LatinDisplay is the annual display conference and exhibition held in Brazil. This year, the conference is combined with the International Display Conference (IDRC), and is being held this week from November 16th to 18th at the Pontifical University of São Paulo (Pontifícia Unversidade Católica de São Paulo) in São Paulo.

The technical session began with Margarida Baptista of the Brazilian Development Bank describing some of the incentives the bank and other agencies of the Brazilian government are offering foreign companies who form joint ventures with Brazilian companies to manufacture in Brazil. Display and semiconductor manufacturing have special status, and for these segments manufacturing joint ventures can qualify for reduction of income taxes and VAT to zero for 12 to 16 years. In addition, such enterprises enjoy reductions — perhaps to zero — of duties on imported components and materials that go into the products they manufacture in Brazil, as well as other services. Baptista identified six back-end display assembly companies that are receiving incentives. Among them are Philips, SEMP-Toshiba, and Brivictory. Baptista also described Brazil’s very healthy and growing economy, which is producing rapidly declining levels of poverty and unemployment. The policies of Brazil’s outgoing president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, were credited with the country’s impressive progress, and Baptista said the incoming president, Dilma Rousseff, will continue those policies.

It was clear during the first two days of the meeting that interest in doing business in Brazil is accelerating. During their presentations, several speakers invited participants to begin exploratory conversations. As a result, Brazilians and non-Brazilians could be seen in earnest conversations, and it was possible to piece together evidence of serious negotiations.

There were several papers on 3DTV. I discussed the 2D and stereoscopic cues for depth and the strengths and weaknesses various 3D systems being used for 3DTV. My goal was to understand why consumer acceptance of 3DTV has been so weak. Paul Gagnon commented that DisplaySearch has reduced its determination of 3DTV market penetration in 2010 to only 1.5%.

Bernard Coll, until recently of Motorola, discussed frame-compatible and service-compatible 3DTV formats. He suggested that video processing can be used to improve overall perceived image quality and can improve viewer comfort be avoiding image encoding artifacts.

Adi Abileah of Planar Systems discussed the development of standards for testing 3DTVs, with reference to the work of the International Committee on Display Measurements (ICDM).

In his own presentation, Paul Gagnon, Director of North American TV Research for DisplaySearch, said that the flat-panel industry is recovering but global revenue (although not unit shipments) will probably peak in 2010, and will now begin a very gradual decline. Globally, more than 90% of TV sets sold sell for less than $500.

David Barnes of Bizwitz noted in conversation that Panasonic has stopped making major investments for expanding its plasma facilities, while investments of the LCD panel industry for expanding capacity are still running at about 20%. That means, inevitably, that PDP’s share of the large-screen flat-panel TV market will now drop steadily from its current 10% or so. Barnes noted that this year for the first time the value of Panasonic’s LCD shipments exceeded the value of its plasma shipments. "Even Panasonic, the champion of the PDP, is now primarily an LCD company."

Today, Yasuhiro Yoshida and his colleagues from Sharp Display System Labs will present a paper describing the multiple benefits of multi-primary displays, including Sharp’s Quattron. Yoshida’s point is that the expanded color gamut is only one of those benefits. The others are reduced power consumption, brighter images, wider viewing angles, better resolution through more precise sub-pixel addressing.

A power saving is derived from the fact that a multi-primary display gives you several ways to realize a particular desired color. In general, each of those different primary mixtures consumes a different amount of power. If the display selects the option that uses the least power, considerable energy savings are possible.

There is much more going on at LatinDisplay/IDRC, of course. And the optimism and energy of this rapidly developing country is obvious.

Publisher’s note: Ken Werner has had a long relationship with the key movers and shakers in the Brazilian display industry and government institutions for some time. While he is too modest to admit it, he has strongly influenced the creation of the incentives and the generation of interest to attract display industry partners to Brazil. I wanted to be sure he received the recognition and credit he deserves. - Chris Chinnock