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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."

9 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 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.

  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!

  3. 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.

  4. 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.

  5. 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.