have a problem with it?

Sorry, I misread your earlier post. What I have against it is if you compare a wobbulated and non-wobbulated 720p DLP set the non-wobbulated version will have a clearer, more focused image. If, as I assume you believe, there's no degradation of the image from wobbulation then why would TI have bothered to release a non-wobbulated 720p chip? Clearly if there was no disadvantage they would have stuck with wobbulated chips to keep production costs down.

Anyway, I think that's going a bit off topic. Has anyone found any news related to the laser TVs yet?

[NicolasB]

Originally Posted by plague1392

Sorry, I misread your earlier post. What I have against it is if you compare a wobbulated and non-wobbulated 720p DLP set the non-wobbulated version will have a clearer, more focused image.

Yes, but that's only true of the first-generation 720p devices. They are fairly cr*p in a number of ways: the contrast ratio is pretty dismal too. But 1080p wobulated sets don't suffer from any of those issues. I suspect your objection to wobulated 1080p systems is based more on prejudice than observation - and I bring it up only because you were giving MrWTF such a hard time for doing pretty much exactly the same thing about RP in general.

Originally Posted by plague1392

If, as I assume you believe, there's no degradation of the image from wobbulation then why would TI have bothered to release a non-wobbulated 720p chip? Clearly if there was no disadvantage they would have stuck with wobbulated chips to keep production costs down.

I think it took them a while to get wobulation working; IIRC the non-wobulated 720p chips came out before the wobulated ones, not after; wobulation is a way to achieve similar quality at a lower cost.

Probably a better question would be, why do they use non-wobulated 1080p chips in front projection systems? I suspect the answer to that is at least partly "because they can"; 3-chip DLP projectors still sell for 5-figure sums, while 1080p DLP televisions (in the US) sell for less than comparable plasma screens do.

If there is a difference in quality it's something that will only show up when you blow up the picture to the sort of size used in high-end front-projection systems: 1080p DLP RPTVs get very good reviews, and certainly don't exhibit any of the problems associated with wobulated 720p.

Originally Posted by plague1392

Anyway, I think that's going a bit off topic. Has anyone found any news related to the laser TVs yet?

I'm still too depressed to look because of Sony's announcement that they're abandoning RPTVs entirely. I was really looking forward to seeing what a laser-driven SXRD rear pro TV would be like, and they had previously said that next year's model was going to be laser-powered. Now there won't even be a next year's model at all.

[plague1392]

Originally Posted by NicolasB

I bring it up only because you were giving MrWTF such a hard time for doing pretty much exactly the same thing about RP in general.

My prejudiced is based on seeing a wobulated 720p set next to a non-wobulated 720p set since the non-wobulated set definitely gave a sharper image. I this is because the pixels on wobulated sets overlap which was apparently an intentional decision made to eliminate the screen door (is that the right term for DLP) but for me it made the image look a little too soft.

As you say things have probably improved, the problem is I have never had the oppertunity to compare a wobulated and non-wobulated 1080p RPTV and neither has anyone else. Until that oppertunity arises I can only continue to base my decision on what I saw with the older 720p TI chips.

That said, if I'm completely honest you are correct and the fact that the chip has only half the physical pixels of the image it's projecting isn't something that makes me particularly enthusaistic

Originally Posted by NicolasB

I'm still too depressed to look because of Sony's announcement that they're abandoning RPTVs entirely. I was really looking forward to seeing what a laser-driven SXRD rear pro TV would be like, and they had previously said that next year's model was going to be laser-powered. Now there won't even be a next year's model at all.

I haven't owned an SXRD set but I'm rather put off by all the pictures I've seeon of sets with terrible colour uniformity, sets with misaligned pixels and sets with vertical banding and have read too many reports about the colours being over saturated. DLP doesn't suffer from these problems and with a laser light engine doesn't need a colour wheel and eliminates rainbows so seems to be the ideal technology for laser lighting.

Saldy I've seen no news of Mitsubishi's rumoured laser lit DLP TV announement yet. In fact the closest news I've seen is this which contains no news at all. The thread on AVS is also equally devoid of information. Most CES news is about displays which are extremely thin which I really don't care about becuase I don't tend to watch a television from the side.

[LV426]

Moderator's Comment

Here endeth the off-topic discussion about the benefits or otherwise of DLP wobbulation, thanks.

[stevenmu]

Quick impression of a mitsubishie demo from engadget
http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/08/m...r-tv-unveiled/

Summary: "At first glance the colors were sensational and the contrast was extremely intense; and although we were hard pressed to see anything that struck us as groundbreaking, we'll need to see this side by side with a traditional set to really know what we're looking at."

No price or firm release date, just "aiming for 2008".

[[nothing]]

Originally Posted by plague1392

Anyway, I think that's going a bit off topic. Has anyone found any news related to the laser TVs yet?

Indeedy, here it is:

Looks nice, although they didn't give away any information about it at all. It was also seen here looking all shiny before the Mitsubishi conference.

[joshua_bond]

Mits is scre**** with our heads. I have any eye on this technology for some time now; but info is a bit thin on the ground. They really need to flog this one given that other new tech is not really evident for mass market appeal.