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This line says it all... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'll believe that it's the 'death of plasma' when I see it, not when the company touting the technology is just trying to pump up their pending IPO.
Re:This line says it all... (Score:5, Funny)
'this company's stock is about to explode, buy now'
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Re:This line says it all... (Score:5, Funny)
You're just a cynic. Obviously this isn't hype.
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Re:This line says it all... (Score:5, Funny)
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And displayed beside a conventional 50 inch plasma TV this afternoon, the Mitsubishi-built prototype does appear brighter and clearer than its "older" rival.
Absolutely vapourware! No prototypes exist for this at all, and because they don't exist a company like, say, Mitsubishi could never have built one.
Re:This line says it all... (Score:5, Insightful)
Look at the TVs in shops - they look awful, but it's the same technology, just setup poorly.
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Re:This line says it all... (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, some entrepeneurs will push the envelope when trying to introduce something new. I used to work at Mitel Corp, which made business telephone systems. After much pre-announcement, we were supposed to roll out our SX-200 at a major trade show. Unfortunately, the software wasn't fully debugged, and so the thing didn't work properly. So Terry Matthews (that's Sir Terry now, of course) went out, bought a NorTel SL-1, and installed it at the back of the booth behind a curtain. They ran cables out to the SX-200, which was to all intents and purposes an empty shell. Everyone thought the SX-200 was fantastic, we got a lot of pre-orders, and when the software was debugged just a few months later, the SX-200 became one of the most successful PBX's of all time.
So there's certainly precedent for the idea of presenting something as a "done deal" while it's still in development. The question is, will the Laser TV actually appear in the market, as the SX-200 did?
And will we need goggles to watch it? The goggles.. they do nothing!
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Re:This line says it all... (Score:5, Insightful)
Laser TV technology is definitely NOT vaporware. The technology is already here. Now, the claims of quality may be a bit hyped at this moment, but given the intensity possible with laser light, I fully expect the laser tv to be an amazing display when all the bugs get worked out.
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Re:This line says it all... (Score:5, Insightful)
Apparently, this guy [com.com] already saw the TV in action and was pretty impressed:
His post is a comment on another news story [com.com] about the technology. Of course, take it with a grain of salt since nothing stops a company's marketing guy from posting as Joe Internet.
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Re:This line says it all... (Score:4, Interesting)
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"Laser" TV (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:This line says it all... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:This line says it all... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd rate them as not vapor.
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I live in a mountainous state and if I wanted to buy a plasma to take into the mountains to a relative that lives there, it ain't happening. I have to buy a different rated plasma for the altitude (So says Best Buy, Circuit City, and Frys Electronics in the metropolitan area that has dealt with returns because of people doing exact
DANGER DANGER (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, errrrr damn but I'll miss battlestar
CRT (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:CRT (Score:5, Interesting)
The thing about LCDs and plasma is that they are consistent. There's less art to making a decent one or scaling it up in size, its simply a matter of cost.
Cheap but consistent mediocrity is usually an engineering win. If it can be marketed as "high end", it spells big margins. Think SUV.
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Same here. I've looked at many lcd and plasma TVs, but none of them look good enough to justify their cost. I'd rather stick with a CRT for now. Plus the CRT I have (non-HD) doesn't have that annoying high pitch coming from it.
My first question would be what the source was? Because if the source was non-HD, then certainly no advantage will be evident. My second question is where you checked them out. Usually, in the stores, either the sales staff doesn't know how to set the picture, or they set it on "n
White paper? (Score:3, Interesting)
More info on the optics (Score:3, Interesting)
I found this link on the optical information [optics.org]: red, green & blue lasers.
This is real, and currently the only barrier is that red lasers aren't as stable / powerful / easy to create as blue & green ones.
If Novalux have overcome this, then real TVs using this tech will be on the market in 12-24 months.
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What we want in a TV (Score:5, Insightful)
Not higher frame rates, so it doesn't turn into a blur whenever something moves.
Not more pixels, so it doesn't look like a blur whenever something doesn't move.
Not better content, so I'd actually watch it.
No, what I've always wanted, is more bits per pixel.
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As for frame rate, I'm happy with 24 - though response time of the screen is a serious issue with LCDs -- not so much for my professional work, but as a comsumer the lag really bothers me.
As for content -- I agree, but I think that discussion is orthoganal to this one.
Success of new Display Technologies (Score:5, Insightful)
Even though Plasma looks far better than LCD, the average consumer cannot really distinguish image quality (many consumers prefer a overly color saturated SD display over a well-calibrated HD display).
They plan for this next year, SED has been planning to enter the market for several years, too.
The problem for all of them is that some companies like Panasonic are able through mass-production and new factories to really push the price down for Plasma displays.
If they can make screens even flatter and brighter and at a low price, it might have a chance to succeed.
