Intel Cancels LCOS Development 138
kfstark writes "It looks like the sub $2000 42" flat panel TV has been pushed back for a while. Intel has announced they are cancelling their Liquid Crystal on Silicon development. Guess I'll have to pick out a different gift for for the umm... kids." Earlier we reported their plans to delay their launch of the LCOS chips. Sadly, now it would seem they've been scrapped altogether.
Why a TV? (Score:2, Informative)
Sub-$2000 flat-panel TV right here (Score:3, Informative)
How about sub-$1000?
Re:What does this have to do with cheap flat panel (Score:3, Informative)
I'm guessing you mean DLP. They're almost flat, but I'll give them full credit because they're so light. There's a lot to like about DLP, but from recent visits to electronics stores (okay, Best Buy), I'm not happy with how the image quality degrades when you're a few feet below the level of the screen (e.g., playing with your dog on the floor). They seem to handle off-angle left and right just fine, it's just down that's a problem. Does anyone know if this is liable to be solved in newer models?
Re:Why a TV? (Score:4, Informative)
Typical home theatre projectors have a 2000 to 3000 hour bulb life these days. If we use the low end, 2000 hours, you would have to run it five and a half hours a day to burn out a bulb in a year.
A quick check on froogle shows a replacement bulb for the popular Infocus 4805 is $395 USD.
So your cost estimate is double what it should be, and your life estimate is probably half what it should be at best.
A $400 bulb every two years or so is more realistic, and for that you get a 100"+ screen to watch in the comfoprt of your own home. Sounds like a good deal to me compared to the alternatives.
See the forums at http://www.avsforum.com/ [avsforum.com] for all the info your could ever want on this topic.
Couldn't make it work well (Score:4, Informative)
the company had decided to improve picture quality before introducing the product.
Re:Plenty of options. LCOS not missed. (Score:3, Informative)
The primary advantages of LCoS involve its construction. In an LCD, since the light has to pass through the display, there is a limit on the size of the pixel since the transistors in it are opaque. This means that the pixels can only be shrunk to a certain size before light transmission is compromised, forcing high-resolution projection LCDs to increase in size to accommodate more pixels.
A similar problem also exists in DLP chips, but due to mechanical considerations of the mirrors and clearances needed. An LCoS chip has its transistors behind immobile pixels, and therefore does not share either shortcoming.
Yet another advantage to having the transistors behind the pixel is that you can then add more than control transistors to each pixel. This allows you to add features like video memory and logic on-chip.
Frankly, I think it is shortsighted of Intel to pull the plug on LCoS, and has increased the pessimism in the industry of whether any company can field these devices in quantity.
Re:What does this have to do with cheap flat panel (Score:1, Informative)
PDP = Plasma display panel
Samsung was talking about plasma displays instead of DLPs.
Re:In other words .... (Score:3, Informative)
Their LCOS competitors, primarily JVC have been just sitting around, which is one of the reasons some of us were really glad to see the initial announcement and really bummed by this one. The DLP guys have made incredible increases in performance - primarily in contrast levels over the last 5 years or so, and yes they too are competitors to LCOS. But, even the essentially five year-old LCOS tech that JVC is still using beats DLP in color quality, resolution and fill factor.
If JVC had been motivated to make the same kind of progress the DLP guys have been making, we'd have 4096x2048, 4000:1 contrast with 96+% fill for under $4K today. Since we don't, I sure was hoping Intel would get there instead.