Bringing some info to the table here to bat around. I ran into some items doing some quick surfing, as we will probably be purchasing another TV for a gift so I’m looking (again at the moment) into the current products. The debate in this thread centered on which technology will become the most prevalent in future projectors and Direct View had me digging for specifics on the topic. Azyran you had some excellent points that sent me off to dig for LCOS based products but I ran into some discouraging information. Regardless of the merit of which technology should earn the backing dollars of large manufactories. I wonder. First the manufactories have to get the products to us…..to see which the masses will jump to and on….and some of what I found does not look good for Locos at THIS moment. I ran into multiple names just putting on the market their various versions of LCD and DLP including but not limited to: Samsung, Sharp, Philips, Mitsubishi. Yet I ran into this announcement concerning the withdrawal of the
LCOS based Scenium L50000 dated July 2002.
http://www.insightmedia.info/news/ThomsonSTORY.htm

On the opposite side is this Co in CA promoting their LCOS components for manufactories.
http://www.elcos.com/ and I also ran into a company (can’t remember whom) who just sold a large double order for their equipment to 2 undisclosed company’s for inspecting LCOS based panel production.

I was really surprised to find ‘LCD’ related products popping up all over the web. When I purchased my Sony it was hard to find. Now I note that over at AVS forum the GW11’s seem to be sparking a lot of interest with at least 3 purchasers Choosing the Sony over the latest Samsung DLP displays.

So my question for this honorable board of debaters is: Do you think that the sheer momentum of more manufactories seeming to head to LCD for many new model releases currently in both projection and Direct View, Will sink LCOS ship before it sails? Here is a VERY interesting Industry overview on some of the problems in the industry LCOS might have to overcome.
http://www.insightmedia.info/news/LCOS%20Leadership%20Needed.htm

Here is one reviewer not convinced about Philips promoting LCOS single panel.
http://www.emedialive.com/r13/2002/next8_02.html
The first reviewer was just roaming the show. The Second reviewer to balance the opinion had an appointment with Philips
http://www.whatvideotv.com/articles/frame.html?http://www.whatvideotv.com/articles/interviews/200201_DougStanton.shtml
Reading those two reviews alone, I think I conclude that Philips thinks it is positioning to able to produce the LCOS technology by cutting the past costs to target the in between plasma and CRT crowd. But several other LCOS sets I saw reviewed which never made it to market exhibited problems and were dropped from lineups in recent past years.
So I wonder can Philip (or anyone) put out something that looks so good at a VERY desirable price point which will have the rest backing away from the seemingly current LCD trend to shift towards LCOS?
Philips is BIG maybe they will provide the ‘Leadership’ mentioned as lacking in the In Sight Media link.

Remember I how I stated I found the real room effect of my Sony’s poor black level, to not be an issue for me personaly, and that I felt it was an incredibly good display as regards dealing with ambient light issues?
Ran into this…which has thoughts about this subject as compared to plasma.

“Clarity points out that simply looking at the brightness and contrast spec of a panel is insufficient for understanding how well it will look in a normal ambient environment (40 foot-candles). For example, the phosphors in plasma screens reflect quite a bit of ambient light, about 15%. But LCDs' reflectivity is much lower, around 2.5%. The result is that a plasma panel with 3000:1 dark room contrast will have an actual contrast of about 38:1, whereas an LCD panel with 600:1 and lower reflectivity produces an actual contrast of 109:1.

Clarity takes this "viewability" analysis one step further. It defines a Quality Viewing Metric (QVM) as the product of the panel's peak brightness times its contrast in ambient light. This makes good sense to us as a more logical way to evaluate the actual image quality of a display.

Accordingly, the 131 Ft-Lamberts of brightness for the LCD panel yields a QVM of 14,370. The higher peak brightness of the plasma panel-- 228 Ft-Lamberts-- times a much lower ambient contrast produces a QVM of 8,990. This analysis says that the LCD panel looks better in normal lighting conditions.”
Clarity, Ed Kiyoi, 503-570-0700, http://www.clarityvisual.com/

This is a Company biased report however and they are starting to promote commercial message boards in LCD.


Enough links for one post!!!. What do you guys think?