Well, maybe not. Many 'high end' amps are pretty dismal performers in the areas that have been proven to be audible, even if only marginally so. So if there are audible differences and the measurements say 'this is whats audible' it seems pretty easy to figure out what's going on, unless you happen to be the guy who just bought the latest 'state of the art' SET amp....

But that's off the topic.

Owl's_,

"I just read where LG.Philips LCD has unveiled a 42" LCD display. You read that right, 42" LCD... not plasma."

The Ultimate Electronics (chain store) by me has had quite a few LCD screens for months. If you're in a big city, I think you should be able to find some to see for yourself -though I guess not that Phillips yet.

"If this trend continues, I think the majority of home users would migrate to large panel LCD's in lieu of projectors. This thing boasts a viewing angle greater than 175 degrees and is only about two inches thick!"

I doubt the viewing angle. LCD off axis looks horribly solarized, unlike plasma that just looks a little dimmer, or rear projections that look dimmer still. LCD in just flat out unwatchable.

The sets I've seen all looked awful. The worst pictures in the store. I think Samsung or Sharp is the name making the first big push. Not prized brands, but I don't think you'll see any great LCD screens from great TV makers Pioneer, Toshiba or Mitsubishi.

It's cheaper than plasma, but it looks it. Black level is no better than gray so the picture's flat and dull. The pixel gaps are pretty noticable too. Worse than any other technology I think.

Even more so than w/ plasma (something I never liked about plasma either).

They're still more costly than an HD CRT RP which (execept for space savings) blows the LCD's away in every way including screen size. 42" is just not very big at all ither IMO.
Actually in a screen that small to can get a tabletop RPTV. The LCD is still thinner, but worth much when pic. quality is so poor.

42" is about the smallest plasma or rear projection tv you could get. I'd call it the smallest of a 'med sized screen'. Tiny for a 'Big Screen'.
I'd call 0"-~40" a Small screen...41"-79" Medium, and ~80+" Large.

My 65" Mitsu. was 3 grand a year ago and makes all the smaller screen LCD's look like a joke quality and cost wise.
It's a BIG black box, but if you're gonna have a big screen against one of your walls does it make a huge diff. if it sticks out a 3" inches or 20"?

If my 65" was 2" deep I'd have to mount it on a stand to bring it closer to my couch anyway. Can't move the couch to the TV 'cuz it's set for optimal speaker and room placement.

If you want to see LCD screens just go to the computer store and look at the LCD monitors. Exact same technology (minus the built in TV tuner). Apple's widesceen LCD looks better than any LCD tv's I saw though.
Still can't beat CRT.

"Projectors will still be the order of the day for displays over about five or six feet, but I think most users would find a large screen LCD a better fit. Shorter cable runs, quieter, and no bulbs to burn out. Of course, still just my opinion. What do you guys think?"

I think DLP rear projections will beat LCD in price and quality (once DLP beats CRT -in some ways it already has but not all).

DLP's are not as thin, but a 17" deep screen ain't very deep, and can be a tabletop model with space below it like LCD and plasma.
DLP RP's might not be as light as a same sized LCD (not sure?), but they're lighter than plasma (people always forget how much plamsa sets weight) so you could mount it in the air on a shelf gaining space below.
DLP has a 100% solid pixel structure (unlike the big ugly gaps LCD, subtle but noticable gaps in plasma, and tiny but invisible gaps in CRT), and if you want a huge sceen in your room, you obvioulsy have to have the wall space available right?

I mean, what would you do with the extra 15" of space you'd gain from having an LCD screen? Might be a nice 'bonus' in a tiny room, but not too many tiny rooms with 50-65" screens. Electronics stick out as much as RP's in most people's rooms. Speakers even more so.

The new DLP RP's w/ the HD2 chip look like they'll finally make the CRTs 'get scared'. Once these DLP sets hit CRT prices... CRT is extinct (something I said last year). Still several years till that day though I think.

I don't like the light blub thing either in DLP's, but the RP's are typically rated at ~10,000 hours unlike the far shorter front projectors. And should have silent fans at your seating position.

Plasma sets get VERY hot too, and have IMO risky life spans esp. for the rediculous prices that they are.. and may very well always be.

