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Intel Displays

Intel Cancels LCOS Development 138

Posted by CowboyNeal from the another-one-bites-the-dust dept.
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.
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Intel Cancels LCOS Development More

Intel Cancels LCOS Development

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  • What's up with Intel? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jmcmunn ( 307798 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @07:10AM (#10596830)
    They cancel their 4Ghz chips...and now LCOS? Are they hurting for money, or did they just make a couple of bad choices lately that has led to them deciding to end R&D on some projects?

    Or is there something really awesome coming out that they are diverting funds to...doubt it.
    • Ah rambling rubbish: the more subtle karma whore's answer to "first post".

    • Re:What's up with Intel? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Junior J. Junior III ( 192702 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @07:15AM (#10596872) Homepage
      Intel is rumored to have begun R&D for HCOS, the Hi-COSt replacement for LCOS. Intel's bean-counters say that the screens will retail for an estimated $250,000, and will be much more profitable than the sub-$2000 LCOS screens.
    • After reading the 2nd article referenced in the topic, I think this chip "package" was more than they could pull off in a reasonable amount time and expect some kind of decent ROI. Why they wanted to go into this entirely different market and have to build plants just to make this chip is beyond me. That same money can now be used to move forward with their core business (no pun intended) of processors for computers.

    • Re:What's up with Intel? (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Marketing ran this spreadsheet and they saw all this expense in R&D - specifically engineering salaries.

      So they dumped all their high-paid senior engineers and recruited a whole bunch on the H1-B program from countries where engineers are used to working for less than the US minimum wage.

      Hey - an engineer is an engineer right?

      Guess what's happening now?

      **From an unemployed US engineer - the Feds say that I don't exist and we need to IMPORT talent, funny all the guys I meet at the market in the after

  • Reality Meet Intel. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by tomstdenis ( 446163 ) <tomstdenis.gmail@com> on Friday October 22, 2004 @07:10AM (#10596834) Homepage
    Seems like they're falling-through on many of their more recent promisses? That couldn't possibly be to steal thunder from other people...... no way!

    Hey intel, do what many of us said years ago, ditch the P4 crap, admit that it was a mistake and go the normal high IPC route already. K8's are already smoking you at "non-gaming" [re: serious work] tasks and at least as good if not better at the little fps's anyways.

    So take your Pentium-M and advance it already!

    Tom

    • Re:Reality Meet Intel. (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Um, P4 was hardly a "mistake" or "crap". Except for the very beginning, it completely dominated the Athlon line in almost all applications. It took AMD one whole new architecture (A64) to catch up.

      Since then, it's only been recently (starting a couple months after Prescot release, with Intel not being able to ramp clock speeds as intended, despite the ridiculous power-consuming and heat-generating changes made) that the A64 has been decidingly kicking its ass in every application but media encoding (and In
    • >So take your Pentium-M and advance it already!

      Pentium-M are low power and good at SpecInt ok, but are they good at SpecFP?

      Games need serious FP power usually..

  • Bad year for Intel, technology wise? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by hattig ( 47930 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @07:10AM (#10596836) Journal
    Not much has been going for Intel this year, and now they've cancelled these chips as well. Sure, maybe they wouldn't have got a good return on them, but why not put the price up a bit to compensate at the beginning?

    With all the delays on the processor side of things, with only the Pentium-M still executing to plan (well, sans 533MHz FSB at the moment), and this new issue, what is going on at Intel?
    • Is there a good, recent review of the various competing display technologies [LCOS, DLP, Plasma etc.]? It seems to be a very confusing and chaotic place with many disparate technologies jockeying for dominance.
      • Is there a good, recent review of the various competing display technologies [LCOS, DLP, Plasma etc.]?
        I know it's bad form to reply to one's own message but for those who had the same question, I found a very nice comparison of various display technologies at Audioholics.com [audioholics.com].
    • It's called the mud on the wall principle. There was no clear-cut path the Industry has been going in for some time. They simply dumped money into a pile of projects in hopes that one would pay off.

      With the explosion in laptop sales, it would seem that the Pentium-M was a good bet. They simply had options on a few other racehorses as well.

