October PM Released

The 109-page November edition of Projection Monthly is now in the hands of our subscribers. The full table of contents can be viewed at:

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We start this month with some additions to the Projection Lamp Supply Chain Report we published last month. The report raised eyebrows because of the conclusion that lamp capacity was falling short of projected demand - and would get worse in coming years. Based on this and some of the feedback we've received so far, we updated the report with two new appendixes.

One appendix for example, uses the models developed in the report to run some "what if" analysis to highlight the effect of several variables on the total lamp demand forecast. It helps the industry identify some of the unknown factors that will affect lamp supply going forward-taking the first step of assessing what we don't know that could adversely affect the success of the projection industry through a supply shortage of a critical component.

Readers can explore how factors like lamp lifetime and projection system usage will influence lamp demand. The analysis finds a high sensitivity to these parameters, resulting in swings in the demand for lamps by millions of units over a relatively short period of time. As market penetration of projection based products grows the report also calls out the need of more rigorous study in nailing down usage rates by market and user class and true lamp MTBF data from the field.

A second appendix added to the report provides a more detailed overview of the lamp manufacturing process. This helps broaden the readers understanding of the "what" and "why" behind the numbers.

Dominating news this month was the force majeure that hit the LCOS industry as two heavy hitters dropped out of LCOS development and production. Announcements came from both Philips and Intel as both companies will exit LCOS after significant time, capital and intellectual investment spent on developing the promising yet elusive microdisplay technology.

On the Intel side, we've been hearing rumors for weeks and Intel managers confirmed that the opportunity for LCOS microdisplays was not large enough to justify the continued investment necessary to fully commercialize the technology.

The story goes much deeper than this and we give an in depth analysis identifying three critical factors that ultimately skewed the opportunity index for commercializing LCOS for Intel.

The Philips announcement to close its LCOS panel foundry and stop production on LCOS engines and RPTVs, underscores the fact that Philips had completed initial development and was tracking much further down the manufacturing road with LCOS RPTV products in the market. Philips was years ahead of late-comer Intel yet both companies came to the same conclusion.

The official word from Philips is that the company feels that microdisplays are now moving toward commodity status, and for the company to compete, it would have to make additional investments in LCOS technology.

As in the case of Intel that's only part of the story, and this month, we drill into the issues driving the decision including production yields and the counter-intuitive revelation that in just the last few weeks, yields at Philips are reported to have increased markedly due to improvements in the silicon backplane.

Finally, we examine the question: Is this the end of the road for LCOS? We think definitely not. All LCOS approaches are not created equal and the termination of Philips and Intel's LCOS effort is more of an indicator of failed methodology than a failed technology. Sony, JVC and a number of other LCOS players, both public and in stealth mode, have better technical methods that should yield successful products.

Case in point, Canon released its LCOS based front projector this month with an impressive 1000:1 contrast at an equally impressive 2500 lumens. The company broke new ground on several fronts with this model not the least of which is the $4K price. This unit rivals the likes of other SXGA projectors including JVC's SX21 selling at $9K, the projectiondesign model selling at $13K and Christie's DS+25 selling at $15K.

In part what empowers Canon to make this price paradigm shift in SXGA projectors (proving an early promise of LCOS technology's main competitive advantage) is their drive-deep into LCOS engine development. Canon devised a new non-symmetric illumination cone system the company calls AISYS, short for Aspectual Illumination System. It includes cylindrical and condenser lens technology and we devote extensive coverage this month toward understanding this approach. So you see, it really is all about better technical methods and Canon has seized the LCOS engine high ground even in the face of major microdisplay defections.

LCOS leader JVC was not silent either. The company announced their 4K2K D-ILA display with 8.85M pixels in a 4096x2160 configuration. I don't think we have an alphabet designator set aside for this resolution yet, but perhaps we will have to start using exponents. The device boasts up to 5000:1 contrast, but at 8000 lumens has a contrast ratio of 1500:1. Perhaps JVC can take a page out of the Canon book and look to apply AISYS (from above) to their next engine development.

