Not your sports bar's rear-projection TV

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This tactic of selling low-cost TVs through club stores and discount outlets might sound familiar. Just last year, Vizio surprised the flat-panel industry using similar strategies of driving down manufacturing costs and targeting specific screen sizes.

But it will be difficult for MicroDisplay to emulate Vizio's astonishing success for several reasons. First, Vizio is selling increasingly popular flat panels. Second, unlike the flat-panel industry, projection TVs are also not sold in large volumes outside North America, specifically the U.S., because of their size. That means that, unlike with LCDs, there aren't emerging markets like India, China or South America to help drive growth if U.S. consumers stop buying.

However, the fact that LCOS TVs are strictly 1080p--the best TV screen resolution available today--creates an opportunity for the company, said DisplaySearch's Taylor. For that reason, LCOS TVs, which accounted for 19 percent of microdisplay TVs sold last year, should increase its overall share of the microdisplay market to 24 percent, in 2007, said Taylor.

The key, according to MicroDisplay's thinking, is consumers' desire for increasingly larger TVs, and thus far, rear-projection TVs have been the most affordable way to go big. For that reason, MicroDisplay will target very specific sizes: 56, 62 and 70 inches to start.

MicroDisplay is also very encouraged by these numbers: In the third quarter of last year, more than 90 percent of the televisions sold in screen sizes 55 inches or larger were projection TVs; the rest were flat panels, according to DisplaySearch. Though price is almost certainly the major factor, it helps that rear-projection TVs have come a long way since the hulking, blurry monstrosities found in your local sports bar five years ago.

Most rear-projection TVs now measure less than 20 inches deep, though many flat panels measure a mere 8 inches from front to back--MicroDisplay's will be 16 inches deep. Another benefit of rear-projection sets is that they consume half the power of flat panels, which can mean lower electricity bills for owners.

With all its ambition to gather a share of the declining microdisplay market, MicroDisplay doesn't seem to worry LCOS market leader Sony or Texas Instruments, the makers of DLP (digital light processing), one of the original and most widely used microdisplay technologies. "New companies have entered and others have dropped out during in that time. We expect much of the same with Sony holding our No. 1 position," Phil Abram, vice president of TV marketing for Sony, said in an e-mailed statement.

Several electronics companies have tried their hand at LCOS, the most high-profile entrance and exits being Philips and Intel, companies significantly larger and more established than MicroDisplay. "It's a technology that while it's shown promise on paper, it's had a difficult time delivering or enabling products in the marketplace," observed John Reder, business development manager for DLP at Texas Instruments.

It's true that the rear-projection market is fairly concentrated in the hands of a few big name brands. In the fourth quarter of 2006, Sony, Samsung, Mitsubishi, Toshiba and Hitachi made up more than half of the market. "That doesn't mean someone can't break in," said iSuppli's Semenza. "You see in, say, LCD a whole host coming and taking market share, so it's not impossible. But going with small brands, it's a real fight at the retail level to break in to get the customer mind share."

[hunter_jc]

An't that much cheaper than DLP

I think 1500 for 55" rear projection an't much cheaper than some
established brand's rear projection. They need to do something as
drastic as Vizio, i think that is the brand.

[imtheben]

This is a *1080p* TV, mate

I think you'll find the $1500 price for DLP only applies to lower resolution 720p sets. Samsung's 1080p DLP is around $2400.

Also, logically these types of TVs are always going to be less expensive than flat panels: With flat, when you build a bigger screen you've also got to build more of the most expensive parts of the TV (glass panel, plasma cells, LCD doohickeys) that run the screen. Projection screens are mostly air--to build a bigger-screened projection TV, you just need a bright light source, a bigger mirror, and a bit more plastic to hold it all in place. Bigger, lighter, less energy wasted--my money's on projection.

Anyway, hard to diss MicroDisplay when their TVs aren't even in stores yet, so we can't really compare them to anything else. Proof is on the show floor.

[paulsecic]

Ain't

interested in expensive TVs

[meh130]

Sony and JVC have sold LCOS for years

Sony's SXRD and JVC's HD-ILA technologies are 1080p LCOS systems.

Sony's 55" 1080p SXRD set run between $2,000 and $2,500 street price.

Samsung's 56" 1080p DLP set runs between $1,600 and $2,000 street price.

The effect of the MicroDisplay product will be to reduce prices of LCOS and DLP sets.

Sony and Samsung will be able to maintain a premium, the question is how much.

I would rather see someone come in with technology to drive a 30"-40" HDTV into the $500 range.

[winstein]

I've heard it before...

15 years ago a CRT engineer friend told me that CRT will always be cheaper and with better picture quality than any LCD displays... Well, just look around.

[rkadowns]

He was correct.

And still is however most people don't really care.

I went to purchase my first big screen HDTV about a year ago. Was dead set on a Sony Vega until I visited the store where I was going to make the purchase. Sitting next to the Vega, with the same image showing, was a Toshiba CRT unit.

The picture quality wasn't even close.

I left with the CRT Toshiba and an extra 900 bucks in my pocket. I still don't regret it today even though the plasma and LCD market has made noticeable improvements.

[adot44]

I concur

He was correct. It makes me sad to see people (and companies) wasting their money and time buying and making LCDs and such when their old CRT has such a nicer, warmer, richer, realer picture. That's why I said in my previous comment that I might not laugh at people who spent thousands on a SED set, because it's supposed to be the same technology as CRT, just in a flat screen, with electron emitters on every pixel instead of in a "huge" gun that sweeps the screen. We'll see, though.