  • What does this have to do with cheap flat panels? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 22, 2004 @07:11AM (#10596839)
    Samsung predicts [digitimes.com] that a price for the 42" PDP will drop to $2099 in the next year and to $1000 in 2006.
    • "Samsung predicts that a price for the 42" PDP will drop to $2099 in the next year and to $1000 in 2006."

      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,

      • Re:What does this have to do with cheap flat panel (Score:1, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        DLP = Digital light projector
        PDP = Plasma display panel

        Samsung was talking about plasma displays instead of DLPs.
      • Samsung's DLP rear projection TV (RPTV) units are excellent, but its cost is still quite high--their current HL-5063W costs around US$3,400 to US$3,500 depending on where you buy it from.

        Fortunately, more manufacturers are bringing out DLP RPTV's, and other competing technologies such as IL-DLA and LCD RPTV's will result in lower prices over the next 18 months.

        But you have to admit that Samsung DLP's are impressively sharp--I've seen widescreen DVD movies and ESPN HD broadcasts on them and it's not likely
      • > image quality degrades when you're a few feet below the level of the screen... Does anyone know if this is liable to be solved in newer models?

        Yeah, that's the deal breaker for me too. There is a solution for this on the horizon, but I forgot the
        vendor's name. Currently, the plastic screen on
        a microprojection TV (DLP or LCOS) is frosted plastic. A startup is working on an optically directional plastic that will be equivilent to zillions of tiny lightpipes from the back of the screen to the front.
      • I suspect that's intentional; the less light they throw on the floor, the more light they can shoot in your face. It also means less stray light illuminating the room, and it all makes for a better experience directly in front of the screen.

        If you wanna watch from the floor, you might have to tip the screen forward, or just set the thing on the floor.
    • You are right, LCOS isn't used in flat panels, it is used in projection, be it rear or front.

  • In other words .... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by binaryDigit ( 557647 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @07:13AM (#10596855)
    "What we've decided is that for the investment that's required and the returns we would get and the timeline to get to those returns, that it doesn't make sense for us to pursue this particular technology," Intel spokesman Bill Calder said.

    Intel initially planned to deliver chips to TV makers in the second half of this year. But in August, the first signs of trouble surfaced, as Intel indefinitely postponed the project, saying the company had decided to improve picture quality before introducing the product.

    So basically they're saying that they thought they could bust into market because their so awesome at making anything made of silicon. They got their first samples done and they sucked compared to their competitors who haven't exactly been sitting around. Then they realized that hey, it's gonna take a lot of money to have something competitive and just how big is the market for $2000 tv's anyway, esp considering how technologically fickle it is at the moment (almost any technology can assert itself during any given generation). Then they figured, why bother.
    • They got their first samples done and they sucked compared to their competitors who haven't exactly been sitting around.

      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
      • 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.

        Maybe AMD could take up the torch and do it. Unlike Intel, they seem to be able to actually succeed in bringing great products to the marketplace, instead of just empty promises.
    • They sucked only slightly re the technology. It's more that they underestimated their competitors.

      When they announced the initiative most digital display technologies were only capable of natively displaying at 720p. This is simply because the native resolution was typically 768 or 770 vertical rows of pixels. They can display 1080 images, but of course the conversion loses detail in the image.

      The hdtv standard also has a format with 1080 vertical lines. 1080i (1080 lines interlaced) is a common broad

  • Back to back product cancelations? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by peterdaly ( 123554 ) <petedaly@@@ix...netcom...com> on Friday October 22, 2004 @07:13AM (#10596856)
    What up with Intel? Just a few days they announced they don't think they can pull off a 4Ghz chip. Today they announce this?

    This doesn't bode well for Intel's R&D/Engineering leader image. They really don't need things like this at a time where AMD is eating their lunch for the first time ever, or at least starting to take bites.

    I wonder if this is a sign of things to come from Intel.

    -Pete

  • I am curious as to what exactly the trouble is. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    With the way the technology was headed, they must have hit some real big show stoppers to not finish off developing a technology they've sunk so much money into, and potentially end up forever outside a HUGE market.
    • TV's may be a huge market, but with the advent of Best-Buy, Walmart, and cheap imports from China, there are almost no margins left in it. You could charge $5000 for a 48" Tv 5 years ago. Today, price it more than $1000 and it will collect dust on the shelf.

