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).