If it is just an expensive, better looking device, it can only survive in a fringe market.
Don't expect miracles (Score:4, Interesting)
We have incredibly humongous content in digital RGB, YUV, PAL, NTSC, movie reel formats. These formats contain only what you can see on an existing TV. Hence an DVD would look as vibrant on a normal plasma as on this laser.
Now of course things are not as simple, since for advertising purposes they'll scale the range up to demo the colors. If they overdo it though, they'll just skew the picture too much and receive at grotesque results.
There's a point where a tech is just "good enough" and color representation of a *modern* TFT (notice the stress) or plasma is sufficient.
Laser TV's may succeed if one or more of the following are met though:
- longer life, more durable
- less power consumption
- more portable (?)
- cheaper
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If they can do this and this alone, it'll sell the TVs.
They also claim less power consumption and less depth, so it's 'more portable' as well. And cheaper.
But then,
Re:Don't expect miracles (Score:4, Informative)
They look kinda suspicious to me. Their page is nothing more than 3-4 template pages touting proud statements like "Industry sources estimate will be huge in 2009".
Their domain doesn't reflect their company name. Worst branding example yet? No sane company would use "lightbit.com" for their official company domain when their name is "arasor".
A normnal company might register a promotional domain but won't make that their main domnain.
Last but not least, they try to pull it off as if they have monopoly over laser TV technology, but they actually have a lot of competitors with actual products to show, such as Novalux, Mitsubishi etc.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
you miss a very important point....
Nothing we have ca CAPTURE an image at 99.99% of what we can see. not even the absolute best digital film camera on the planet can even get close to what the eye can see.
so having a display that can show something that can not be captured... yay! that is useful!
Speckle problem (Score:5, Informative)
Extended field trails on psychophysical effects are needed before such technology is approved by FDA or equivalent regulatory organizaiton.
Re:Speckle problem (Score:4, Informative)
single small aperture and that the collimated beam expands. The cop speed lasers found a trivial way around that test even though optics that give an equivalent beam at 100 meters wouldn't be allowed. Some lasers are allowed for use in public but only for about 20 minutes according to that finely worded law.
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The color it reproduces best (Score:4, Funny)
Colour gamut (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem with the extended colour gamut of the new system is that existing source material is based on the sRGB colour space, which encompasses roughly 35% of the eye's gamut. Anything shorter wavelength than blue, such as spectral violet; many saturated greens and oranges, and most cyans are not available, and the nearest colour is used.
We're all used to this, so when a violet flower is shown as purple (red + blue) on our displays, we don't question it. But try putting a vase of violets next to your TV and you'll see the difference.
Some proper digital photography setups try to improve on the situation using colour profiles, which is simply a lookup table to transform the RGB colours in the file to absolute colour values.
Digital cameras can record colours outside sRGB, so if you ensure your workflow never enforces that constraint, you can end up with a file that can be printed using colours your monitor can't see.
Typically, the input file (usually a raw camera file) is transformed via a device profile (representing the camera's actual spectral response) into a working space (a device-independent space for editing). Whilst editing, the image is viewed using a transform to sRGB (or your display's output profile, if you've calibrated it), but this restriction is for viewing only and doesn't change the file. Then, when you print, the image is converted via a device profile for your printer to print to the extremes of its capabilities - which may exceed sRGB in some colours (e.g. cyan), and be even worse in others (e.g. pure blue).
To make use of this new TV system, we'd need something similar - wide-gamut source material, and device profiles for each set (or simply assume sRGB as default, for backwards-compatibility). Otherwise, it's like listening to music mixed for cheap portable radios (i.e. most current CDs) on a real hi-fi system.
Re:Colour gamut (Score:5, Informative)
Typically, the input file (usually a raw camera file) is transformed via a device profile (representing the camera's actual spectral response) into a working space (a device-independent space for editing). Whilst editing, the image is viewed using a transform to sRGB (or your display's output profile, if you've calibrated it), but this restriction is for viewing only and doesn't change the file. Then, when you print, the image is converted via a device profile for your printer to print to the extremes of its capabilities - which may exceed sRGB in some colours (e.g. cyan), and be even worse in others (e.g. pure blue).
Most 6 or 7 component inkjets can go well beyond sRGB gamut.
Life stops being simple and nice once you take that step, thought. With AdobeRGB for example, you cannot share any of your images with your friends or print them in commercial shops unless the recipient can handle color profiles properly. XP image preview actually can, but none of the browsers do.
True, you can change the profile but unless you've got full photoshop, it's more conversion steps as the freeware utilities that I'm aware of can only do TIFF and JPG.
2nd hurdle is actually getting the photos to print. You have to be able to bypass all windows color management (which uses sRGB) and use photoshop (or photoshop elements) to print, which needs to have the profile for your printer AND photo paper for things to work right.