      And it's a market that already has an 800 lb Gorilla.

      Sony has been manufacturing far more complex chips, figuring out how to make them uber cheap, and has brand name recognition in the consumer electronics industry. They also sell their cheap stuff under several other brands. If Intel started trying to eat into Sony's lunch pail, Viaos would probably start running a Sony designed x86 compadible.

    • Re:I am curious as to what exactly the trouble is. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by imsabbel ( 611519 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @08:18AM (#10597212)
      i think they underestimated the R&D costs involved in producing the panels (its nothing like cpus..) AND they realized that they can make more money per fab producing flash or processors than the relatively large LCOS-dies (a 200mm^2 p4/opteron can be sold for a few 100$, but a chip for a tv cant...)

    • Couldn't make it work well (Score:4, Informative)

      by Namarrgon ( 105036 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @08:43AM (#10597425) Homepage
      RTFA:

      the company had decided to improve picture quality before introducing the product.

      • Go RTFA again.

        Back in *August* they postponed the project to improve the picture quality. But on Thursday they cancelled it outright. Apparently they could not improve the picture quality.

        "Intel Corp. on Thursday said it has scrapped plans to enter the digital television chip business"

        "...in August, the first signs of trouble surfaced, as Intel indefinitely postponed the project, saying the company had decided to improve picture quality before introducing the product."
        • But on Thursday they cancelled it outright. Apparently they could not improve the picture quality.

          Exactly my point. Thank you for explaining it for me.

          That would appear to be the reason for the cancellation, but it would be nice to know more than the article tells us, I agree.

  • Fucking Intel (Score:2, Funny)

    by rosewood ( 99925 )
    All year long, I have been wanting to buy a big TV. However, every time I would see a great deal, I would pass. I kept thinking that Intel would have this out by Christmas. If I spent $1500 on a TV, I would get one twice as large at Christmas time.

    I bought into Intel hype like a stupid kid.

    I wanted big TV, I got big NOTHING. Thanks Intel, make big promises to gain investment and then just say "Awh fuck it, never mind!"

    Score for user Intel: -1, sucking
    • For about a thousand bucks you can get into a nice DLP front projection unit. I bought a Benq PB 6200 a couple months ago. I laugh everytime I think about what I would have had to spend to get a similar size/quality plasma/lcd (Benq PB6200 projects from 36" to 330" - I run it between 55-70" mostly). IMHO Front Projection DLP's are going to dominate the market once the word gets out. Word. Enjoy.
    • on the other hand, you could say 'thanks Intel', as whilst you've been keeping your pennies in your pocket over the last year, prices have been 'competivitised' so now you can buy a screen that is larger than what you could have had. Due to intel, you've saved your money instead of spending it on the first shiny toy in the first shop window you walked past. :)

  • Time to clean house... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 22, 2004 @07:22AM (#10596911)
    I think it's time to get some new blood into the company. I think you'll see some "cleaning of house" in Q1 2005.

    I'm surprised people are not talking about it.
    • The problem is that the person responsible for this decline is Craig Barrett, and unless the Board decides to can his ass six months from retirement, you're not gonna see anything for at least another year.

      Have you noticed how far Intel has declined under Barrett? You wonder how the Board could put up with this noob for so long.
      • Andy Grove probably realised that the tech boom was not forever, and given his increasing age probably wanted to just let the company hold its own with his name not attached to it as it once was. See if it'll manage and grow old like IBM (they came from the Hollerith [wikipedia.org] era of computing.)

        Jack Welch probably realised the same about GE. A CEO can only hold the company for so long. Company life cycle theory [stanford.edu] is quite interesting, and I'd like to see how Intel favors under it.

        Put it another way. It's all abou

  • Why a TV? (Score:2, Informative)

    by naitro ( 680425 )
    How come everyone is so fixated on big screen TVs? A decent projector + a TV-tuner can be bought for far less than $2000, and I don't mean off eBay. Xbox on a 90" screen is the shiznit.