I actually don't think there's anything I like about plamsa or even less about LCD. It's very bright, but it doesn't look like film IMO, like projector designs do (both rear and front).

Liquid Crystal on Silicon (LCoS) looks to someday be more affordable than DLP (it's like a combo of DLP and LCD technology -sort of). Still seems like the production runs of these display chips is still poor though... Someday this'll be the best technology though I'll bet. Just a guess of course.

I have to say this [and what I snipped] is almost exactly what I think too. DLP is very young and once it is matured it has a bright future ahead of it. I'm not sure about RP LCD being better, the technology behind the DLP stuff (micro-machines, etc) is very hot right now and it's hard to say how good DLP will become eventually.

I just like it because of all the technologies out there it is nearest to a film look in the realm of coloration so far, at least to my eye.

I'm just glad I don't have to chose right now! I figure by the time my IDTV is seriously showing age and there is plenty of HD content these sets should be less costly and much improved.

Charlie,

I'm not sure if you were thinking I was saying RP "LCD's" may be better than DLP solutions in the future?

Just to clarify... I was saying "LCoS".
These chips have been in the JVC FP's for years and while super costly projectors... often called the best.
The highest brightness (usually just a bulb thing though), closest pixel gap, and highest rez chips).

LCoS is a single LCD chip that acts almost exactly like a DLP chip in that it has a light reflecting backplane, and the LCD turns from black to clear creating a grayscale image.
DLP does this exact same thing by moving actual micro mirrors back and forth.

My thought is that while costs on the DLP chips keep going down as TI gets better and better at making 'em... LCoS chips should be far cheaper to make.

For some reason the companies that are making them are still not able to do a very good job at it though??? Samsung was to have an LCoS set out by now (RCA too) but they switched to DLP because (as far as what I read) the LCoS chip supply was poor and they didn't good black level.

Neither of these should be probs for LCoS though, and it was just a manufac. prob (I think).

LCD front and rear projectors use 3 sepp. red green blue LCD panels and pass light through. They typically have poor pixel gaps and poor black level, and a inefficient light-wise.

LCoS can have tighter pixel gaps than DLP (but both in HD res chips are perfectly 'solid' IMO).

While 3-chip DLP's are VERY costly, 3 chip LCoS should be pretty cheap, and then to have zero 'rainbow' issues.

I had to send my Plus Piano back 'cuz I say occational rainbow, but my wife saw it like crazy and I never told her what it was (for fear she's subconsiously start looking for it).

From the early model RP DLP's I've seen, I haven't noticed any rainbows, but never did any at home tests.

I've also seen stuck pixels on several front and rear DLP projectors so that worries me too.
The process of moving mirrors w/ static electricity seems to be less refined a concept than turning LCD pixels on/off.

But obviously (like the gasoline engine) if a so-so idea gets a LOT more R&D than other better 'ideas' the so-so one can end up being the champ in the marketplace.

That new 43" Samsung RP DLP should look awesome. It lists for $4K, so maybe ~$3.6-ish in stores.

Still over a grand more than a FAAAAR bigger CRT RP screen. Once LCoS ramps up it should have the best shot at beating CRT in price I think.
DLP chips will stay very costly for a long time I think.

Silicon Light Machines created the GLV chip and Sony aquired the rights to develop it. That was years ago, and still nothing from Sony, but the awful looking LCD Grand Wega.

It's like a DLP chip, but instead of mirrors on hinges for pixels, it uses curved metal ribbons attached at both end. Static elec. pulls the ribbon center in to deflect light.

Unlike DLP,LCD, and LCoS that all have 2D chips, the GLV is only one row of pixels. It's fast enough to change this row as a mirror scans the picture across the screen.

By design has ZERO pixel gaps, and to make a 1080P (that's P not I!!) the chip needs only 1080 vertical pixels. Then it gets scaned by a mirror across 1920 sections.

All the other digital designs need well over 2 million to do this.

A chip that can do 1080P and has 1920 times less pixels should be dirt cheap to make. And super easy to make three sepp. R,G,B rows on one chip.

I think the trick is concentrating the light onto this narrow row. I think Sony meant for this to go into movie theater systems before home systems, but no word even on that front.

