Dear Readers,

After a very busy May and June, it has finally slowed down a bit. That's not to say there wasn't a lot of news - just not the tidal wave of information we have been flowing your way for the last two months.

From Insight Media, we are happy to report the HDTV Forum is coming together very nicely. The agenda, with nearly 70 speakers, is almost complete. We have 11 corporate sponsors, 7 media sponsors, 2 AV sponsors, and about a dozen exhibitors. Attendee registration is on track to reach 300 and will include representatives from TV and cable networks, government agencies, satellite and cable providers, retailers, distributors, TV brands, TV OEMs, panel/tube/engine manufacturers and IC manufacturers. The much-anticipated event will take place on August 24-26 at the Westin Century Plaza in Los Angeles.

More Information Agenda How to Sponsor and Exhibit Register Sponsors

We have also published the Session Summaries from the recent Projection Summit conference. The text-based summaries were written by Insight Media staff and pull together all of the information from each session and presenter. Each session summary includes the key points from each presentation, along with important charts and/or graphics, plus information from the question & answer sessions. The summaries nicely complement the full proceedings, which include all the visual presentations (PowerPoint slides) from PS'04. To order: https://special.mags.net/mdreport-ssl/cart/cart.plx?uid=67.86.67.59

Coming soon will be more details of a new report from Techno Systems Research. The English-language edition will be offered through Insight Media and is called Home Projector: Strategies of Front Home/PTV Against Flat Panel Display.

In other news, we note that interest and activities in laser and LED-based projection systems are heating up. We had a chance to see a demo of Kodak's laser display system based upon a new device it has developed called Grating Electro Mechanical System (GEMS). Color saturation is fantastic.
For more: www.insightmedia.info/news.html

In LED projection systems, Lumileds has won a $2M USDC contract to develop an illumination stage for LED-based projection products. BenQ and Coretronic are working on pocket projectors, and a new company, Blue Light Optics, is working on a holographic approach to a pocket projector.

This month, we also catch up on some developments in OLEDs. While panels today are small, many are looking at TV-size displays in the future. Among the players are Samsung, Toppan, Casio, Philips, Sony and Seiko Epson - all of which report developments in materials and/or large-size prototypes.

And if you though the CRT was dead, did you know that Samsung SDI has developed a 32-inch CRT-HDTV that is only 13.8 inches deep - almost half that of conventional CRT sets? Wow! Samsung hopes to offer the set for about $1,000 early next year and will aim to compete with LCD-TVs, which are priced two to three times higher.

In our coverage of Digital Cinema this month, we note that Access Integrated Technologies has completed the re-commissioning of 21 of the 28 installed Digital Cinema systems acquired in March from Boeing Digital Cinema, and that digital film lab EFILM is upgrading its four Digital Intermediate suites from 1K to 2K projection with the help of Barco Digital Cinema and SGI Professional Services.

In digital signage coverage, we report that Toppan Printing Co. has unveiled a 1-inch QVGA electronic paper prototype with a resolution of 400 pixels per inch (ppi), co-developed with E Ink Corp. Meanwhile, Kodak has introduced a thin, bi-stable, flexible, lightweight display technology with potential for use in retail and consumer applications.

To support the rollout of digital signage, WireSpring Technologies announced the FireCast OEM program, which allows companies that manufacture or distribute kiosks, industrial computers, media players, plasma displays, and other related hardware to pre-load FireCast OS, WireSpring's kiosk and digital signage software platform, onto their systems. In addition, Regal CineMedia has joined up with 360 Youth to deploy custom interactive kiosks, restroom media panels and backlit poster cases in theaters nationwide, with a rollout beginning during the summer movie season.

Turning to the global DTV industry, the first phase of the FCC's tuner mandate for large-display digital TVs and Plug-&-Play order for cable MSOs took effect in July. The tuner mandate calls for TV manufacturers to embed digital tuners into 30-inch or larger DTVs, while the Plug-&-Play order asks cable MSOs to provide CableCARDs to consumers wanting to initiate cable service for embedded DTVs without a set-top box. CEA estimates that shipments of Plug-&-Play DTVs could reach up to 500K sets by the end of September, doubling to 1M by the end of the holiday selling season.

The FCC Broadcast Flag regulation, which is set to go into effect a year from now, is drawing a lot of flack, however. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has set up the "DTV Liberation Project," which aims to help the public keep over-the-air programming free. At issue is consumers' fair-use rights.