    • Re:Why a TV? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by IvanD ( 719006 )
      The TV is way cooler!! But that is not the point, the TV has already the "screen" and better definition, resolution and if you set the brigth to the highest... you don't have to be worry of burning the "bulb".
    • "A decent projector + a TV-tuner can be bought for far less than $2000"

      True, but compared to a good TFT/LCD/Plamsa TV, the projector image sucks.

      It is less clear, harder to view in anything other than total darkness, and is more intrusive on the room to use.

      I've seen side-by-side comparisons, and the projectr looses out every time (except if you can guarantee that the viewing room will be in total darkness - e.g. in a cinema - or you want a display far larger than a plasma et al can produce.
    • Don't forget though, that you are going to be popping $800 bulbs into the puppy every 6 months to a year.

      • Re:Why a TV? (Score:4, Informative)

        by colins ( 432 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @08:42AM (#10597410) Homepage
        I call Bullshit.

        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.

        • I call further bullshit, with some exceptions.

          I don't disagree that a good projector setup is an awesome experience, and ALL RPTVs eat high-dollar bulbs, so the bulb issue is kind of moot.

          RPTVs (especially the tabletop models like Sony's LCD RPTV and Samsung's DLP) offer far better ambient light pictures than a projector and are much simpler to integrate into a room.

          The latter is important for most people -- mounting a projector in a ceiling or floor and then cabling it to your video sources *neatly* isn
    • Well, in my living room A) there is no space to mount a projector properly without it looking ghetto. Even if there were, the construction work to wire and set it up would have cost about as much as my LCD RP set. B) FP works great with low light conditions, but not great in average light. I have lots of windows in a Manhattan apartment, so an FP setup would only be usable late at night - even with all the blinds drawn, the light level is still too high, it would look insanely washed out.

      I guess if yo

  • Meanwhile, sagem is selling this [sagem.fr] set, which looks like it could make me drool in a very homerish way. Does anyone have one of these? Do they look better than a plasma screen?

  • Attention Mr. Slashdot reader (Score:5, Funny)

    by carnivore302 ( 708545 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @07:47AM (#10597027) Journal
    Dear Mr. Slashdot reader,

    First of all let me appologize for asking for your attention in this rude way. And before I continue, let me first humbly introduce myself. I am Youko Grant Youka, daughter of the late Nigerian prime minister Omboukou Grant Youka. It is with great anticipation that I seek contact with you.

    There is technology available called LCOS. My father, the late Omboukou Grant Youka has invested 300 million dollars in a very secret project to develop inexpensive flat panel displays. When my father passed away, in his will it was determined that whatever was left of the 300 million dollar investment would go to me, his only daughter Youko Grant Youka.

    It is with great discomfort that I now must conclude that since the military has gained power in my country I no longer can rely on the enforcers of the law. There is 206 million dollars left of the investment, which I must transfer to a foreign bank account as soon as possible. If you will help me in achieving this I will as a reward for your kindness share half of this amount (103 million dollars) with you. Does this proposal sound attractive to you?

    With most sincere regards,

    Mrs. Youko Grant Youka

  • Intel Falling Apart (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Bruha ( 412869 )
    It seems lately Intel has been met face on with many failures. Lately I've been keeping my eyes on Ibm's power developments and AMD's work also in how they push CPU power without the Mhz factor. However while Intel produces a lot of chips you have to remember AMD is one of the largest chip makers in the world and their CPU business is only a small fraction of that. Maybe AMD will pick up where Intel gave up.
  • I've been reading up on some of the "up and coming" display technologies, and I have a theory!

    The new devices that are coming out are "Organic LEDs." [audioholics.com] These devices are looking to offer brighter displays, no backlighting required, even FLEXIBLE TV! Lets just say that with a screen thickness as small as 1mm (yes that's millimetres) I'll wait for that 42" TV you can hang on the wall like a picutre(and not need a forklift/specialty anchorage).
    • Currently OLED technologies have a very serious screen-aging problem that makes OLEDS just not useful in the TV market. Plasma screens burn in very quickly, but OLEDs lose brightness accuracy within a few thousands hours. They need to fix that first.

      • Plasma screens burn in very quickly, but OLEDs lose brightness accuracy within a few thousands hours. They need to fix that first.

        Large strides have been made in this arena recently.

