This week, LCOS manufacturer SpatiaLight Inc. (Novato, CA; www.spatialight.com) has entered into a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Foreal Spectrum Inc. (San Jose, CA; www.forealspectrum.com ) for the development and marketing of a light engine with SpatiaLight’s T-3, 1920×1080p LCOS imagers and Foreal’s LED-based engine.

John DiLoreto
Analyst and Editor for
Insight Media

The companies demonstrated the technology at CES, in a suite at the MGM Grand, and the engine is covered in the current issue of Projection Monthly.

Foreal’s online specifications claim the 150W LED-illuminated engine design can pump out 200-300 lumens at a contrast of 2000:1, which is enough output for an RPTV, depending on size and screen gain. The contrast is marginal, although their LED-powered DLP engine was described with a 5000:1 contrast ratio.

Other LED-illuminated DLP-TVs introduced at CES included units from Samsung and NuVision.

A key advantage of LED light sources is a much longer (>20,000-hr.) lifetime. Microdisplay RPTVs have used high-pressure mercury or xenon arc lamps, whose mean lifetimes are in the range of 2,000 to 6,000 hours, before a $250 - $400 replacement bulb is required. Many of today’s MDTV, come with a replacement, to help overcome this inconvenience.

LED light sources can also provide a wider color gamut in RPTV. This capability will become even more interesting as the emerging xvYCC extended-gamut standard becomes more widely used. In the meantime, colors can look richer and more saturated, even if it wasn’t what the cinematographer intended.

However, another alternative RPTV light source technology was demonstrated at CES from yet another Silicon Valley company, and it seems to be gaining traction.  Luxim Corp. (Sunnyvale, CA; www.luxim.com ) and Panasonic have announced that all its RPTV sets will use the Luxim LiFi lamp instead of UHP-type, xenon lamps, lasers or LEDs, as covered by my associate Matt Brennesholtz in the Display Daily of January 10. It’s also in the current issue of Projection Monthly and won a Best Buzz Award for CES.

This technology offers similar advantages over conventional lamps such as improved color gamut, a shorter warm-up time (3-10 sec.), and a 20,000+-hr. lifetime.  In the Panasonic demonstration, the reds were clearly superior to the reds we have come expect out of an RPTV.

On the downside, the RF-powered, electrodeless Luxim device is larger than UHP-type lamps and also less power efficient. The LiFi lamp plus microwave driver in the Panasonic set consumes about 250W to replace 210W of UHP lamp plus ballast, both producing about 400 lumens, according to Luxim.  The 150W Foreal LED source provides only 200-300 lumens, as stated above.

We suspect the LED approach may prove to be more efficient and less costly in the long term.  Furthermore, the new LED engine will soon enable thin RPTVs cabinets, according to the companies - 10 inches deep at 60 inches diagonal.

According to Dr. David Hakala, SpatiaLight Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, these improvements "will facilitate an increasing market share trend for projection TV in large screen sizes, reversing some of the gains made by flat panels."  Perhaps, but we think many would be happy to simply hold current market share.

In the meanwhile, there will be additional choices for large-screen TVs with lower cost points than similar-sized flat panel TVs.  Remember, if your 1080p HDTV is 62 inches diagonal, you will need to view it from less than 8 feet away to see everything that can be put on the screen.  How far from the TV is your couch?