HDTV components: DLP vs LCD, LCoS, SED, SXRD, Plasma review

Although there is no 1080p source material yet, TI and Samsung demonstrated a new 1080P DLP chip, and Epson demonstrated a 3-chip 1080p LCD display.

Canon Announces New 3 chip LCoS projector: Canon announced the development of a high definition 3 chip LCoS front projector, with special lens technology that maintains a compact form factor (Editor's Note: This unit, the amazing SX 50, is now available for sale, as of October 2005)



TI Announces New DarkChip3 DLP projection chip: TI released information about the upcoming DarkChip3™ that features architectural changes to the DLP chip resulting in a 20 - 40% improvement in contrast over DarkChip2™ (Editor's Note: The Optoma H78DC3 is the first DarkChip3™ projector under $4,000)

New technology: Sony was showing an SXRD 1080p rear projector, the Qualia 006, which will ship later this year in Canada for $17,000. The 70-inch display uses three high-definition SXRD panels. (Silicon Xtral Reflective Display) panels. Even when viewed at extremely close distances, the picture is incredibly smooth, vibrant and film-like. The Senior Vice-President Home Products for Sony Electronics Inc., Mike Fiddler, said: "We believe SXRD will be the Trinitron of the 21st century." SXRD is Sony's rendition of LCOS technology.

News from Toshiba: Toshiba said it will soon introduce the first flat-panel displays utilizing the SED (Surface conduction Electron emitter Display) technology it has co-developed with Canon. The first SED televisions will be expensive, but as yields improve and production increases, prices will be reduced. Yoshihide Fujimoto, CEO of Toshiba's Digital Media Networking Company, stated: "Theoretically, prices for SED can be much lower than plasma".

Scott Ramirez, Toshiba's Vice President of Marketing, further stated that "SED is going to be the new standard in flat panel; it's going to change the way you look at flat panel". The specifications are impressive: 1080p (1920 x 1080) resolution, extremely high 8600:1 contrast ratio and 1 msec response time.

The SED is a new type of flat-panel display technology, that was created through the merging of Canon's proprietary electron emission and micro-fabrication technologies with Toshiba's CRT technology and mass-production technologies for liquid crystal displays and semiconductors. Like conventional CRT televisions, the SED utilizes the phenomena of electron collision with a phosphor coated screen to emit light. The main difference is that the electron emitters, which correspond to an electron gun in a CRT television, are distributed in an amount equal to the number of pixels on the display. In addition to high brightness and high definition, the SED delivers exceptional overall image quality, fast video-response performance, high contrast, high gradation levels and low power consumption.

Other News: LG and Toshiba and said they would ship DLP rear projectors with resolution of 1080p in 2005. Panasonic announced new DLP rear projectors, including a 61-inch 1080p model, Samsung was demonstrating an outstanding 1080p DLP projector, and BenQ had a 70 inch DLP front screen projector at its exhibit. Sharp is also entering the DLP market, and will soon have 56 and 65 inch models available. Some manufacturers will also introduce premium models with CableCARD digital tuners and Gemstar Electronic Program Guides.

For the sake of clarity, here are some acronym and terminology definitions relating to the various display technologies, used in the other table below to compare the various screen types:

TERM	DEFINITION
TLA	Three Letter Acronym
HDTV	High Definition Television. The highest quality video picture available in Digital TV. In the U.S., the 1080i and 720p resolution formats in a 16:9 aspect ratio are the two acceptable HDTV formats. Regular NTSC analog TV is 480i.
HTPC	Home Theater Personal Computer. The use of a PC as a processing and source control platform for a home theater system.
RPTV	Rear Projection TV. The type of home theater screen system where the image is projected onto the back of the screen. Can be DLP, LCD, CRT projection technology.
Lumens	An ANSI Lumen is a measurement of light radiation or brightness. A 3,000 Lumen projector creates a brighter picture than a 2,000 Lumen unit. The ANSI prefix is a standards designation (American National Standards Institute).
Nits	Plasma and LCD manufacturers use this term to define the brightness of their screens. Another term for Nits is Candelas per square meter (Cd/m2). One nit = 0.2919 foot-lambert. Nits includes an area definition, unlike lumens, so you can't simply divide by Watts to establish a Nits/watt spec.
480i 720p 1080p	resolution measurement in lines, p for "progressive scan", i for "interlaced scan". Conventional TV (e.g. 480i) is interlaced whereby the screen is scanned twice by alternate lines that are interleaved (interlaced), whereas HDTV (e.g. 720p) can scan all lines sequentially (consecutively or progressively).
DVI HDCP	Digital Visual Interface technology with High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection. Developed by Intel Corporation, HDCP is a specification to protect digital entertainment content through the DVI interface. The HDCP specification provides a transparent method for transmitting and receiving digital entertainment content to DVI-compliant digital displays. Some products, such as set-top boxes and DVD burners will require this connector. Even if you have a HDTV set-top box, if it lacks the DVI, your signal may be degraded.
HDMI	High Definition Multimedia Interface. Like DVI, HDMI is another digital interface, and from what we saw at CES 2005, it may become the universal standard. Developed by Sony, Hitachi, Thomson (RCA), Philips, Matsushita (Panasonic), Toshiba and Silicon Image, the High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) has emerged as the connection standard for HDTV and the consumer electronics market. HDMI is the first digital interface to combine uncompressed high-definition video, multi-channel audio and intelligent format and command data in a single digital interface.
SACD	Super Audio CD uses a new recording technology called Direct Stream Digital. DSD records a one bit digital signal at a sample rate of 2.8 million times per second, 64 times higher than conventional CD's.
NTSC	Existing color TV standard developed in the U.S. in 1953 by the National Television System Committee. NTSC vertical line resolution is 525 lines/frame and the vertical frequency is 60Hz. The NTSC frame rate is 29.97 frames/sec.
CRT	Cathode Ray Tube - venerable old style picture tube
PDP	Plasma Display Panel, plasma is a physics term for an electrically charged gas
LCD	Liquid Crystal Display, same as laptop screens
TFT	Thin Film Technology, a type of LCD
DLP	Digital Light Processor, a reflective light switch chip developed by TI. Has a very fast response time - no motion lag
TI	Texas Instruments Corp., original manufacturer of DMD's and DLP's
DMD	Digital Micro-mirror Device - chip for DLP technology by TI
DNIe	Digital Natural Image enhancement - chip for optimizing video picture quality, by Samsung (used in their DLP units)
LCoS	Liquid Crystal on Silicon, reflective light switch
SXRD projection	Silicon X-tal Reflective Display: Sony's incarnation of LCoS technology. Sharp picture, no pixelation, very high resolution, reflective system won't burn out picture element, "no moving parts" design usually incorporates 3 imaging chips for primary colors, instead of color wheel.
SED	Surface conduction Electron emitter Display by Toshiba/Canon
FED	Field Emission Display: New technology from Sony
OLED	Organic Light Emitting Diode display: new technology from Seiko-Epson
D-iLA	Direct Drive Image Light Amplifier, LCoS chip developed by JVC
QXGA	high screen resolution of 2048 x 1536, attained by D-iLA chip
DCDi	Directional Correlation Deinterlacing (a de-interlacing method to eliminate jagged edges (jaggies) along diagonal lines caused by interpolation, developed by Faroudja corp. An important feature to look for, this Emmy® award winning technology was once only available in products costing $20,000 or more, and is now available in numerous products costing well below $2,000
aspect ratio	ratio of screen width to height. An aspect ratio of 4:3 is conventional TV and 16:9 is HDTV (and film)
3-2 pulldown	a method of film-to-video conversion
twitter and judder	terms describing film conversion related artifacts
anamorphic lens	a special lens that compresses the pixels of a 4:3 screen into a 16:9 format, and allows a projector to use the full brightness of the display, without black bars above and below the image. Must normally be removed for regular 4:3 viewing.
SDE	Screen Door Effect is a term used to refer to the visible pixel structure on a screen.
YADR!	Yet Another Dang Remote! A common exclamation heard from people who just bought their third or fourth home audio/video component. And then there are further unmentionable expletives when you find out a component isn't supported, or it's just too complicated to program everything in?? Maybe it's time to read about our experience in the remote control review article.

The following table provides a quick comparison of the display types; "pixelation" refers to the ability to see individual picture elements (pixels) at normal viewing distances (note that all the types below can contribute to the YADR index). Please note that these products are being constantly improved and not all manufacturer's models may be subject to the disadvantages listed below:

DISPLAY TYPE	PRO - ADVANTAGE	CON - DISADVANTAGE
CRT conventional picture tube	Cathode Ray Tube: very sharp and bright, high contrast ratio, good picture view from side, low cost, handles regular analog NTSC channels well, no moving parts	heavy and bulky, limited in size to about 36", picture can fade
CRT projection	low cost, large screens possible, no moving parts	heavy and bulky, limited viewing angles, visible raster lines, mis-convergence can be a problem, picture can fade over time
LCD flat screen panel	Liquid Crystal Display: bright, sharp picture, light and compact, can hang on wall, solid state, no moving parts	picture can fade over time
LCD projection	fairly bright, large screens possible, sharp picture, no moving parts	display can fade due to heat damage to organic compounds that some manufacturers use in the LCD, projector bulb can fail
PDP Plasma flat screen panel	Plasma Display Panel: bright picture, light and compact, can hang on wall, wide viewing angle, no moving parts, handles fast motion really well	expensive, some pixelation, display can burn out.
DLP projection	Digital Light Processor: bright, sharp picture, high contrast, no  pixelation, reflective system won't burn out picture element, very fast response time - no motion lag.	possible visual "rainbow" artifacts on single chip versions caused by spinning color wheel, projector bulb can fail
LCoS projection	Liquid Crystal on Silicon: bright, sharp picture, no pixelation, very high resolution, reflective system won't burn out picture element, "no moving parts" design usually incorporates 3 imaging chips for primary colors, instead of color wheel.	projector bulb can fail
SXRD projection	Silicon X-tal Reflective Display: Sony's incarnation of LCoS technology. Sharp picture, no pixelation, very high resolution, reflective system won't burn out picture element, "no moving parts" design usually incorporates 3 imaging chips for primary colors, instead of color wheel.	projector bulb can fail
SED panel display	Surface conduction Electron emitter Display: very bright picture, very high resolution, can hang on wall, very high contrast ratio, can be viewed from any angle, no moving parts, handles fast motion really well	expensive at first, not available yet
FED panel display	Field Emission Display: New technology from Sony, properties are similar to SED	expensive at first, not available yet
OLED panel display	Organic Light Emitting Diode display: new technology from Seiko-Epson	expensive at first, not available yet