        Even so, if they can make the damned things by printing them, then sell me a 10 year display package that will include a new screen being shipped to me every 2 years (high use) and just reusing the base electronics. The manufacturers get to recoup the technology costs, and sell products soon, and the consumer won't get affect

  • Someone smart at Intel (Score:5, Insightful)

    by samael ( 12612 ) <Andrew@Ducker.org.uk> on Friday October 22, 2004 @08:01AM (#10597105) Homepage
    Sounds like there's been a shift in priorities at Intel recently. Someone high up's insisted that all projects be analysed to see if they wil actual be profitable and a few are being canned because they aren't worthwhile.

    Almost certainly a good thing - so long as they're still investing heavily in R&D.

  • Sub-$2000 flat-panel TV right here (Score:3, Informative)

    by The Wicked Priest ( 632846 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @08:04AM (#10597115)
    Here's one you can get right now: a Maxent ED Plasma [bestbuy.com]. I'm sure there are other examples.

    How about sub-$1000?
    • I only buy name brand electronics, like Magnetbox and Sorny.

      • Re:Maxent?? (Score:1, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Bart: "Don't be a sap dad. These are just crappy knock-offs."
        Homer: "I know a genuine 'Panaphonics' when I see one.

  • Can be read at Audioholics [audioholics.com] plus a link to JVC's similar DILA technology.

    LCOS isn't really used to make flat panels, but you can make thinner rear projection TVs.

  • Intel can only be doing this because of AMD (Score:3, Interesting)

    by twfry ( 266215 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @08:27AM (#10597281)
    Basically AMD has the better server option over Xeon for the next year or two. If it lasts any longer than that Intel will lose dominance and they know that. Because of this they have done the following to refocus on their core process, microprocessors.
    • Canceled - Next versions of the P4, Tejas
    • Canceled - +4GHz chips with ever diminishing returns
    • Canceled - The Alviso chip for notebooks
    • Realized they had to extend 64-bits to the Xeon/P4 line
    • Realized they had to make Itanium run x86-64

    So now they have a crappy processor core and to save themselves they are throwing every resource available at making dual core chips because AMD is ahead of them on that by 6-12 months and it is going to kill their cash cow business.
    • You think that Intel cancelled LCOS so they could shift resources to their processor line? You think they cancelled LCOS because of AMD? You don't think that TI's extremely successful DLP has anything to do with it? That's absurd. You, sir, are a troll.

      Basically AMD has the better server option over Xeon for the next year or two
      Really? Please... substantiate this with facts. What the hell are you talking about?

      Canceled - Next versions of the P4, Tejas
      Tejas was cancelled. Next version of P4 wil

  • LCOS and DRM (Score:2, Interesting)

    by phage434 ( 824439 )
    I have always thought that the real reason for Intel's interest in LCOS was the ability to decrypt content and display it from the same chip. This would make most attacks on DRM protected material quite difficult. By making LCOS displays on the chip technology as the decryption/decompression engine, they could control the DRM food chain quite effectively. Meanwhile, don't forget that there are still many players successfully manufacturing LCOS displays. Intel just is not one of them. You may still be ab

  • Plenty of options. LCOS not missed. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by LeiGong ( 621856 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @08:39AM (#10597383) Homepage
    The option for ~$2k, 42" HDTVs are still out there. The fact of the matter is Intel would have been one of the last companies to stand by the LCOS technology. Pretty much every TV company has abandoned it for LCD or DLP technology. I was recently in the market for HDTVs and went through looking at all the sub-$3k ones. I did my research and was very eager to check out how LCOS stacked up against the competition. A lot of articles made it sound like the holy grail of HD quality... Surprisingly, the LCOS TVs by Phillip looked the worst and I was informed by the sales guy at Tweeters that Phillips is discontinue selling LCOS due to technical and quality issues. And that was the only LCOS TV they carried among the over 2 dozen big screens. The LCD projection (not LCD flat panel) by Sony and DLPs by Samsung were much much better quality for almost the same or less price. I personally think DLP projection is now the way to go and so many new manufacturers are jumping in that LCOS will not be missed.
    • LCoS is actually a superior technology in many ways, but it seems that nobody can make it cheap and plentiful. When I saw the Intel demos of the product at CES (private suite), I was very impressed with the image quality. There are other companies like Brillian and Spacialight currently selling 720p and 1080p LCoS chips, but in relatively small quantities for high-end and private-label applications.

