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Harrods Sells Holographic TV
beuh_dave writes "Harrods is selling a holographic TV, CLARO, for £15,000. The Holoscreen is a revolutionary holographic film which displays any image fed through a projector at a specific angle on to a transparent display. All other light is ignored. The result is a remarkably bright and sharp image quality - even in brightly lit environments."
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This isn't really "holographic" in the sense of a 3D image in space, or a perception of a 3D image.
All it is is a screen that hangs in space (or supported by glass as in the site) and only shows images directed on it from a certain angle - from a projector sitting conspicuously on the floor behind it.
It's pretty, but hardly world shattering.
RST
Carry on. If you need me, I'll be in the holodeck.
Just
I like how 'Harrods' in the summary's URL is misspelt, but that it's a redirect to the real 'harrods.com'. Pre-emptive Slashdot Editor protection! :-)
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Rear projection onto a transparent screen. Kinda cool but not worth £15000, not by a long shot. It seems to me to be a case of them mixing "can do" up with "should do".
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Why call a beamer 'holographic television'?
It looks great. If money was no obstacle...
40" transparent screen !! nice : )
Does anyone want to bother looking up the term hologram in the dictionary....when I think of a holographic TV I don't think of a flat surface displayed onto a tangable object you could easily break if you breath on it the wrong way when it falls over.
When I think of a hologram I think of being able to throw my beer through my TV next time I see a horrible excuse of a football game...
When I first saw the headline, I was thinking that it was something that would display a pseudo 3D image that floats in the air, but even though Iw as disappointed when the site _eventually_ loaded, I have to admit that it is still pretty cool.
My only concern, and ultimately the only reason I won't buy one (hehehe like I could) is that it takes up too much space. I don't really have the space to put the projector as far back as it needs to be and those speakers.... I'd look like one of the little bad guys in HALO
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this one is a better link to the currently /.-ed site..
I'll believe in it when I see it in John Lewis.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
If it could me modified to only accept projected light from a given angle (grating or a very highly polarised filter perhaps?), sevaral projectors could be used to 'layer' screens into a 3d block display. Expensive, but for people who NEED high quality 3d displays then money is most likely not an object.
I was down there last week, and despite the fact that it's not actually 3D, as the "holographic" would suggest, it does look pretty cool. It basically looks like a sheet of glass with a TV picture hanging in the middle of it - it's bright enough to look good and sharp under showroom lighting, too.
Not sure it's worth the extortionate price tag for what's essentially a novelty toy, though.
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the implications for porn are mind numbing.
Pardon my ignorance, but can't something like this be done with any LCD projector and piece of glass (covered with a one-way reflective material)?
From the article (which is rather lacking in technical details), the display sounds like a holographically-recorded diffractive optical element on a glass substrate. If so, I'm curious how they compensate for the dispersion intrinsic to the diffraction phenomenon (since selling a 15,000 quid monochrome display is probably not a commercially-viable option :-p). Also, since the display claims to be angularly selective (it has to be if it only accepts a specific projection direction), I wonder if it has a similarly selective viewing angle (like early LCD displays, which were only bright and clear at normal incidence).
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Given the way this thing works, it has to sit somewhere in the middle of the room. That is not a good place for a display or TV; it is an even worse place for a transparent piece of glass (because you are going to run into it and knock it over).
You can get TV on televisions, and not just DVDs? What will they think of next...
On the other hand, I do agree on one point - fifteen grand just for a TV?! I'd rather have my house extended/refurbished/whatever... Then again, I'm not the sort of person who can afford 15k on anything, let alone a TV.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
It has been around for a while...
. html h tm
http://www.exn.ca/Stories/2003/03/18/56.cfm
http://www.anders-kern.de/presse/pr_holoscreen_en
http://www.innovations-vcs.co.uk/main/holoscreen.
You can buy your own one cheap here:
http://www.av-sales.com/html/svs_holoscreen.html
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"hey Fred, if we get rid of the big box surrounding these old rear projection tv's, Jack the price way up and call em something fancy, I'll bet we can finally sell these things off"
"Great Idea Barney! Let's call 'em 'Hollow Graphic'. No! No! Wait! I got it Holographic! No one will know the difference!"
"Yea Fred there's a sucker born every minute."
"You got that right Barney. Now lets see what we can think up for all these foam tiles these old tv's came packed in."
"Wait a minute Fred! I already sold those to NASA as shuttle repair kits. You won't believe what they paid me for them!", Fred gives Barney a big High Five.
My company, Venue Telecom has been selling this kind of screens for two years now. (We are located in Spain but sell worldwide)
It's very good, with a good contrast and bright, but it's only for inside. Sun light makes image almost imposible to view.
Indeed, we have another screen of this kind that is just a slim film. You can stick it to a shop window and it simply rocks.