This should blow away all othe technologies by a looong shot. And you can imagine how easy it would be to advance to even higher resolutions baced on this 1D design.
Personally I'd be plenty happy with a 1080P with a mint upconverter to max it out w/ OTA-tv, and HD-DVD's!!! -heh

And what about light bulb technology?.... I read about RF bulbs years ago and still no projector uses them. Not even seen a prototype design!?!?

It's Argon gas in a quartz sphere lit by RF waves. Amazing!

Very long life span. VERY bright (a marble-sized bulb should be good enough for a decent front projector). Perfect 6500K color white light. No filiment to burn out. No dangerous pressure unlike the tremendous high pressures current bulbs are under (and explode from). And best of all (living in AZ)... no heat! There goes your fan noize/cost, and light leakage from air vents.

So where are they???? The idea works. The U.S. Dept. of Energy building is supose to be lit by RF bulbs (and fiber optics to send the light all over the place).

You are correct - I misread you.

The GLV thing sounds really good. The thing that makes me like the micro-machine implementations is that this is an area that is getting tons of research $$$, not so much for this particular application, but for all kinds of things. Also when things are moving on this scale they really are not behaving in the same manner as other 'moving parts' we are more accustomed to. Even at this early stage these tiny guys are able to display incredible reliability.

[This message has been edited by charlie (edited November 14, 2002).]

Guys:


GLV is finally going to be shown, or so we hear, at CES. The development is being driven on one hand by the "Electronic Cinema" market, and as Charlie offers, by another market on another hand. GLV (and DLP, for that matter) are in the generic category of "MEMS", or mineature micro-electronic systems. THeir ability to reflect/deflect light in one direction or the other has significant implications for switching optical data paths.

A friend of my master saw it in Japan at a show their last month, and it is rumoured to look good. Hopefully we'll see at CES.

By the way, GLV uses a laser as the light source, since, as noted, it is a line-scanned device.


But what do I know, I'm only a dog!

ARF ARF says Iggy, seeing if he can turn the HT on with his paws while the master is at work...

Yep. Micro Electronic Mechanical Systems are showing tremendous promise (and getting a ton of research $$$) in a broad range of feilds, including motion sensing, switching, optics to name just a few. This broad cross disipline appeal is what makes me think they actually have a chance in the relativly near future of being the next entrenched technology...

I hope the 'rainbow' issues can be fixed without resorting (once again) to a three source solution that brings back the convergence issues the current DLP systems so neatly fix. I'm waiting on the latest colorwheel stuff, hoping the switching speed and sequencing can be done well enough that a single source can be made to work.

In all honesty the newer DLP systems seem much better already, and I just hope they continue to improve it.

Charlie, you said..

"Also when things are moving on this scale they really are not behaving in the same manner as other 'moving parts' we are more accustomed to."

Hmm... We're are talking VERY SMALL, but not like it's so small that it's in the realm of quantum mechanics or things like that. (like atomic computer circuits that're in the works -stuff like that).
Not that I understand quantum mechanics, but the DLP mirrors are just tiny metal squares on hinge pins and static electricity makes them pivot back and forth. I 'think' that's all there is to the actual micro-mechanical element to the display chip. TI has some good pics on their web site showing the process.

"Even at this early stage these tiny guys are able to display incredible reliability."

DLP isn't very new. It's ~10 years old now I think? I think the early 90's it went from R&D to actual production? ...but I'll have to double check.
I know they've been supplying projector companies with chips for 'many' years though.

I guess I'd reserve the term 'early stage' and 'very new' to designs that don't have many years of full scale market production behind them.

Iggy, you barked,
"GLV is finally going to be shown, or so we hear, at CES."

About time! Sony had it in their hands for 2 years now. And this is 2 years after developer 'Silicon light machines' had a working prototype 1080P projector. They've had it built I think 4 years ago!

I forgot to mention some other cool things about the GLV system....The micro ribbons of the chip don't have to be either 'on or off' like DLP has to do.
They can 'partically deflect light' to create grayscale whereas DLP has to turn on/off super fast to do this. Not that the DLP chip doesn't do a good job on grayscale, just that it physically works WAY harder to do it.
The GLV ribbons aren't on hinges either so they can't ever get 'stuck' like DLP pixels can (and do).
www.siliconlight.com

"By the way, GLV uses a laser as the light source, since, as noted, it is a line-scanned device."

