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Sony Pursues New Digital Display Technology
ih8billy writes: "Looks like Sony is looking to replace their now patent-free Trinitron technology with something called GLV (Grating Light Valve) technology. Looks pretty promising as a digital display technology. It can do 1080p without breaking a sweat. GLV also has promise in optical signal routing."
The patent's been dead for at least five years. Actually, as they've been making tv sets since the 60's, and all they made were the trinitrons, the patent's probably been dead for longer. Sorry, but no corporate conspiracy theory here.
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To achieve the scanning; /|\
/|\
GLV Ribbon Rotating Mirror
* -> 0
^
Laser _____________
Display
Laser Rotating GLV Ribbon
---> *
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Display
You can also probably play with diffraction gratings, lenses, mirrors, and other neato optical toys to get the desired effects
Geek dating!
GPL Deconstructed
They already make Trinitron clones. It's called the Mitsubishi Diamondtron. Actually, Sony's (and Mitsubishi, I'm sure) been improving their Trinitron tube since they first started to build TV's with them, so it's obviously not just a matter of getting the patent document and slapping together a factory. There's a reason why Trinitron tubes get OEM'ed to other companies; they just don't have the expertise that Sony invested in for decades to build their tubes.
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OTOH, as Sony moves away from the Trinitron as their flagship product, the prices of the tubes should start to come down.
Though, this development really surprises me. My father is one of the directors @ Sony Display Division, and he mentioned nothing of the sort *shrug*.
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I'm not sure how that effect could be eliminated from a device like this. It would be interesting to see it in action. The interference problem might be a little distracting.
It's also encouraging to hear that they are aiming for ultra-high resolutions like 8 million pixels. We might actually have a digital cinema system in the future that matches the resolution of 35mm film (about 10-12 million pixels). Sounds cool.
Free Hans!
Ok, maybe third!
Anyhow, I managed to snag a 15 inch Trinitron monitor from my apartment complex a couple of years back - someone had left it in the laundry room as a "give away" item. I took it home, plugged it in - screen is completely white - but nothing else seemed wrong. So, I took a gamble:
I took it down to a guy who has a shop repairing small monitors at a flat rate ($100 - larger monitors are a bit more). A week and $100 later, it was fixed (some control ICs were blown).
That has been two years ago - it is a great monitor. I just recently replaced it with a 19 inch Trinitron (KDS monitor) - I will never go with anything else...
*note - side bitch*
Just realized I have "helped" a small portion of the MPAA, since Sony is a member. God I hate how these bastards are EVERYWHERE!
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Bill - aka taniwha
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Bill - aka taniwha
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Leave others their otherness. -- Aratak
I, for one, would be honestly surprised to learn that you did not own several thousand dollars worth of corporation-spawned leisure goods. Do you own a computer? TV? VCR? DVD Player? Stereo? Stereo in your car? CD player in your car? Playstation? Dreamcast? CD player that you can carry around with you? MP3 player that you can carry around with you? Microwave oven? Internet connection? Cell phone? Pager? Handheld computer? Laptop computer? Digital camera? Camcorder? Cordless phone? CD library? DVD library?
You're fooling yourself if you honestly think that the Big Bad Meanie Government is the driving force behind corporate corruption. It's the ever-growing leisure class that drives corporate corruption--companies put the latest and greatest thing out on the shelves and people camp out inside Wal-Mart just to get the first one. It's hard to say that the corporation is raping society when society is clawing it's clothes off like a nymphomaniac. Corporations get away with the crap they do because people just keep throwing money at them.
If you own a DVD player, you've let the RIAA/MPAA win. If you regularly buy CDs, you're part of the pipeline that feeds the recording industry. If you own a Walkman, a Discman, a Vaio, play Everquest, or buy any number of the things Sony puts on the market, then you are part of the hand that feeds Sony. How much do you think a corporation will care about what you think of their business practices if you continue to buy their products, especially when said products are not necessities by any stretch of the imagination?
Sony manufactures consumer goods. To suggest that the government is somehow responsible for their business practices is absurd. Sony does and gets away with what it does because the people care more about getting their toys than they do about the ethics of the corporation. Wake up and smell your own damn complacency.
Its almost laughable
Amen to that.
$ man reality
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
There are probably several different mentods to achieve the scanning;
/|\
/|\
GLV Ribbon Rotating Mirror
* -> 0
^
Laser _____________
Display
Laser Rotating GLV Ribbon
---> *
___________
Display
You can also probably play with diffraction gratings, lenses, mirrors, and other neato optical toys to get the desired effects
You know, this is stupid. Evidently, the lamness filter detects all this neato ascii art, and thinks it shouldn't be posting it... Well, at least I can't preview it, though the messed up non-plaintext version got committed. Maybe I should try again ^^
*sigh*
Geek dating!
