Crave

This blog has been updated to correctly reflect the price of Pioneer's 60-inch plasma.

It's been two years since Mitsubishi first began talking about its laser-based TV. Finally, we have a price.

It looks like the 65-inch LaserVue will retail for $6,999, and will start shipping at the end of September with wider release scheduled for later in October, Sound & Vision reports.

At that price and size, the LaserVue places it pretty much in the same realm as its plasma and LCD peers. Pioneer's 60-inch Kuro plasma, which is generally regarded to have the best black levels on the market, sells for $6,500.

At CES, CNET's own David Katzmaier got a brief look at the LaserVue, and had this to say: "According to the press release, the laser light engine allows the TV to produce twice the color spectrum of current HDTVs. The brief demo provided little opportunity to test this claim, although black levels looked dark enough (albeit crushed--lacking shadow detail, which was probably a result of improper calibration) and off-angle viewing appeared better than other DLPs."

The company also appears to be working on a 73-inch version, but no price or release date has been announced. Check out the video below for our First Look at the LaserVue.

Hitachi's LCDs are just 1.5 inches thick.

(Credit: Hitachi)

The whirlwind of CES 2008 is finally over, and now that we've had a few seconds to gather our thoughts, let's reflect on some of the major HDTV trends we observed at the show.

Thin is in

Flat-panels are popular for a reason, and part of it is people love thin screens. While plenty of people are satisfied with standard 6-inch-deep screens, HDTV companies are betting there's a market for ultrathin sets measured in millimeters rather than inches. The most impressive thin TV tech we saw was Pioneer's "Project Kuro" prototype plasma, which measures only 9mm thin, but unfortunately won't be released in 2008. On the more conventional side, JVC announced the "world's thinnest" LCD--coming in at 2.9 inches deep--while LG showed off an even thinner 1.9-inch thick LCD with a hole in it. Trumping both JVC and LG was Hitachi, with its new superslim LCDs measuring only 1.5-inches thick--although they ditch an internal ATSC tuner to do so. And, of course, no mention of thin HDTV would be complete without OLED...

Sony's 11-inch OLED is coming to the states this year.

(Credit: Sony)

OLED is coming

Sony made a big splash by showing off the 11-inch XEL-1, which will be the first OLED HDTV available in the United States and measures just 3mm thick. Samsung also had a 31-inch prototype OLED on display and there's no doubt the OLED technolgy is promising: razor thin screens, low power consumption and an excellent contrast ratio. At this early point in the game OLED isn't commercially viable--Sony's 11-inch set will cost $2,500--but as prices drop and screen sizes increase, OLED could be a major flat-panel TV technology.

WebTV all over again?

Bringing the web to your TV sounds like an idea better suited to CES 1995 rather than CES 2008, but we saw a lot of HDTV manufacturers promoting their sets' ability to grab content off the internet. HP, which has been a step ahead of everyone in this regard, announced an update to its existing MediaSmart HDTVs. Sharp is promising the ability to check weather and stock quotes on certain LCDs, while Samsung is focusing on recipes, artwork and RSS feeds. And Sony is continuing to support its Bravia Internet Video Link service, which at least looks slightly more interesting now that Sony's announced a deal with CBS.

RPTV is (mostly) dead

Mitsubishi's trio of laser TVs hang on the wall.

(Credit: Mitsubishi)

Some of the biggest HDTV news at CES 2008 was what wasn't there. Rear-projection HDTVs (RPTVs) were basically nowhere to be seen on the show floor, and just a week before CES started Sony announced that it would officially stop producing RPTVs altogether. While the general buzz is that RPTVs are essentially dead, that didn't stop Mitsubishi from launching a big laser TV demo--which was short on details and did little to convince us that laser has a real shot to dismount flat panels as the dominant HDTV technology.

The 42PFL5630D uses less power than any 42-inch LCD we've seen.

