Telstra has revealed the addition of almost one million new mobile services in the six months to December 2011, but Sensis revenues plummeted 24 percent in 12 months.
Fast forward to half way through 2007, and today’s plasma and LCD TVs not only have a better picture quality, they’re also much cheaper than in 2004, and have made SED an expensive technology even before it’s on sale.
Prices for a 50-inch SED TV were said to be US $10,000, at a time when a quality 50-inch plasma screen cost that much, and 50” LCD TV screens weren’t commercially available and only being worked on in the lab.
Prices for a 50-inch LCD or plasma screen have plummeted to US $2000 or less, making the cost of SED TV at previous prices far too much for the market to bear, and relegating it to a niche technology for AV perfectionists who simply must have THE very best picture that money can buy, if SED TV does indeed live up to its better picture promises.
This is where SED TV comes up against a new contender – the Laser TV. Reported on in October 2006 in an iTWire article entitled ‘Forget plasma and LCD TV – the Laser TV is coming!’, with follow up articles, Laser TV also delivers what looked to be, in the demonstration, a much richer colour range (thanks to a higher colour gamut) than plasma or LCD TV.
Since those demonstrations, Sony is said to be launching a Laser TV before the end of the year, with other manufacturers promising a 2008 arrival. Also, since those demonstrations, the technology is reported by the company to have improved further, delivering an even better picture. Laser TV is a projection technology, and can be used in forward or rear projection units.
LCOS, or ‘Liquid crystal on silicon’, is yet another technology that once promised a big screen TV revolution, and even had a lot of money spent on it by a range of different companies, including Intel, all seeking to profit, as they should, by a successful commercialization, but sadly it never happened.
To date I’ve only ever seen one LCOS TV, and that was a big 70-inch rear projection unit from LG at a CEDIA (Custom electronics, design and installation association) AV/home automation/installation trade show a couple of years ago.
If Canon and Toshiba truly are serious about SED TV technology becoming a mass market success, instead of an expensive niche product, they have to release it at a realistic price point to have any impact. More expensive TVs that give better picture quality at larger screen sizes already exist – they’re just flashier versions of sub $2000 screens on sale today with better technology inside and a bigger screen for the extra money.
SED TV might not yet be dead, but if it’s not careful, plasma, LCD and perhaps even Laser TV will just knock it on the head instead.
David Bass
| For the fourth year in a row, IDC has placed content security provider Websense (NASDAQ: WBSN) at the top of the IDC Worldwide Web Security 2011 –…
How to Make Business Discovery Work for Your Business
Business Discovery takes its cues from consumer apps. Like Google, it encourages us- ers to hunt for and explore data without worrying about or even noticing the underly- ing technology. Their entire experience is working within an intuitive interface to get real-time, self-service results with only minimal training. ...more
Try an easy-to-use set of web-enabled
tools for business-class productivity services. Office 365 provides
anywhere-access to email, important documents, contacts, and calendars
on almost any device.
