Where are TVs heading?

[rhoamish]

I'm not really looking for a definite answer here, just thought I'd like to see what other people think.

Where do you see TVs in 5 years time? I've recently bought a cheap 28" Thomson TV, flat screen, 100Hz, which I'm really pleased with. However, all of these flatscreen tv's are huge in terms of depth, and I'd really have liked to have gone for a plasma, projector or LCD TV, that would free up a bit of floorspace.

However, they're all really expensive at the moment, and it's confusing deciding which technology will out. What do you think? Will CRT TVs still dominate in 5 years time, or will we see lots of homes with plasma, projector or LCD screens? It's amazing how quickly widescreen TVs have dominated the market over the old (6:9?) sets, so I guess the market moves quickly.

Also, I've got a second question. I didn't do too much research before I bought the TV, I just had a look at the picture quality and compared them. I went for 100Hz, because I remembered reading ages ago that it gave a better picture with 100Hz broadcasts. I have to say I like the picture quality on DVDs and Playstation games, but does anyone regularly broadcast 100Hz signals? I've got a sky box, are the digital brodcasts also 100Hz, in line with terrestial broadcasts?

Sorry for the long questions...

 

[LV426]

My guess is that, within 5 years, CRT TVs will be virtually non-existent. Plasma, LCD and possible LED will be dominant.

Re 100hz: All broadcasters (analog and digital) broadcast 50hz. Always have. Probably always will. The signal from a PAL DVD is 50hz. etc.

100hz is done inside the TV. Put simply, it loads each field into a memory and then displays it twice (rather than once). That's how you get 100hz.

 

[JPC]

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Hi There

There is actually a lot of new technology coming along..... and the following are just two that have particular interest to me.

High resolution pictures have been produced on flat pieces of plastic type material by a Cambridge Company for about two or three years now.......
The early ones were just a monochrome (a green picture.)
The last I heard was that they had progressed to a limited colour range.....

Also companies in Japan are having very encouraging success with 3D pictures that can be projected into the room with you (there is no screen!!)......

It is possible to sit in a room without anything in it and have people, scenery, furniture and people moving around you......

This type of technology has been available for almost 20 years now and the United States Government has commandeered an advanced form of it for military purposes........ in that they can project phantom or ghost images into the sky our even miles away that look completely solid.

There was actually an American Physicist on the Radio in the mid 1980's who had been involved with the development of this technology and described how they fooled passers by in a street by causing them to walk around a dog they had projected onto the pavement.... so convincingly solid was the image that was created!!!.

My feelings are that things are moving along so fast that Plasma screens may be very short lived!!...... especially as the plastic type material I have described above is so much cheaper to produce than plasma technology

Regards to all

John Chown

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[Kuni D]

Plasma's I would think will become more mainstream, taking over the roll of the common 28-32" widescreens we see in homes nowadays.

The "new thing" will undoubtably be some form of 3D display (multiple screen, as being tested now, and something like multiple projector, for primitive holography), and organic displays (OLED).