After dipping early in 4Q ‘05, unit sales of rear-projection TVs (RPTVs) jumped 23% from November to December, according to Pacific Media Associates’ December 2005 RPTV Tracking Service, with pricing remaining stable.

Ken Werner
Senior Analyst and Editor
of HDTV Retailer

DLP has been the dominant display technology used in microdisplay-based RPTVs (MDTVs), and Sony took a gamble in mid-2005 by rolling out its high-end SXRD liquid-crystal-on-silicon (LCOS) technology at a relatively mass-market price point. The gamble paid off, with Sony’s 50- and 60-inch SXRD RPTV models ranking second and third in unit sales on PMA’s Top 25 list, which helped propel the LCOS segment to 19 percent of the RPTV market - a remarkable turn-around. Sony’s 42- and 50-inch 3LCD models took first and fourth place, giving Sony the top-selling four RPTV models and 39.8% of the total number of units sold (and 41.8% of the revenues).

As consumers become somewhat more familiar with the complicated trade-offs among large-screen digital TV technologies, they are finding good reasons to pay more attention to RPTVs. LCD-TVs over 42-inches have been very expensive and PDPs are not yet available with Full HD (1020×1080 pixels) at sizes under 65 inches. In short, RPTV is really the only way to get a Full HD image on a 50- to 60-inch screen at a middle-class price. The best LCOS sets present very high-quality images if you’re willing to watch them at relatively small vertical viewing angles. Horizontal viewing angles are far more forgiving, but certainly don’t approach the over-170-degree angles permitted by LCDs and PDPs.

RPTVs will soon get another boost when the first units illuminated by light-emitting diodes (LEDs) instead of UHP lamps appear this June. Viewers will have no trouble seeing a significantly larger color gamut, and the estimated lamp life of 20K+ hours vs. the (perhaps) 6K hours for UHP lamps (with a replacement cost of several hundred dollars) will remove one of the main impediments consumers face when deciding whether or not to make the purchase.

Rear-projection is shaping up as the Mark Twain of HDTV technologies: “The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”