In the September issue of Microdisplay Report we take a look at the home theater market just prior to the upcoming CEDIA trade show. Undoubtedly, there will be more news to report from this event, but we thought some news on the home entertainment sector was appropriate for this issue too.

For example, in our lead story, we note that there are now signs that manufacturers are starting to get serious about pricing front-projection products for the home theater market. Sony's Cineza home theater projector, which retails in the U.S. for $3,000, is being offered on a Japanese Web site for only about $1,070. While this is a close-out offer, it none the less means consumers can buy projectors at this unprecedented price. Many believe that a multi-million-unit market in home front projection will develop if this price point becomes common. There are still a lot of consumer education and channel issues to work out, but if the price points and performance are there, that's a big step in the right direction.

In the September issue, we have details about new front-projection products from Sharp, Philips, Plus Vision, Epson, BenQ, Optoma, Sony and Sanyo. The two Sharp projectors are the first units to feature the new 0.55-inch DLP chip set with SVGA resolution, but they are certainly not priced any cheaper than competitors at $3,999. The Optoma unit is noteworthy for its very high contrast - around 1800:1 -- on production units that are expected in October. The Sanyo projector is the highest brightness of the bunch at 2200 lumens. There is also a mix of WXGA, WVGA and SVGA resolutions being targeted for the home, with the lower resolution products expected to have street prices in the $2,500 range - still not at the magical $1,000 introductory price, but getting closer.

Is there a demand for big-screen video entertainment in the home? According to a new report from TCFinfo and Quixel Research, the answer is yes. In a recent survey of 200 prosumers and 300 consumers, nearly 74% of prosumers and 72% of consumers want a TV over 40 inches in diagonal. But today, only 29% of prosumers and 19% of consumers own a set this big.

Awareness of rear-projection TV is very good, but tainted by images of fuzzy analog sets, whereas plasma-TV has high awareness and "wow" appeal. LCD-TVs and front projectors are not as well known.

How all of the technologies will fare in the home entertainment segment is perhaps the most important question facing manufacturers, marketers, distributors and retailers of these products. Not only will Plasma-TV, LCD-TV, and CRT direct-view TV compete for consumer dollars, but front-projection and rear-projection TVs are in the mix too. For RPTV, the question is which technology (DLP, HTPS or LCOS) can capture market share from CRT-based RPTVs and at what rate? For front projectors for the home, the question is can price points and education create a huge demand for these products? Overriding all of this the unknown size of the total available market. Does it get bigger, or does each technology fight for share of a limited market?

Clearly, predicting what will happen is difficult, but Insight Media and McLaughlin Consulting Group have teamed up to combine our knowledge of the market to produce our own forecast. We will have more about this very soon.

Also in the September issue of Microdisplay Report is more coverage of projection products such as the lightest SXGA projector available today, as well as a trend piece looking at networking and wireless developments in projection products.

We also have a wrap-up of developments in 3-D display systems, which for the most part, remain small- volume niche products or development efforts.

And don't forget to look at the Bottom Line section. You will find, for example, that Kopin's CyberDisplay operation is now starting to kick into high gear with second quarter CyberDisplay revenues hitting over $11M. The company is shipping devices at a rate of around 400K per month and the operation is now finally profitable. Yea!

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