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Laser TV — the Death of Plasma?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on

spoco2 writes, "As reported in major news outlets yesterday in Australia (The Age, the Herald Sun), a new television technology has been developed which is touted (by the developers) as far and away superior to both plasma and LCD. From The Age: 'With a worldwide launch date scheduled for Christmas 2007, under recognisable brands like Mitsubishi and Samsung, Novalux chief executive Jean-Michel Pelaprat is so bold as to predict the death of plasma. "If you look at any screen today, the color content is roughly about 30-35 per cent of what the eye can see," he said. "But for the very first time with a laser TV we'll be able to see 90 per cent of what the eye can see. All of a sudden what you see is a lifelike image on display."' The developing company, Arasor International, is said to be listing on the Australian stock exchange shortly."

17 of 351 comments (clear)

  1. This line says it all... by dreamchaser · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "The developing company, Arasor International, is said to be listing on the Australian stock exchange shortly."

    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.

    1. Re:This line says it all... by Tony+Hoyle · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No, but it's entirely possible to configure a plasma to look worse than the TV next to it.

      Look at the TVs in shops - they look awful, but it's the same technology, just setup poorly.

    2. Re:This line says it all... by Lazerf4rt · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Apparently, this guy already saw the TV in action and was pretty impressed:

      The laser TV made the plasma look like an old console colour TV. It was so good, the only way i could describe it was that it looked like a wet photo in a developer tray - if you haven't done photography, that may not mean alot. But the colour depth and contrast, especially the space shuttle shots where space was REALLY black, and you could see the gold foil crinkles in the cargo bay, was amazing.

      His post is a comment on another news story 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.

    3. Re:This line says it all... by Walt+Dismal · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If they were completely phony, I doubt they'd be presenting at all the major display technology industry conferences http://www.novalux.com/company/events.php) because their exposure to hype-killing doubters would open them to a lot of attacks. And Mitsubishi is really big in projection TV, so is a clear choice of manufacturing partner to use the laser modules Novalux produces. As for the cost issues, clearly the quickest time to market way to go is to replace conventional display components with this optical front end, and modify existing electronics - ie, Mitsubishi chassis - to handle the increased bandwidth. It all sounds feasible. Note they are demoing at the SMPTE conference next week; it's not like some Gizmondo handwaving. SMPTE attendees would smell phony a mile off.

    4. Re:This line says it all... by iainl · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If this TV can demonstrate such a massively wider colour gamut than normal TVs, what were you watching the demo on?

      While I'm posting, I'll also call bull on the "quarter of the electricity of conventional plasma and LCD TVs" claim. Simply because my LCD already uses a third of my friend's plasma, so I'm guessing they're just picking the numbers that make them look good, or they would have said a 10th or more.

      --
      "I Know You Are But What Am I?"
    5. Re:This line says it all... by UnStatusTheQuo · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Wow that proves Slashdot is definitely not a place for savvy investing tips. Following that logic, I think people would have missed out on the massive gains produced by the likes of Microsoft, Apple, Dell, HP, Cisco, etc.

      Perhaps before bashing it, you should read the prospectus and give us your credentials. Without either of those, you just sound like someone who bought a very expensive plasma TV. For those that would like to give this a chance, here is the prospectus: http://arasor.lvwebdev.com/pdfs/Arasor_Prospectus2 006-1.pdf

      Oh, and the IPO period is OVER for new registration, and has been for a week, which means that it was so at the time of this announcement. Here's the excerpt from their prospectus:
      Opening Date: 4 September 2006
            Closing Date: 5pm (CST) 3 October 2006
            Despatch of Statements of Shareholding: 13 October 2006
            Quotation of Shares on ASX expected to commence 19 October 2006
      So, this is NOT to pump the IPO. It might be to interest more people in buying the $1.50 AUS target price stock on the 18th(U.S.)/19th(AUS), but to be honest, even at $1.50 AUS, that's a cheap stock, and a lot of people might want to get in on it just for fun and to see where it goes.

      You also might want to look at the names involved in this company, as there are board members such as Simon Cao (as in the author of 'Cao's Law', the optical corollary of Moore's Law in electronics, which states that WDM will spread more and more finer and finer channels of light, each using less and less power, across an optical fibre.) Parviz Tayebati is also in on it, who was in the CoreTek, Inc. subsidiary of Nortel Networks.

