Expect Laser HDTV By Winter '07

[Wayde]

An Australian firm named Arasor International and its US partner Novalux demonstrated a Mitsubishi built prototype of a laser based HDTV. They say the new type of HDTV will provide much more color than plasma. Arasor developed the optoelectronic chips for the new Laser TV and Novalux supplies laser modules. The technology from the two companies will be found in new HDTVs with familiar brand names like Hitachi and Samsung.
The companies are gunning for the marketspace already owned by many flat screen HDTVs but the new Laser TVs will not be flat screen themselves. The new Laser TV technology will work in much the way DLP rear projectors work today. Three different colored lasers will fire the three video primary colors (red, green and blue) into a reflective chip much the way a DLP reflects light from a single lamp. But instead of separating colors with a color wheel the way DLP does the lasers themselves will form the color. Best of all the lasers won’t wear out like the lamps in other rear projection HDTVs do. The lasers should last the entire life of the set.
Earlier this year we saw a Hitachi prototype HDTV back in April. But that TV was a 1080i. The new ones that should be on the market by Christmas 2007 will be fully 1080P.
"Yeah, that laser TV has great color but only if that speckle effect doesn't give you a headache first."
One hurdle the new HDTV type must have overcome is the speckle pattern in laser imaging. This must have been the job of Arasor and its optoelectronics chips. According to the laser TV patent an electrically controllable de-speckling modulator is required to modify the temporal and spatial phase of the light beam.
Oh, I hear you saying – "But Wayde, how trivial is that? With a display capable of reproducing over 90% of the colors the human eye is capable of, what differences is a few degrees of spatial phase?"
Well, here is your answer enquiring mind. Gaze upon the horror of the speckle effect that has plagued laser imaging since the technologies inception.
So it looks like we'll soon see whether or not the new TV will vanquish speckle or will that simply be the one compromise of the new display technology.


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