Jiangsu Inovel Display Technology Co. used its presentation time at Display Summit China to provide an overview of solid state projection technologies, then dive into its projection products, as shown in the diagram below.
The newest product, the V8, was used at the conference hotel to display the agenda and other information to attendees, so we had a chance to see them in action first hand. They work very well when coupled to the short throw light rejecting screen. The crew initially placed the screen upside down and the image looked terrible, but when flipped over, it was suddenly bright and colorful. There is a flaw in the projection optics however, as the top left part of the image is defocused, which was apparent on both devices. We believe this is because it is based on an aspherical design.
The menu, even in Chinese, was not too hard to navigate and we were able to play the PowerPoint presentation directly from the projector. Some test movies looked good too.
This is a single chip, DLP laser phosphor design with a fully sealed engine, as shown in the graphic below, along with the blue laser bank and its thermal management system (graphene coupled to copper heat pipe). It also incorporates patented active noise reduction technology making it suitable for home theater applications.
Speaker Chen Liu saved his most interesting remarks for the end where he noted that there is a national policy to support laser displays such as the V8. This is a small, but very promising market, he said, but there needs to be more consumer education and consolidation around terminology for the category so as to avoid consumer confusion.
He said there is currently an immature supply chain for these products and much work to be done in R&D. But the biggest challenge is the price. The V8, which is targeted as a home theater laser TV, sells for 40,000 RMB (~$6,100) but the price of such products needs to come down 30-40%. They have sold about 300 units so far, but they want to see it reach 20,000 RMB quickly to open up the market.