As an end result, you *may* get images of a lagoon or something that has deeper hues your commercial print shop would print. But how many of images like that "ordinary" people have in the 1st place?
There are even wider gamuts as AdobeRGB still doesn't surpass what you can see. I think PhotoPro will show all the colors (reference) eye can see and in fact quite a lot it can't, since color vision is not nice and linear.
Bottom line is, unless you're absolutely sure what you're doing, stick with the sRGB! Going with AdobeRGB or similar will make your photos look WORSE unless the rest of the cain supports it.
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As to the browers, you are correct. However, this is more a problem of a lack of web standards than a brows
Mitsubishi demoed this in February (Score:5, Interesting)
Where do those 30-35% and 90% numbers come from? (Score:4, Informative)
n the first place, I seriously doubt that there's any meaningful way of measuring the "percentage coverage" of a gamut of colors, since the mapping of colors into a plane is somewhat arbitrary and there are two very different systems in wide use. I notice that this comparison of Adobe RGB vs. sRGB [cambridgeincolour.com] doesn't try to estimate any "percentages."
Neither does Poynton's invaluable Color FAQ. [poynton.com]
Second, if we're talking about something like "area included in the CIE xy plane by thus and such system of reproduction" as a percentage of "area included by the entire spectrum," I seriously doubt that you can get a number anything like 90% with only three primaries. You're still trying to approximate a blobby blunt shape with an inscribed triangle.
The article is so vague on details that it's not clear how many primary colors are used. If it uses six primaries instead of three, I'm prepared to believe it could give meaningfully better color than traditional systems. How important that is remains to be seen. HDTV gives obviously, dramatically better picture quality (in terms of resolution) than traditional TV, but it doesn't seem to be setting the world on fire.
The big question, of course, is where one would find program material encoded with more than three primaries; it would need to be specially recorded for this system (requiring new video, broadcast, and optical disk standards).
The Blue DPSS Laser Power? (Score:5, Informative)
The new breakthrough is that we have solid state Diode Pumped Solid State lasers (specifically high power DPSS), you should be familiar with the 532nm green laser pointers. The green is achived through frequency doubling 1064nm infared DPSS lasers. Red lasers need not be frequency doubled because they can manufacture Diode lasers to that frequency and is available in higher power ranges. Blue DPSS lasers were developed, usign 808nm infared lasers frequency doubled, the power available is still really low, (and I can't wait to rip apart a blue ray drive to get the laser out!) and the lasers are extremely expensive. Hopefully with greater production of blue lasers the prices will go down.
The next issue to deal with in the U.S. (I don't know austrailian law) lasers are regulated by the FDA and any laser over the power of 5mw that exposes radiation to the public has to have an FDA varience to legally operate. I am wondering how this TV would be classified. I really would prefer a solid state DPSS laser projector to replace easily broken, expensive to maintain, LCD projectors. If you need more information about this technology sam's laser faq, and the guys at alt.lasers are nice and answer questions.
Peace,
Adam
Re:That's intense (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:That's intense (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:That's intense (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:That's intense (Score:4, Interesting)
I was wondering about that! It didn't seem feasible to me (given my limited knowledge on the technology) that they would've been able to "tune" a laser's frequency rapidly enough to scan the entire display. That's many millions of different "frequencies" per second! That's exactly what I was hoping for until I read TFA, which didn't seem to mentioned that at all.
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Re:That's intense (Score:5, Insightful)
Probably they use 3 laser diodes here in primary colors in to create an RGB image on a white phosphor screen. The lasers can be modulated in an analogue way, so it will have better intensity dynamics than LCD.
Also, the pixels will be sharper, because you don't need 3 phosphor colors and a mask (one pixel instead of RGB pixels). Using mirrors, they can fold the path of the screen and create thin TVs.
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Would it seem rather that the near 3-fold increase they are are talking about is the ratio of the areas of the two shapes in this [wikipedia.org] graph? So it's not all about brightness then...
I'd expect that many people, like me, are so used to subconsciously compensating for the inadequacies of normal displays that they hardly see the deficiencies compared to real life. I'm looking forward to se
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What, and you believe that?
It costs half the price of a plasma? Yeah, I'll believe that when I see it. You really think if this tech actually works they'll sell it that level? No. Better picture - more expensive. Smaller/lighter - more expensive. Combine the two.. get ready to mortgag
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Manufacturing cost has nothing to do with it - things are *not* sold for what they cost to produce. They are sold for what people are prepared to pay.
Incorrect. Things are sold at a price to maximize profits. As price goes up, you'll attract less people to buy your product. These guys don't have a monopoly on televisions, so people will just buy something else if it's too expensive. I just bought a new TV and didn't even consider the HDTV sets because it was just too expensive. I could have afforded it
Re:Is it RP TV? (Score:4, Informative)
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