      The primary advantages of LCoS involve its construction. In an LCD, since the light has to pass through the d
      • As I understand it, it's really really hard to build LCOS TVs because there the three color chips have to be aligned perfectly in order to get a crisp picture.

        From a pure technology perspective, LCOS may be better then DLP, but when you consider that people (and machines) have to be able to produce these things before you can put one on your wall, LCOS obviously lost the battle.
    • Well I own a 55" Phillips LCOS HDTV. The only quanlity issue I have with it is the black levels and some banding in dark areas. I've noticed the same symptoms on other technologies too. In typical images, the HD scenes are outstanding.

      -- David
    • Sony will be coming out with a $10,000 LCOS based (SXRD) rear projection TV very soon. It will be from their Qualia line of products. it does native 1920x1080 HD and makes LCD/DLP pale in comparison.

      And then there is the Qualia 004, which is their $30,000 Lcos based projector. I've seen this projector myself in action and can attest to the amazing image.

      LCOS will be around simply because it is one of the best technologies, which is why Sony uses it in their most cutting edge line of products. Hopeful
    • Many of the Phillips LCOS displays were having problems with images having a strong purple hue to them. Apparently the colors would fade towards purple over time. The only LCOS display that I have seen in a store was quite purple. I don't know if this is a Phillips or an Intel problem. My guess is that the Intel chips had serious quality issues.
  • IMHO, the Wavelength Selectable black front projector screen demonstrated by Sony at the 2004 Society for Information Display conference in Seattle will make anyone reconsider a LCOS, LCD, or PDP purchase. The InFocus DLP based projectors would do quite well matched with the Sony screen.

    Basically it makes placing a projector and screen in the solarium a viable option.

    Brillian's LCOS engine looked nice at the show, but this screen got me more excited.

    Reference Links:

    http://www.insightmedia.info/email [insightmedia.info]

  • They are for projectors or projection TVs.
  • What was the previous press release, just a trick to get the stock to jump?
  • A minor nitpick of the submitter's quote, but...

    LCOS technologies are used in (rear-) projection displays and not "flat panel" displays (LCD/Plasma).

    LCOS displays have long suffered from a shimmering effect that I found distracting to the point of being annoying. Compared to the latest DLP designs, LCOS has a ways to go before it can seriously compete.
  • This hasn't been pushed back. It has been pushed forward. The "back" refers to a schedule, where "back" means earlier and "forward" means later.

    Don't feel bad, lots of people incorrectly use this term....
  • TI on the other hand has never sold that many DLPs!

    From http://www.ti.com/corp/docs/investor/quarterly/3q0 4.shtml [ti.com]

    ... double-digit growth across all the company's major Semiconductor operations, with particularly strong contributions from wireless,
    DLP and high-performance analog products.

  • For a second there, I though it said LCARS.

  • JVC has an LCOS technology, which is not cheap because it uses 3 monochrome chips with separate color light sources, but is supposed to produce very nice pictures. Projectors MSRP $29.9K described here [jvc.com] Television MSRP $4.5 -- 6K here [jvc.com].

    IIRC, Intel was trying for a single chip solution. TI's DLP chip [dlp.com] is a solo and the television mfgs' use a rotating color wheel.

    I am really kind of amazed that Intel is throwing in the towel on this one. The eventual winner in this category stands to make a lot of money. Yes,
  • Uh, if you haven't noticed plasmas are dropping massively. you can get a 50" lg plasma for $4000 right now and they're only getting cheaper...32" sony for $1800. LG(zenith) owns so much of the panel manufacturing business that now they can start dropping the prices...and are...that 50" was $8000 a few months back.

    Expect both LCD and Plasma to continue going down.

    Personally I've never seen much of a future for LCOS..The cabinets are still huge and bulky and doesn't look very nice. Compared to say, rear pro
  • http://www.ti.com/home_dlp

    This is the coolest video tech to come along in a while. I already bought stock in TI. I think these will be replacing all tubes sets in the near-term and will give all competing tech a hard time. They have already released the 2nd gen chips and those chips are in products now.

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