Laser TV

[nwg]

I adjusted the LCD PJ the same way. I played the same DVD on a LCD TV and it looks just like the DLP in terms of colour but less sharp.

[lfcrule1972]

http://svp.co.uk/products-solo.php?pid=1684

I quite like the look of this 32" LCD tv, it's the same as my father in-laws altho he paid almost £500 more earlier this year.....

[nwg]

You can't go wrong with Panasonic even if they cost a bit more.

It seems all LCD's have come down in price recently. My Brother bought 32" a Wharfdale IDTV with Freeview for just £550.

I also like the look of their cheap Teco TV which is just £460. I think I would try one these if I was in market for a TV.

http://svp.co.uk/products-solo.php?pid=1577

[RFBurns]

Do direct view LCD panels incorporate the mirror set up (DLP). Why is a color wheel required on the DLP projector/rear projector as opposed to direct view? Do DLP's produce better blacks than direct view LCD panels?

Direct LCD pannels do incorporate the DLP chips.


The color wheel is an old technique to attempt to create true color pictures. It was experimented on and actually marketed for a short while way back when tv was still new.

In the new units with the color wheel, it works with the single LCD emitter with a timing requirement that exceeds the timing requirement of a typical automobilie engine. Just 1 microsecond of mis-timming between the color wheel and the LCD emitter, the result is a picture with incorrect color and picture delay (lag). The mechanics are a nightmare and like anything mechanical..it is prone to failure due to old lubricants on the bearings and servo motor.

It should have been left in the past IMHO.

Both direct pannel and projector units can produce very near true black thanks to the DLP LCD chips. In rear projection and wall/screen LCD projectors, the LCD pannels inside are transparent, the DLP's are also transparent, similar to "one-way glass" like you would find in a police interrogation room. One side is reflective and you cannot see through it, but the other side is easily seen through. This allows the LCD rear projection and wall/screen projector units to produce as near as "true black" as possible.

I think SONY should have you write a primer to give people at the locals SEARS stores to educate the sales people and customers. You make it seem easy.

Thanks for the comment! However it is not easy from the design prospective.

See...us engineers, or at least some of us, try to incorporate "common sense" when drafting a design. We tend to throw in our own little ideas or changes because we clearly see in the early stages of design, a flaw that can be remidied by very simple changes that make the overall end result better for both consumer and manufacturer.

For example, lets look at a vulnerability in any brand of LCD projection and rear projection units.

For a few years now, I have tried to get Sony Corp to incorporate a very simple and effective way to prevent lamp burnout due to an AC power outage. They just wont listen.

An LCD rear projection unit and LCD wall/screen projector uses high intensity lamps. These lamps MUST be kept cool or they would burn up. At power down, the unit's fans continue to run so that the lamp goes through a "power down cooling cycle". This is absolutely necessary to prevent the lamp heat from literally melting the lamp's glass envelope, even though the lamp itself is turned off. Well...if the AC mains power dies, this also turns off the unit's cooling fans...thus the lamp does not go through a power down cooling cycle at all, and can make the lamp burn its own glass envelope, creating "bubbles" in the envelope. If the lamp develops these bubbles, it can focus these high intensity beams that are created by the bubbles, and burn blotches onto the LCD emitter pannels. This results in a huge green or red or blue "blotch" in the picture. The blocth is permanently burned onto the LCD emitters.

My cure to that was to incorporate a battery backup for the fan systems. Since the fans run on 7 to 12vdc, the incorporation of a trip circuit that monintors the AC mains input, would trigger the battery backup for the cooling fans so the lamp can go through its cool down cycle even though the AC mains is offline. The circuit would return to normal operation when AC power comes back online, and the tv's internal power systems would maintain the recharge for the battery during normal operation.

Makes sense doesnt it?!!

It is that kind of nonesense when dealing with corporate "thinktanks" that think they know it all, and just frustrates the heck out of us engineers, knowing that something could have been included in a design that would not cost the manufacturing process any more than adding a logo or wire to the entire unit.

The lack of a fan backup power system for the LCD rear projection and wall/screen projectors does not make them any less valuable or reliable than their Plasma counterpart. For one, it is FAR cheaper to replace a burnt up lamp (aprox 99 bucks) than it is to replace an entire Plasma tube at nearly 3 grand!!!!

Someday the corporate thinktank will work WITH the engineering and design department so that perhaps some common sense can be implemented into a new design.

[toomanycats]

Thanks that cleared some stuff up for me. If I put my projector on a battery backup would that allow the cool down procedure? I wonder if my projector would stay on long enough for me to shut it down properly. We get a lot of power outages in this part of New England durin the winter months.

[TNT]

The mirrors are constructed inside the LCD element, commonly refered to as "DLP chips"

RF, Is the DLP Chip you refer to here the same as the DLP chip in this TI flash clip posted by nwg? Just a bit confused.

[RFBurns]

RF, Is the DLP Chip you refer to here the same as the DLP chip in this TI flash clip posted by nwg? Just a bit confused.

Yes.

As demonstrated in the video, the chip contains "micro-mirrors" which gives each LCD emitter element the ability to throw light at the extreme angles needed for picture clarity and brightness. This eliminates the "fading-washed out" look on the older LCD units, where if one were to move the monitor or step to the side, the picture washes out because the LCD cannot emit the image produced at those angles. The DLP or TI chip as refered to in the video, gives the LCD emitter the ability to angle that light so when you move right or left, up or down, the light is even across those angles as it were if you look at it directly in front of the screen.

The difference I should point out is that one uses that silly color wheel, while direct pannels only utilize the chip itself with the back light.

As you can see, this chip was invented back in 87. The problem was..that the size of the prototypes and first production chips were not small enough to incorporate into the LCD screens in those years, thats why laptop LCD pannels and early direct LCD pannels had the fading-washed out symptom. Materials were also a concern since these things need to be micron size in order to create a large LCD screen with high resolution. Its the same analogy with a digital still picture. Each LCD emitter is a pixel. The more pixels, the higher resoltuion the image will be. With the micro-mirror LCD emitters, not only does it eliminate the washed out look from viewing at right or left angles from the front of the screen, it also provides better light saturation and dark saturations, hence better "true black" and better "white", which in turn requires less backlighting of the LCD screen.

[RFBurns]

Thanks that cleared some stuff up for me. If I put my projector on a battery backup would that allow the cool down procedure? I wonder if my projector would stay on long enough for me to shut it down properly. We get a lot of power outages in this part of New England durin the winter months.

You could run the projector through an uninterruptable power supply (UPS) but keep in mind, the projector's lamp and power supply do require a little bit of current from the AC source, so the UPS would have to be a good hefty one to run the projector. However you might be able to get by with a mid sized one as long as the projector is not going to run on it for long periods of time, just long enough to turn it off properly during an AC mains outage so that the unit can run through its cool down cycle while the AC power goes through its outage period. The power requirement for the fans to continue to run for the cool down process is considerably less than it would be if the whole unit is on..ie with lamp running.

[nwg]

You don't want power outages with a PJ. My Fathers DLP has a combined DVD player and sound system. Even when it is switched off there is some current to make the DVD tray eject and switch it on. There was a power cut and when the power came back on, it blew the lamp.

My PJ has a cool down precedure and cools down the lamp before going to standby.

I have extension cables with surge protection.