If you are interested in buying one, just e-mail me: pgquiles@SPAMPROTECTIONvenuetelecom.com.
I'd like to know how much these devices will cost elsewhere. Harrods have a reputation for inflating prices above and beyond high street level. For example, a toy that costs £10 in every other shop is selling for £25 in Harrods. You are paying for the experience of shopping in the store.
Not holographic, but I think something like the Heliodisplay http://www.io2technology.com/dojo/178/v.jsp is a lot more impressive, considering it can display images in free space "Help me Obi-Wan" style, without any screen whatsoever. Now if only something could be done about its $19,000 price tag...
What would be the main difference from projecting the image into a wall instead of that plastic thing in the middle of your living room??
You save space!
This is another one of those "must haves" that you really do not need...
Here is film of the Harrods' Christmas display that started all the hype about these screens. Although I feel bound to be cynical about a £20k piece of glass, the Peter Pan display was pretty extraordinary.
First of all:
Given we are talking about how wonderful this new tech is, how much contrast it hat - how about some contrast on the freaking article! Come on, grey text on a white background? Obviously we now know where some of the layout people from Wired Magazine went.
Second of all:
The pictures in the article look too damn good - I smell retouch. If you want to convice me of the value of this technology, you need to show me a movie of the produce in use, as the camera moves around the room. After all, I can take your average rear-projection TV and make it look fabulous, IF I pick the camera angle to maximize the brightness of the screen. But as anybody who has ever looked at a rear projection TV knows, the "sweet spot" of the image is very narrow, and if you leave it, the image fades tremendously.
Third of all:
The single biggest cause of loss-of-contrast on a light sourcing display, be it a projector or a CRT, is the fact that the light in the room is reflected from the screen, making the blacks of the image not black. Now, this display may be wonderful at redirecting the light from the projector, but if the "glass" is clear, and the wall behind it is NOT black, then the blackest the image can be is the color of the wall behind it. If you wanted to truly get deep blacks, you would need to put something like black velvet behind the glass, to absorb the ambient light.
Fourth of all:
Back to the viewing angle issue: holographic techniques usually are VERY angle sensitive - the diffraction grating allows light from a very specific angle to be redirected to a very specific angle. Is this image REALLY viewable from more than one or two places in the room?
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...As of yesterday $1 = 0.532510 Brittish Pounds .
___
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One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
"the new Claro holographic TV (£14,999 plus £9,999 for matching speakers) that allows you to project video on a transparent display. Plus all other light is ignored which means you get a sharp image even in brightly lit environments."
The hook was it being video, apparently floating in the shop window. No wires, no frame, in was creepily like Picture-In-Picture for the real world.
In the brightly lit shop window the image was equally bright, whatever in the ceiling driving it was pretty powerful. The only evidence there was anything 'going on' at all, beyond a block of video floating in space, was two, nearly invisible, mono-filament lines holding up the sheet of plastic. Also from the sides of the shop window one could spot the edges of the plastic if one looked carefully at the edge of the bright moving distracting video (in short - not obvious at all.)
Uses aside from novelty value?
Well as many folks have noted this is just an improvement on the old frosted-sheet-of-plastic trick so anywhere that goes this can can too. Places where you want a display with the only accessible part being a bit of plastic, like in public venues. Also spots where you don't want a lot of hardware 'hanging around' but want a cleaner look.
I could see this being popular for indoor stadiums, hanging off the edge of the deck above. Those fans are woefully under-served with TV during games (sarcasm).
Airports are gonna love this. Many have gone from banks of big CRTs squatting over folks to frames of flat panels, this will be the next step in their search for sleek 22nd century tax-paid coolness.
Designers, heck yeah! The mantra has been "thin is in", but they've still been vexed by cables and how to handle that awkward screen when it's not in use. Here is something that can mounted in the ceiling ($$$), the screen put in a convenient corner, and (with the house cleaner dusting it regularly) won't spoil the elegant lines of the room with evidence of proletarian TV tastes. I bet HGTV just ordered a shipping container of 'em.
For the rest of us? Unless you've got a real desire for 'floating TV' I bet most /.'ers would rather spend their money on more features & toys then just 'look it *floats*!'.
YMMV.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Harrods have actually had this on display for a couple months, I walked past it when I was Christmas shopping. It was surprising to me that it was visible on the glass under regular lighting, but the picture didn't look far and away higher definition than a good LCD. All in all I (and other customers walking by) found it unimpressive with no one crowded around this, and tons of people around the hug LCDs. So it projects onto glass, big deal. Plus, think about what it would look like if you had the glass a couple feet from a wall, as most people do with their TVs... you're going to get a double image of sorts from the glass image and the wall image. Just my perspective from as guy who walked by it a bit ago.