      In summary, read the prospectus.
    6. Re:This line says it all... by Turken · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I dunno... It sounds pretty reasonable to me. The only difference between Laser and DLP technology is the source of colored light. DLP uses white light through a color wheel to produce the RGB colors. Lasers produce the colors directly, and lasers in all three colors are now commercially available, although expensive (been to ThinkGeek lately?).

      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.

    7. Re:This line says it all... by LordSkippy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      CRTs produce a better picture than Plasma, CRTs just take up much more space. Even if Plasma was cheaper than CRT, I'd still have bought my Mits Diamond RPCRT.

      --
      My karma is in a nose dive
  2. CRT by tsa · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I must say I'm not too impressed with the picture quality of the plasma- and LCD TV's we can buy here in the Netherlands. Especially if you take the price into account. I'm glad I've bought one of the last CRT widescreen TV's a few years back. My old CRT IIyama monitor is also better than most LCD flat monitors you can buy today. Hopefully this new technology will deliver the colours and the viewing angles we have become accustomed to from CRT's!

    --

    -- Cheers!

    1. Re:CRT by name*censored* · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Although this post was OT, i'll bite :)

      CRTs still have quite a large niche - young/poor people, and have many advantages over LCDs/Plasmas/these new fangled Laser TVs. I am sitting in front of 2 21" CRTs which I picked up off eBay for less than $100AU each; that's much less than a poor quality 15" LCD (~$150AU). The only disadvantage is they are bigger (but who uses the space behind their screens anyway?), heavier (harder to steal, an important factor if you live in a poor area), and use more power (although the extra money you spend on your power bill is still less than what you saved). So long as you're willing to get a decent model (which sets you back maybe $5) you can get 120Hz-160Hz refresh rate, so they aren't going to cause any eye irritations barring you having an accute medical condition. Plus, they are much hardier than LCDs (anything you could do to damage a CRT would most certainly completely destroy an LCD), and (at least in my experience) last a lot longer than LCDs. If you say "but CRTs don't look good, I want to impress people with my LCD" then maybe you should think more about impressing people with yourself and less about impressing them with your computer equipment :P.
      --
      Commodore64_love: I don't comprehend people who're so frightened of death that they'll bankrupt themselves to stay alive
  3. Re:riiiiiight.... by Macthorpe · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Why not try forming an opinion on it based on things they've actually confirmed and denied?

    Half the weight and size of a plasma TV. Uses a quarter of the power to the same effect. Increases the range of colours displayed from 30% of what we are able to conceive to 90%. Costs half the price of a plasma screen.

    "Oh, but they never said whether or not they support these three completely random display connectors so obviously it's a waste of time."

    --
    "It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - Tolkien
  4. What we want in a TV by pr0nbot · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yep, that's what I've always felt was lacking in TVs.

    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.

  5. Success of new Display Technologies by neoangin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Price and formfactor is what matters.

    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.

    1. Re:Success of new Display Technologies by Mr.+Slippery · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Even though Plasma looks far better than LCD, the average consumer cannot really distinguish image quality

      If most people cannot tell the difference, than it's not far better. That smells like the sort of silliness the "audiophile" market is famous for.

      --
      Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
      You cannot wash away blood with blood
  6. Re:That's intense by Woek · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I think they are indeed talking about color range (frequency range) rather than intensity. Classic screens only produce 3 very discrete colors (red, green and blue), in varying intensities. The sensitivity of the receptors in the eye has a wider band. (that's why you can see laser light that doesn't exactly meet the peak sensitivity of your receptors).
    Maybe This new technology produces light with bandwidths that match the sensitivity of the eye's receptors better?

  7. Re:riiiiiight.... by Tony+Hoyle · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "Half the weight and size of a plasma TV. Uses a quarter of the power to the same effect. Increases the range of colours displayed from 30% of what we are able to conceive to 90%. Costs half the price of a plasma screen."

    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 mortgage your house for small one. 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.

  8. Re:That's intense by ByteSlicer · · Score: 4, Insightful
    The new laser tv display is different because each pixel is created by light from a tunable laser
    I strongly doubt that. The laser frequency depends mostly on the laser medium. This is why most tunable lasers are dye lasers, because here they can replace the dye (solution) with a different one that gives a different laser frequency. And you can't replace the dye within the few ms that it takes to light a pixel.
    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.