GPL Deconstructed
There are probably several different mentods to achieve the scanning;
/|\
/|\
GLV Ribbon Rotating Mirror
* -> 0
^
Laser _____________
Display
Laser Rotating GLV Ribbon
---> *
___________
Display
You can also probably play with diffraction gratings, lenses, mirrors, and other neato optical toys to get the desired effects
You know, this is stupid. Evidently, the lamness filter detects all this neato ascii art, and thinks it shouldn't be posting it... Well, at least I can't preview it, though the messed up non-plaintext version got committed. Maybe I should try again ^^
*sigh*
Geek dating!
GPL Deconstructed
Sony also makes the Spressa line of CD-RW drives, allowing me to make free, digital copies of all their music.
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.
Does anyone know if this GLV tech is what is being used in the fancy "monitor menus" at McDonalds*?
* For those that don't know - here in the Phoenix area (and I guess they are cropping up elsewhere), certain McDonalds have menus displays, instead of the "standard" light up menu - behind the counter. The "menus" can display animations and movies. The resolution seems OK - on par with an 800x600 LCD - maybe better. These displays, though, are much larger (approximately 24 inches diagonally). They aren't that deep - but deeper than what an LCD display would need, but less deep than what a projection system would use (I suppose).
Does anyone know what these displays are and/or who makes them?
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
ahem I ALREADY DID
I've wondered if it shouldn't be possible (or even easy) to set up a mirror that vibrates on two axes, one horizontal and one vertical, and then to point tri-color LEDs at that mirror and focus their converged beams on the wall.
Basically, I figure a 3x3 array of bright LEDs should be more than bright enough, once focused, to illuminate a small pixel space on the wall. Get three of these, one for each color (now that you can find blue LEDs easily), and you've got a full-color pixel. I'd be reluctant to use lasers, both for obvious eye-danger reasons, and also for the (presumed) expense of blue and yellow beams.
In my imaginings, I figure that the horizontal and vertical synch signals could (if properly shaped -- can anyone point me to a site that might show me waveforms for such signals?) even drive a mirror deflector directly -- just hook one corner of a mirror to a pivot point, and hook each of the opposite two edges to a small speaker, and connect the speaker coil to the sync signals (or to re-shaped signals, if necessary).
I'm sure I'm missing something here, but what if I'm not? Could it be possible to build a home-brew HDTV projector for under $300 in parts? Anyone out there care to investigate this further?
Oops... I mis-typed something. The last sentance of the second to last paragraph should be
The speckle from that 'pixel' could be imperceptible, and since the device is being scanned, there is not a large 'surface' of light emitted from the GLV that could interfere in a noticeable way.
Sorry for that error.
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D. Fischer
ShoutingMan.com
Why not? First of all, does your eye accept looking at a monitor sideways?
I think you have a misconception of how CRTs work... Yes they scan sideways but they scan up and down too... side to side, then addvance a line.
--Ben
You haven't heard about this yet, because Sony had no reason to shop around for new technology until the Trinitron patent expired. Now that it has ...
Plus, if you had read the article, you'd have seen that the Silicon Light has actually shopped this technology around to a LOT of different companies ... Sony is the only one that was interested. So if this does end up being the Next Big Thing, then don't blame Sony. Blame all of those other companies that didn't want it.
All CRT's "project" the image onto the tube, duh. The article explains that, and that's why this technology could be usedin regualr monitors.
Oops...didn't mean to mislead you. Yup, the OS needs to be involved at some level (either by doing the authentication, or letting some user-level app do it).
:-/
The Open Source community will be involved in this at somepoint. You must remeber that companies make hardware, and when it comes to something like this, its either their way or no way. Yeah, maybe we can hack together drivers, but we'll also get sued for breaking the EULA.
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Rather than a linear raster, the TI chips are a rectangular array of mirrors and can display a whole screen at once. They are binary devices, but can do intensities using pulse width modulation, thanks to the mirrors' 50 kHz (or better) switching rate.
All in all, I thought TI had a cool hack. Too bad it hasn't become popular.
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"You've crossed my Line of Death!" "What? No! Where is it?" "Here in the fine print...."
A yup. But just to amplify this a bit, the CRT miracle (a steady visual percept over the entire screen caused by a weird serial scan across the phosphors of the screen) is caused by two things.
The first (and easiest to understand) is the fact that phosphors don't decay instantaneously, so that wouldn't (in principle) need to scan the whole screen at once on a CRT. The second (and more important) thing is that the human retina is a s-l-o-w beast, with the effect that our "instantaneous" percept is actually the average of activity in a surprisingly broad temporal window.
Now, in the bad old days, you could easily get "flicker" in a monitor display, especially a cheap color one, because the time required to draw the screen was just long enough for phosphors to decay noticably *and* just long enough so that the temporal averaging done in the retina didn't help you. But even that was only true in your rod-dominated peripheral vision (where the aptly-named "flicker fusion rate" is higher). And the worst cases were largish screen sizes with huge dot pitches and interlaced displays.
