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Philips Brings up the Rear
One such "promising" technology was shown in Las Vegas by Philips—again. For years, Philips has been promoting its rear-screen TV technology, based upon a single, reflective LCOS panel. Some of the current reflective, rear-screen technology looks pretty good, such as Samsung's latest one-chip DLP, as well as some of the others. Philips' demo actually looked pretty good, too—but no better than most demos. However, that was not what Philips touted this time. Philips' claim to fame was that they could make a good, big TV at a lower cost than the other technology. So what's the cost going to be, I asked. "Trust us, it's going to be competitive," was all they said. Then they pointed me to a complex set of whirling prisms, motors, lenses, and mirrors and one big reflective LCD. How can their "optical engine" be cheaper when it looks so very complex? Their single-LCD technology, they claimed, as opposed to the competition's three-panel approach. However, the Philips demo actually looked very complex and it had several spinning prisms—one for each color. I can't imagine how it will be cheaper than TI's simple little DLP with its single hypnotic color wheel. The TI optical engine looks very simple in comparison, and any other three-panel LCD optical engine looks cheaper. One other highlight from INFOCOMM-Vegas was the wide range of networking systems. It seemed like everyone had a networked projector this year and the implementations ranged from Barco's projector with an embedded Windows XP server to the cheaper and more common "hand-rolled" screen capture programs in software and firmware masquerading as file handlers. Last year, Sony and Epson had Windows CE-based machines embedded in projectors that actually took the native "Office" files. But that approach has been too expensive (thanks to CE license fees) for most projector manufacturers. The solution this year has been to make a software package that rides along on the desktop and takes a snap shot of what you want to present—slide-by-slide or screen shot-by-screen shot. Then those screen shots are passed—wirelessly—to the projector, where the screen shots are loaded up and shown a few seconds later. Regardless of how I felt about the screen shot implementation (I think that the Windows CE PowerPoint reader method is a bit more elegant), it worked effectively. So if you're in the market for a wireless presentation system that only has a few-seconds lag between slide changes, you'll see a lot of them in the coming months. The Rule of Three
I saw several projectors as well as some other LCOS (and DLP) TVs in Shanghai during the INFOCOMM China show. However, most of those rear-screen, LCOS TVs on display were of the more "normal" three-panel variety. When I compared those products to the Philips' one-panel demo, though, I could not see any real advantages to using three LCOS panels. The reflective, rear-screen LCOS TVs I saw in Shanghai had a couple of glaring image-quality problems—one being the usual LCOS defects and color shading problem and the other being a gray scale problem that broke up a moving image into annoying shimmers. "It doesn't seem to provide any advantage," I observed to one of the attendants. "But it's going to be cheap and the unsophisticated Chinese market won't mind the image quality," came the answer. "How much cheaper?" I asked. But no one gave me a definitive answer. Later on I went to one of Shanghai's versions of Circuit City, and found that consumer electronics stores in China look like their American counterparts—filled with the major Japanese brands along with a few local products. However, I went there in particular to see how one of America's leading business projector manufacturer was doing with its little DLP projector repackaged as a "cheap" rear-screen TV set for the Chinese market. Too Big for a Two-Wheeler
That big-screen TV was not as cheap as it needed to be, and it certainly will not be getting any awards from me for its image quality. Frankly, the sales people didn't seem to be that enthusiastic about its chances either. I pointed to a lower-cost direct-view TV which was sitting next to the more expensive but larger rear-screen and asked the sales person which image he preferred. The direct-view CRT was his answer, and—no surprise—I saw the same set riding home perched precariously on its purchaser's bike. There's really not that much difference between the Chinese display market and the American display market. The last time I spent my own money for a TV, I went to a nearby Circuit City and bought a Sony XBR, too. The only difference between me and the Chinese guy peddling home was the bicycle—we both appreciate the same image quality only I want to take my purchase home with an SUV.
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