July Summary

Dear Readers,

In the May issue of Projection Monthly, we cover news on a wide variety of topic areas. Of note, is coverage of a new low-cost LCOS device using spatial color filters from iMD. The 0.56-inch panel with VGA resolution is targeted for near-to-eye applications to start, with a WXGA panel for projection applications in the works. We also have more details about Texas Instruments 2048 x 1080 resolution panel and Epson's plans for it's Dream IV technology.

In light engine news, the efficiency of DLP designs continues to improve. 3M Precision Optics for example, is working on a 3000 lumen DLP platform, code named "Pegasus", that reportedly will use only a 100W UHP lamp. Look for this one in a year or so. Panasonic has also revealed the details of its new "prismless" DLP architecture to us. It increases brightness by about 30% and is currently implemented in Panasonic's latest DLP-RPTV.

Meanwhile, Wavien is looking to improve collection efficiency of the illumination stage with its dual-paraboloid collection system and has revealed a new polarization recovery scheme. Microdisplay Corporation is making headway with its single-panel LCOS-RPTV designs too. It says a single-panel LCOS solution can now produce 492 nits of on-screen illumination (2.5X gain screen and 150W lamp) with 800:1 contrast on a 50-inch screen. Not bad. We hope to see this one at SID in a couple of weeks.
PerkinElmer is in the news again this month as we report on a new Cermax Xenon lamp that is aimed at replacing 200W UHP models. The Cermax lamp features a broader light spectrum that is not red deficient and has a longer lifetime of more than 4,000 hours. PerkinElmer says this is ideal for 2,000 to 4,000 lumen platforms.

In electronics, cutting edge fabs are being used to offer higher levels of integration in more compact-sized chip sets. For example, ATI's new Theater 310 DTV receiver chip is being fabricated using a 0.15-micron process at TSMC. Other fabless chip set providers like Frontier, have teamed up with Samsung to produce the "logie" chip that aims to reduce the cost of electronics for simple set top boxes from $155 to $125. In other news, Sigma Designs showed the first HDTV silicon that can support decoding of MPEG-4 and Silicon Image announced a new PaneLink series (SiL 1000) that promises to be operable with a broader range of DVI transmitters.

In RPTVs, the big news of the month was Mitsubishi's new 82-inch LCOS-RPTV with 1920 x 1080 resolution. It is the biggest RPTV on the market - with the biggest price tag - $21,000. Guess they are targeting the Hummer crowd.

Large venue projection users have additional options too, such as new 5K and 10K lumen platforms from Barco, a 5K lumen model from Digital Projection as well as the company's first single-chip DLP product - a 3K lumen model. In HTPS, Epson has new 5200 and 3500 lumen models and Hitachi is offering a new 3500 lumen platform. Interestingly, Epson's 5200 lumen platform, their brightest to date, uses a 0.99-inch panel set, which a year ago would have required a 1.3-inch panel set. Barco's 5K lumen models use a 1.4-inch HTPS panel set, however.

NEC also introduced a very novel lens-less DLP projector that can produce 40 to 80-inch images from a throw distance of only 8 to 10 inches at an astonishing 70-degree offset angle. This platform could create some interesting new installation and use models.
Laser projection systems were covered this month too as we report on progress at Sony and at Quantum Vision. Don't hold your breath waiting for these systems in the market any time soon, however.

In addition to all of the usual suspects for big-screen technology, there are several other companies vying to gain a toehold - and much more perhaps. For example, Toshiba and Canon are now teaming to advance development of SED flat screen technology that could yield products in 2004. Printable Field Emitters has raised new funds and is hoping to offer large-screen displays that will perform like PDP-TVs but be 15 to 20% less expensive to make. Meanwhile, iFire is accelerating activity with Sanyo and DNP to produce a 34-inch prototype of its flat-panel display technology, which has a 30 to 40% cost advantage over competitors. We will have to keep our eye on these activities.
Toshiba Lighting & Technology has started to re-enter the US market with a new line of videocubes after a 3-4 year absence. Coming in June will be a 38-inch "Banner Wall" module designed for linear signage applications, to be followed in August with two conventional 41-inch models. All will use a SVGA DLP engine core.

Consumer electronics big box retailers reported their latest financial results in this issue too. There continues to be a mixed bag of results in terms of sales increases or decreases, but almost all are showing lower earning (except Good Guys, which earned more). Big-screen displays and digital cameras remain strong sellers.
New channels of distribution for big-screen displays continue to evolve with CompUSA deciding to expand its test program chain-wide. It will sell RPTV, LCD-TVs and PDP-TVs.

Major projector makers like InFocus, continue to feel the effects of the slow economy as it sees a soft 2003 ahead. Yet, the market in China remained strong - at least up until the effect of SARS started to kick in. Look for this disease to put a big dent in growth plans for everyone selling in the Asia-Pacific region.

Meanwhile, investment in 5G and 6G LCD plants continues unabated. Such factories are expected to be major suppliers of big-screen LCD-TVs in the 2005 time frame and will definitely change the competitive landscape as they come on line.

In other news, 3M Precision Optics has released its annual forecast review and thinks large area displays (over 40 inches) will grow to 9M units by 2007, an 18% CAGR, with RPTVs holding the lion share of the market (88%). It also thinks CRT-RPTVs will hold onto a large market share for the foreseeable future, something we don't quite agree with (but then again, maybe we are a bit biased toward microdisplay-based systems in the same way they might be a bit biased toward CRT systems).

In the Microdisplay Report, we have included some of the news stories described above, but added additional coverage in the near-to-eye and 3D display segments. In headsets for example, i-O Displays has introduced a new headset that offers twin SVGA panels and a video processing by Faroudja. I can't wait to see what a movie looks like in this one. The headset is compatible with both video and PC data sources and goes for $1,199.

MircoOptical has improved the color depth of its VGA monocular viewer to 24-bits and has teamed up with AQUA Communications to offer the headset for remote video inspection.

In 3D displays, we cover a new company called SeeReal that is offering LCD-based monitors that use a moving prism system to create the left-right eye images. StereoGraphics was in the news with a new 3D Cinema Server product and a new line of LCD-based 3D monitors. It teamed up with Christie to showcase the new Cinema 3D system. VirTra Systems meanwhile, has a contract to build a new immersive mobile theater that uses its modified 3D headsets.

But enough for now. The table of contents for both newsletters are shown below.

Until next time…

Chris Chinnock
Sr. analyst, Insight Media
chris@insightmedia.info

May Issue of Projection Monthly Table of Contents

May Issue of Microdisplay Report Table of Contents

If you would like information about a subscription to Projection Monthly or Microdisplay Report, then please email Dave Torromeo, dave@insightmedia.info, or call 203-831-8464.