The Broadcast Flag, which places copy controls on DTV signals, attempts to stop people from making digitally perfect copies of television shows - whether for personal use or redistribution. More disturbing, the Broadcast Flag will outlaw the import and manufacture of a whole host of personal video recorders (PVRs), TiVo-like devices that send DTV signals into a computer for backup, editing and playback. After the Broadcast Flag regulations go into effect, all PVR technologies must be Flag-compliant and "robust" against user modification. Stay tuned on this one.

In other DTV developments around the world:

• The Communications and Transport Ministry in Mexico announced that the country was officially adopting the digital television technological standard of the US-based ATSC standard. The ATSC system is also being used in Argentina.
• China is developing digital TV broadcasting with the ambition of having more than 30M subscribers by the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. China has two standards competing for terrestrial broadcasting. DMB-T (digital multimedia broadcast-terrestrial) is being developed by Beijing-based Tsinghua University, while ADTB-T (advanced digital television broadcast-terrestrial) is being developed by Shanghai-based Jiao Tong University. China may decide to use both standards, with different regions supporting different standards, however.
• The government of Hong Kong has pushed back by one year the deadline for free-to-air terrestrial broadcasting, now to commence in 2007, according to Hong Kong Industry and Technology.
• South Korea has decided to adopt the United States DTV standard, ending a four-year dispute between the government and the broadcasting industry, the Ministry of Information and Communication reported. This ends the protracted dispute between two government ministries, with one supporting the ATSC standard and the other advocating the European DVB standard.
• Taiwan's public broadcaster, Public Television Service Foundation (PTS), plans to establish more low-power (400 watts) and medium-power (400-800 watts) transmitting base stations to improve digital broadcasting quality. The country has adopted the European DVB-T standard and recently started digital TV broadcasting on a trial basis.
• Digital Satellite service provider SES Global, in a concerted effort with more than 60 of its European broadcast customers, hardware manufacturers and other industry partners, has agreed on the technical aspects and the timetable for the introduction of HDTV services in Europe via the ASTRA Satellite System.
• Cable network operator PrimaCom AG has introduced a Germany-wide DTV product, "Kabel!Vision" to over 100K households. Kabel!Vision combines German-language channels, a broad selection of foreign-language programming, an adult channel, as well as pay-per-view movie channels. In addition, the consumer can view the publicly available, free digital TV channels.
• New research from Mediavision concerning the digital TV (DTV) market in Sweden shows that approximately 30% of all individuals between the ages of 15 and 74 had access to DTV at the end of the first quarter of 2004, totaling approximately 2M viewers, and representing as much as a 15% bump from the previous quarter.

As you can see, Projection Monthly covers more than projection products. And, we didn't even tell you about all of the coverage in the Channel News, Business & Strategic, Market Intelligence or Bottom Line sections. To get a better idea of the information we cover in these sections, read on…

Business & Strategic
This section covers the business and strategic issues related to varied big-screen display components, subsystems and finished products, including sourcing, manufacturing, marketing and merchandising. Here, we cover new strategic moves, joint ventures, and entire multi-technology product roadmaps. This section is for specific company or partnership news, (non-product) business news and issues. Specific product news is found in respective categories: LCD, PDP, RPTV, Electronics, etc.

Market Intelligence
MI covers relevant market reports and survey news in all areas of coverage within Projection Monthly. We track 72 market research firms and include some exclusive news from selected premium research firms. News in this section is mostly display oriented and includes market forecast information, especially referencing multiple companies, or sourced from market research firms worldwide.

Channel News
This section looks at the distribution channel news for large display devices, including 20 specific retail and wholesale distributors primarily in the US and Canada. The focus of this section is to detail the trends, issues and sales results for top retail and professional distribution channel players.

Bottom Line
This section covers the core financial news of more than 120 projection and TV companies, as well as key supply chain companies. Coverage includes details on revenue, profitability, market guidance and capital investment; supply chain issues, inventory levels and product allocation. Other coverage includes the raising of capital, alliances, joint ventures and partnerships. Bottom Line is for system/finished product company financial results.

The full table of contents for the August 2004 edition of Projection Monthly can be found at:http://www.insightmedia.info/08-04PMTOC.htm

Until next time…

Chris Chinnock
203-831-8404
chris@insightmedia.info
www.insightmedia.info

To be removed from the Insight Media News list, please reply with UNSUBSCRIBE.

Copyright© 2004 Insight Media
Offers and prices subject to change without notice.