But those days are essentially gone now that we can easily repaint a screen at 70 Hz or even 120 Hz. Now, things are a bit trickier for large back projection displays, since the screen has no phosphor, and you're going strictly on retinal "hang time", but this technology is now well under control for modest resolutions. What this new technology promises is an easier way to scale up resolutions to match full HDTV richness, which is, of course, a Good Thing.
Babar
I think the Trinitron displays are prettier than equivalent Invar-mask displays: they tend to be brighter and more saturated. That said, I went from a Trinitron to my Invar-mask ViewSonic, and I've never regretted it. Especially when I do a marathon 16-hour day at CAD (fortunately, this isn't every day!).
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Politics is about making compromises. Religion isn't. --Michael Horton
Can you clarify why this is a problem?
My guess it is because one is using ordinary lines in a high contrast with their backgrounds.
I don't see high resolution being a problem with either type display.
I have been doing CAD work on an off (mostly on the side or part time) for nearly 8 years now and I don't think it would bother me that much, although my opinion likely won't count for most people.
Heck, with FD Trinitron I would be willing to put up with the minor percieved increase in aliasing for a flat screen.
Well, that just tossed my CRT upgrade decisions into a cocket hat. If its as good as it looks, I want two!
Know anyone who wants to hold the morgage on a soul?
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
I haven't seen one of these before, but it does sound interesting. Do you have a URL for it?
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Oscarfish.com: tropical fish with attitude. Way t
Just doing a little bit of your own research will answer you own questions. I recommend a combination of Google and Encyclopedias.
*WHAP!* *BIFF!*... goes the clue-by-four.
Perhaps the entire SECTION of the article "Sony's next Trinitron?" flew completely under your radar? The article explicitly discusses application across a wide range of display sizes and markets.
Moreover, if you had the slightest clue about the currently available display technologies they mention (LCD variants, DLP, etc.) the application of GLV is obvious -- to either front or rear projection displays. See Samsung's line of projection TVs (PLK405W, plus their entire HDTV line) which includes both tabletop sets and floorstanding projection TVs. See every DLP projector out there.
Personally, I find this fascinating. GLV's use of laser-scanning instead of the conventional (consumable and expensive) projection bulbs may turn out to be a big win for Sony vs. other technologies. I'll be interested to see relative power-consumption and efficiency figures for comparable DLV and {LCD,DLP,etc.} projectors.
Panasonic PT-52DL10 is an HDTV set out using it. It's way overpriced though - part of the appeal of DLP is it should make the sets cheaper, not more expense($11,000!)
So, will the GLV projectors have those nifty guide lines that the Trinitron tubes have? I don't think that I could type straight without them.
- - - If the sun is a star, why can't I see it at night?
info from ti
Trinitrons look like dog wank once you have used one of these SGI 1600SW flat panels. Best part is, you can get them direct from SGI for either $1495 or $1395 w/video card if you know how.
"Linux sux!" - me
Trinitron is a tube technology. This thing is for projection systems. Perhaps it could be scaled down to tube-size, but that certainly isn't the focus (ahem) of the article, which talks aobut its use in theatre scale systems (with a brief mention of home projection).
[Disclosure: I was a Sony employee at one time.]
proof, n. A demonstration that a conclusion is implied by certain premises and axioms.
their now patent-free Trinitron technology
Thats a surprise, to think, Sony will now sell (GLV)The Next Big Thing(TM) after the monopoly rights runs out on their existing technology.
If there were no patents - wouldnt they have had to develop (GLV)The Next Big Thing(TM) sooner in order to justify selling their wares?
reminiscent of a similar move made by the company in the early 1960s. An American inventor of a new type of CRT display device called the Lawrence Tube (after the inventor) was unable to interest any U.S. television manufacturer in its worth. Sony seized the opportunity and the Lawrence Tube became the Trinitron in 1968
Had their been no patent available on the Trinitron - if the technology was freely available in the public domain - how long ago would we have been buying ourselves (GLV) The Next Big Thing(TM) Monitors?!?
It seems corporatists want to have their cake and eat it too - they want to do as they please (pollute, collude, rape), but they want the rest of us (via our Corporatist $whoring$ governments) to guarantee their pocket books...
Its almost laughable... what a wonderfully perfect display*...
Other references in the article makes clear that Sony is examining this as the next generation of home video display (high-end).
I'm a lawyer with excellent karma. Something's gotta be wrong.
This is good for more detailed technical data, etc. There are some white papers, etc. All the usual good stuff.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
That looks a little like the stuff Canon used to shave a few pounds off of it's 400mm lens. Wish I could buy (either!) now. (it's the "Multi-Layer Diffractive Optical Element" thatlooks a bit similar to some of the GLV...)