Turning to other microdisplay devices, Epson has been busy with HTPS offerings, announcing two significant new chips. A 0.9-inch D5 series chip with true HD 1080p resolution will begin to ship in production quantities in May-05. We cover the specs and other details of this new offering from Epson.

The company also announced a new addition to the D4 series, an SXGA HTPS microdisplay in 1.0-inch size with a 4:3 format for the business and professional markets. These panels began shipping in October for Epson. The company will not stop there, we also include a story this month on new capital investment from Epson directed at a new HTPS facility. With Sony exiting the HTPS supply business, Epson, like TI is a sole source supplier of a unique microdisplay technology. Unlike TI, Epson is also a major manufacturer of front projectors, essentially competing with some of their own customers albeit through a different internal group.

Along these lines, in this months issue, we cover Fujitsu's announcement of their new 3-chip 1080p home theater model based on the new D5 technology from Epson. The company is just one of six manufacturers lined up to use this LCD technology in what may be shaping up to be a "true native resolution" war of microdisplays, as TI pursues the lower pixel count "wobulation" method of achieving its 1080p and 720p number in lower cost home theater models.

For its part, Fujitsu showed a prototype of their unit at CEDIA and claim the picture quality is a true rival to DLP and LCOS models, having virtually eliminated the screen-door effect, characteristic of transmissive technologies with relatively low aperture ratios like LCD. (As an example, this device is still in the mid-50% range compared to the 92% JVC LCOS-reflective technology aperture ratio). This projector will be a "must-see" at the upcoming CES in January hopefully with side-by-side comparisons using competing MD technologies.

Other projectors covered this month include the new sub-$1000 Mitsubishi SVGA DLP, Two new NEC XGA business models with a bright 2200 and 2500 lumen spec, a Toshiba ultra-light, weighing in at 2.9 pounds with XGA resolution and 1100 lumens and Epson launched a 12.3 pound network projector with 4000 lumens at a 700:1 contrast.

In the flat display world, we covered announcements from Dell, BestBuy and Wal-Mart all boasting their own brand Flat-TVs. The companies see the DTV as inevitable and believe they can leverage their unique marketing channels and customer base to ride the wave of analog to digital TV transition.

To that end, two market intelligence articles this month highlight the delicate supply-demand situation in large-size LCD panels, with makers feeling oversupply will last longer than industry analysts, who believe balance will be restored soon.

This is underscored in our LCD section where we show some debate among manufacturers about the future of the 30-inch panel size as 32-inch gains momentum with the efficiencies of 6G plants coming online. All this additional capacity is causing additional discussion about the supply-demand equation and the expected impact on prices. We also look at new products include a 65-inch model from Sharp and Taiwanese LCD panel maker AUO announced a panel with an impressive 5 ms response time.

In plasma news we find Matsushita, now the top supplier in this category, is selling a 65-inch PDP-TV. As mentioned above, Dell has entered the plasma arena with 42-inch HD and ED models at lower prices ($2299 ED model) than competitive offerings. And, Panasonic introduced new professional plasmas following the recent debut of some consumer models.

Things are heating up in the Digital Cinema world too. It now appears we are very close to the "tipping point" in digital and electronic cinema to see a major roll out start to occur. In several articles, we explore how specification standards, business models and the success of pre-show advertising are all coming together now to finally get things going in a big way. Fun stuff.

Finally we have extensive coverage this month of business and strategic news in no less than 37 stories, so you're sure to find information on someone of interest this month.

You'll find this coverage and more including our monthly offerings of Channel News, Bottom Line sections and more. To give you 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 merchandizing. 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 goes in respective categories: LCD, PDP, RPTV, Electronics, etc.

Market Intelligence
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 market 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.

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. The focus of this section is to detail the education and sales 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, 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's financial results.

About Insight Media
Insight Media (www.insightmedia.info) is a full-service market research company specializing in microdisplay-based products in the projection and near-to-eye segments. It tracks the full supply chain, finished products and distribution of these microdisplay-based products through its various newsletters, technology reports, forecasts, conferences and custom consulting activities. Headquartered in Norwalk, CT, Insight Media has a core of 8 analysts and associates to cover the microdisplay industry in a comprehensive manner.