(Credit: Philips)

Green machines

While we were expecting to see more green HDTVs this year, we're betting Philips is in front of the curve on power-saving TV tech. The power-savings innovations on the Philips' Eco TV was enough to earn it CNET's Best in Show award and it uses less power than any other 42-inch LCD we've tested. In addition to using less watts, the Eco TV is produced using only lead-free materials and "trace" amounts of mercury. With a very reasonable $1,400 price tag, the Eco TV could be a big hit with consumers looking to control their energy costs--and if so, we'll see more green TVs from other companies.

Mitsubishi Laser TV

(Credit: Mitsubishi)

In a recent interview with the New York Times, Mitsubishi's vice president for marketing Frank DeMartin, revealed that his company will be showing off its very own laser TV at CES 2008.

In the interview, Mr. DeMartin explained that "[Laser TVs] will spawn a new category for the premium end of the market."

And while his words are true, does Mitsubishi (or any other company for that matter) really want to be known as the "premium end" in a market that is being dominated by companies who are trying to drop prices as quickly as possible? The current state of the HDTV market, much like the cell phone market, dictates the best possible quality at the cheapest price. Next time you hit up a Costco or Sam's Club, take a look at the $3000 Sony and the $1700 Vizio. Can you tell a difference? And if so, how many times does the Vizio look better than the Sony? If my tastes are the same as yours, you would probably say 99 percent of the time.

With that in mind, would you really want to pay twice or three times that for a laser TV just because it is the next big thing and provides a somewhat better picture than your current plasma or LCD? Not me.

While some believe lasers will supplant UHP lamps as the medium of choice for HDTVs, I don't. Although current HDTVs can only display up to half of the visible color spectrum and laser TVs can show almost 90 percent of that spectrum, inky blacks and red reds are not as important to me as benefits for the cost.

In case you were wondering, Laser TVs works with the help of three lasers in their own distinct wavelengths: red, green and blue. Although red lasers are easily available right now, as far as I know, no green or blue lasers can be purchased for inclusion into the TVs. Because of this, manufacturers are required to use a technique called frequency doubling to create artificial blue and green lasers. Once these lasers are properly configured, they shoot beams at a vertical cavity containing two mirrors. The laser light is then converted into visible light and this is carried to a Digital Micromirror device where the mirrors either shoot the light onto your screen or into a dump.

Sound complicated? Well it's expensive too. Although this technique eliminates many of the components you would find in projection TVs (namely the color wheel and filters), laser costs are extremely high at this point, and to mass produce these HDTVs, companies may end up charging more than $10,000 for first-generation devices.

Even worse, laser TV technology uses laser power that is dangerous to human vision without the use of filters that will only add to the already exorbitant price tag.

Interestingly, proponents of laser TVs have consistently touted the advanced image technology that helps create a so-called "perfect" picture, but they never seem to mention the price of producing thousands of these TVs for the home. Like everyone else, I would like an HDTV that provides the best picture, but at what point are the returns on what I am getting, too little to justify the price?

As an avid HD user who believes SD bands should have been destroyed years ago, I understand and enjoy the benefits of a crystal-clear image. And while I can never go back to a standard-def image after enjoying sports games in HD, I don't think the jump from my LCD to a laser TV will be dramatic enough to warrant that reaction. If Mitsubishi and the rest of the laser TV proponents really had something special up their sleeves, don't you think they would be touting the new screens as HD killers or the next-gen of HD? Instead, they have their vice president of marketing spewing his company's ideas of a "premium" alternative to the current options.

Laser TV was doomed before it was even announced. The Internet is abuzz with the promise of this new technology and what it may provide for us in the future. I'm not so ready to jump onto the laser TV bandwagon. The technology will be too costly and the jump in quality is too little to justify the price of these HDTVs. The average consumer will not buy a more expensive TV that looks nominally better than the affordable set right next to it. So before you start asking your local tech guy if you should wait for laser TVs to hit CES before you pick up that new HDTV, give the guy a break and head down to your local warehouse store. Those Vizios are awfully nice.