Did you not read the article yourself? "...nothing to do with replacing trinitron CRT's"? Perhaps you should read yourself, since your are now included in the "idiot" category.
"GLV technology can eliminate the CRT, replacing it with a small laser engine scanning an image on a rear-screen surface."
entire paragraph...
"A CRT is nothing more than a rear electron projector scanning the beam on a coated surface of the glass face. The glass is heavy, fragile and relatively expensive to manufacture and ship. GLV technology can eliminate the CRT, replacing it with a small laser engine scanning an image on a rear-screen surface. The elimination of the shadow-mask, a necessary part of the construction of three-gun CRT designs, will by itself allow a dramatic increase in resolution and brightness."
~ fact is not dependant upon your belief therein. ~ ~ Have I therefore become your enemy because I tell you the truth?
I get the idea, but would that ever be fast enough for long term use (how does the array "move;" does it use mirrors and refraction to paint the picture?), and would our eyes accept something so radically different than what we're used to (horizontal scanning)?
I have more questions than answers at this point, but this technology looks to be great. I can't wait until I can see an actual production system using it.
Trinitrons use aperture grille technology, not traditional INVAR shadow masks. Every Trinitron is an aperture grille. The faint black line(s) you see on the screen are called damper wires - what you're actually seeing is the shadow of a very small filament that holds together the aperture grille and prevents distortion. I completely ignore them, to the point where I have to look for them to see them, but it drives some people crazy.
All Trinitron displays are at least vertically flat, meaning the screen has a cylindrical shape rather than a bulbous one (as with traditional shadow masks). Many Trinitrons are also horizontally flat, resulting in a visually flat screen, no curvature at all. The former is an example of Sony's Trinitron televisions, and their new Wegas are an example of the latter.
Trinitron technology is used in monitors other than ones made by Sony; they manufacture tubes for any number of other compaies, including Sun, Dell, and Gateway. Some SGI monitors use Trinitron tubes, as well. In fact, you can do a search and find any number of Trinitron-based CRTs.
Yes, they're damn expensive, and many technicians don't know their head from their ass around them (last week I needed to replace the 15-pin VGA connector and the tech said it took hours, instead of minutes, because Trinitrons use different color coding on the solder points than shadow masks, and mine was the first one he'd ever worked on), but if you use one, and you like it, it's hard to ever go back to shadow mask CRTs. Trinitrons produce a more crisp, detailed picture, with richer, more vibrant colors. And if you have a Wega TV (which I hope to have sometime this Spring), just walk down the aisle of your local Circuit City and look from the side at all the TVs that don't use Trinitron tubes - see how bulbous they are!
Trinitrons rock, and as far as I'm concerned I'm through with shadow masks. In fact, I probably wouldn't go for anything else outside of a direct view HDTV.
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Oscarfish.com: tropical fish with attitude. Way t
"Ain't no right way to do a wrong thing."
I'd bet the price of a nice flat screen monitor made with this technology would make the price of current flat screen monitors seem pretty attractive to my boss ;)
As the article said, you can use a rear-projection system that fits in a case of similar size and shape to today's CRTs.
and all the time I've put into my soon-to-be-patented "crayolatron" technology... I'm soooo close, too - great color pallet, just gotta up the refresh rate - plus it has really low power consumtion, excluding the burning of calories...
Even a pre-schooler can use it!
who's this Binney Smith character anyway...
Hi! This is the Sig, blatantly attached to the end of this comment.
Maybe I'm just paranoid, but in a class I'm taking right now we were discussing MPAA and DMCA. One of the (disturbing) trends in technology seems to be authentication between the host CPU and devices - basically, any peripheral you attach will authenticate with the host box, making sure they are "compatible."
:-/
Sounds cool, doesn't it? But now companies could start being able to restrict what you hook up to your computer. Sony does like HP right now? Now Trinitrons won't work on your Pavilion PC.
DVD drives apparently have this technology already...in preparing to start your DVD drive, the CPU and the DVD drive exchange encrypted messages to make sure you can use the DVD functionality.
I didn't see it in the article, but does anyone know if this new monitor technology will definately be using this stuff? If so, be prepared to get a EULA with your next hardware purchase
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That may be so, particularly on televisions, but I detest trinitron monitors. I can't stand the lines on the side of text. Trinitrons have their uses for many people, but for coding, they can't beat a shadow mask CRT in a well-lit environment.
If you are modding me down because you disagree with me, use the "Flamebait" category, not the "Troll" one.
The internal combustion engines in our cars are 100 years old, and nothing has really come along to replace them. The only workable electrics still have a combustion engine them. Goes to show that at any point refining an existing technology is almost easier than making a new one. I don't know if we'll ever see the demise of the CRT--maybe once LCD screens start obeying Moore's law like every other transistor based technolofy.
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