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."

Comments

Re:Hmm.

[skoda]

"Speckle" is what you're referring to. When a coherent light source (i.e. laser) reflects off a rough surface, the rays reflect in slightly different directions and when subsequently brought to a focus by your eye, interfere producing a speckly interference pattern.

Speckle only occurs when the laser is reflected from a rough surface. Reflected from a smooth surface, you won't get that speckle pattern.

Even when reflected form a rough source, if the beam is small compared to your eye's resolution, then the speckle is minimal or even imperceptible.

Now, assuming a single laser beam is raster scanned across the modulator thingy (similar to how the electron beam is scanned across a TV's phospors), then at any point in time a small laser beam is being focused by your eye. The speckle from that 'pixel' could be imperceptible, and since the device is being scanned, there is a large 'surface' of light emitted from the GLV that would interfere in a noticeable way.

But I'm just guessing here. Interference is one reason lasers can be a challenging illumination source for imaging optics.

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D. Fischer

Trinitron Lines

[wardomon]

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.

*pun absolutely intended.

[SubtleNuance]

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*...

Silicon Light Link

[Alien54]

This is the link to the actual company producing it: www.siliconlight.com

This is good for more detailed technical data, etc. There are some white papers, etc. All the usual good stuff.

A bit on Trinitrons

[Oscarfish]

I got my first one last fall (17" monitor), and I convinced my Dad to buy a 19" one this past Summer. It's hard to use anything else now, and I'll never buy another shadow mask CRT.

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.