Tonight at the Moon Room on the top floor of the The Palms Hotel & Casino overlooking Las Vegas,
Mitsubishi unveiled its laser HDTV. As expected, Mitsubishi kicked off the event with a few execs expressing their love for lasers -- and Mitsubishi in general. They explained that Mitsubishi is a leader in laser technology and owns 75% of the led laser market, so bringing them together with big screen TVs made perfect sense. Then the event went from execs to night club as the curtain was dropped and there were three 65-inch laser HDTVs on display. At first glance the colors were sensational and the contrast was extremely intense; and although we were hard pressed to see anything that struck us as groundbreaking, we'll need to see this side by side with a traditional set to really know what we're looking at. Unfortunately, the event was short on details, such as price or availability, but during 2008 is the time frame Mitsubishi is aiming for.
posted Jan 8th 2008 1:21AM
Mitsubishi trademarks LAZR and LAZRTV for Laser TVs:
http://www.trademork.com/lazr/
A very good introduction with pictures, videos and detail technology informations about Laser-Television at
http://www.oled-display.info/what-is-laser-tv
They are also 3D capable!
http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS54220+08-Jan-2008+BW20080108
yay for lasers
I wonder what the color range is. Also, they would need to account for specialized display surfaces, since laser light tends to scatter and bleed on the wrong materials.
Looks red to me.
Since this is a REAR-SCREEN projector, that's not an issue, as the screen is included. Your issue would only BE an issue for front-projector home theater type systems (I haven't seen any of those cited anywhere yet).
i always thought it was "seeing is believing"
And in this case "seeing is hazardous to your vision" as well
Absolutely amazing pictures. If it looks as good in person and the price is competitive with other HDTV sets, laser will become the new standard.
http://laser-tv.org
How can you tell? Are you viewing the engadget pictures of a laser tv on a laser tv?
Uh, boy, this comment/account sure doesn't look like an advertisement for a laser-TV centric news blog.
No siree, not in the slightest.
Frickin' lasers!
I wanted to say that!
am I the only one who thought VIRTUAL BOY the second I saw this?
Virtual boy was so much fun...in about half hour intervals. Any longer, and my eyes went batty.
Haha, for a second there I had Virtual Boy flashbacks too! I may have to dig that old thing out of the closet and play it some tonight!
First generation of a new video display technology, eh? I think I'll sit this one out for the time being.
Are these LCD thin though or are we going back to CRT size TVs?
How much will it cost for the mounts to put these TVs on the heads of sharks?
When I first heard of this tech, it was supposed to be Rear projection, but about as thick (~4") as an early plasma/LCD, while offering superb colors and also being very cheap relative to plasma/LCD.
If that's the case when they come out, and they come out soon, I'll be happy.
Price? Try buying 1000 of those laser pointers! lol
this is based on the Australian Novalux design. it was due to be announced for Fall 2007. guess they waited for CES and decided Christmas wasn't ready for it.
http://www.novalux.com/
I guess I didn't realize Mitsubishi had a monolopy(?), strong hold for sure, in the laser market
Good for them
As long as the other specs are up to par, my only concern is the viewing angles. If it's anything like other rear projection technologies, it's going to have a little trouble keeping up with LCD and plasma.
hopefully these have a wider viewing angle, then i'm sold
My understanding is that a "laser TV" is nothing more than a DLP engine with a laser as the light source going through a PCAOM. Granted thats a feat in itself, but with advances in LED luminance I think this may be a fad; albeit a very cool one.
Actually, there's more benefit to these laser displays than just luminance.
Laser-based displays not only have amazing contrast, but also have wider color range, lower power consumption, no color shift/loss over time, and lower production costs (which will HOPEFULLY be passed along to consumers).
http://www.necsel.com/
@numlok: Like LED
Its got more shades of red than any other display technology
This is my understanding as well. The laser television will be very similar to the LED DLP's now. They will also have the same benefits. LED DLP's provide a wider range of colors while using much less energy than other technologies. They are also very reliable as well.
"Believing is Seeing" ... not when you're looking at a crappy camera phone pic of the new laser TV's image.
um this has been in the works for a while,
MIT's Technology Review had an article awhile back about it,
http://www.technologyreview.com/Nanotech/17651/
Oh, it has? I thought they just recently started working on it, and were only showing off a concept with a Plasma inside saying "it's going to be totally better than this."
Damn, I wish the camera shots weren't so blurry. I understand though, it is a pain trying to get good shots in a dark environment.
do I need to wear my foil hat when watching this TV?
As one who was ready to bite the bullet and drop two to three grand on a flat panel LCD HDTV, I am so happy that the news of this new and revolutionary laser HD TV technology has surfaced. Guess I'll wait some more....
you go blind after 5 minutes.
Mits has been showing bits and pieces of this technology for the past two years at least. It was supposed to be available to the public by last Christmas, but I don't think anyone really expected them to meet that timeframe. Last year they also said that it would be comparable in price to current lcd/plasma sets, which made me think it would be sold everywhere. If it is only being sold through high-end home theater retailers then I wonder what the actual price point will be. I'm even more skeptical since they aren't even mentioning price right now.
But it should be awesome. If it all pans out the way Mits said it would last year I will be buying one. If they come out and cost 5-6 thousand and are hard to find then maybe not. If they seriously want to compete with lcd's and plasmas then the price better not be over 3 grand.
Why is it only red???
Doesn't green and blue work???
I mean really now, if you going to show off a laser display with a banner page announcing "Laser TV", why monochromatic? It's mighty odd and I think they have some issues and they're not saying.
Look at the rest of the gallery and there are pics of the screens in color. It seems many digital cameras are overly sensitive to red so I dont think the pics are good because of that.
Question is though is there and "speckle" like you get with any other monochromatic light source?
where is laser tv? all of those are mit. where is laser tv!!!!!