(the prototype didn't use lasers though, so it's not a 'must' I don't think).
I've heard that using lasers was the ultimate 'goal' though, and I really hope this has been what Sony's been working on this whole time, 'cuz it should be easy to downscale a laser based system for home use if they've got it to be bright enough for movie theaters!

Maybe it's gone hand in hand w/ developing the blue lasers for Bluray HD-DVD? Red, Green and Blue laser that's bright enough. That's all you need!

No more lightbulbs! Oh to dream.

If a three color laser system is developed it could be used in LCoS chips too. The lasers could get scanned across the 2D chips? 3 LCoS chips might be as cheap to make as a 3 row GLV chip? Not sure of course, but I could imagine them not being so far apart if both were in ramped up production.

Charlie you said -"I hope the 'rainbow' issues can be fixed without resorting (once again) to a three source solution that brings back the convergence issues the current DLP systems so neatly fix.

3 chip systems don't have any convergence issues (other than CRT which isn't 'chips'). CRT need's occational 'tweaking' 'cuz the guns heat and cool moving them out of sync just slightly (my dual subs probably help too!!).

3 chip systems are mounted together and do not ever move or need adjusting. 3 chip DLP is what the Tex. Inst. movie theaters systems use, and the best (most costly) home DLP front projectors.
All LCD projectors are 3 chip designs. Also w/ no convergance probs either.
A (laser-based) three element GLV system could actually place all three rows of ribbons on the same chip.

The benfit of 3 sepp. colors is that you can tweak each one on it's own. LCD almost always beats one chip DLP's in color -though now both are so refined both technologies are pretty great in almost every respect. You also eliminate having to have a spinning color wheel. No moving parts in a LCoS system.

Each DLP chip costs a fortune so a 1-chip that works as well is just a cost benefit. 3 chip LCoS should be about as cheap as LCD chips to make, and LCD is WAAAY cheaper than DLP. The cheapest projectors have always beem LCD, and they use 3 times the pixels as DLP (not that that makes them higher res of course since the pixels are RGB and overlap).

"I'm waiting on the latest colorwheel stuff, hoping the switching speed and sequencing can be done well enough that a single source can be made to work."

Yeah, that spiral colorwheel you mean? Is that in anything yet? They announced it over a year ago.
I hope it eliminates rainbows for everyone who's had a problem with them, but I'd really much rather have a fixed 3 color system where there can never be rainbows and you have full color control.

"In all honesty the newer DLP systems seem much better already, and I just hope they continue to improve it."

Yeah, I think it just comes down to 'refinement' and price dropping.

They'll be able to make higher and higher res chips over time, but for home HT use there's almost no point IMO. Don't get me wrong... "better's better" of course, but....

We're all still waiting for everything on TV being in 720P or 1080I (and w/o crappy blurry broadcast upcoverting standard def either!).
And Hollywood and the DVD group deciding on MPEG-4 or Bluray HD-DVD's (and a digital out) and then getting all the new releases into our local blockbusters on these formats.

Too bad this is what's going to hold us all back and the displays we own.

[This message has been edited by azryan (edited November 17, 2002).]

I'm talking MEMS technology in general. And no, it's not quantum physics, but where else can you swivel a mirror at 5kHz for years without even oiling the hinges....

Quote:

Charlie you said -"I hope the 'rainbow' issues can be fixed without resorting (once again) to a three source solution that brings back the convergence issues the current DLP systems so neatly fix.

3 chip systems don't have any convergence issues (other than CRT which isn't 'chips'). CRT need's occational 'tweaking' 'cuz the guns heat and cool moving them out of sync just slightly (my dual subs probably help too!!).

Up to a point, but any time you have 3 optical systems there is the potential. If I were a betting person I'd bet the DLP theater systems have a convergence adjustment (maybe even a mechanical one) somewhere. I'm actually on the fence - a spinning color wheel isn't really cool either, but overall I think it seems to be a better solution by a narrow margin.

The other stuff like bulb life etc. that folks complain about are non-issues to me. Just change the doggone lamp!