I’ve read somewhere online that the next twenty to thirty years are supposed to herald more technological advancements than the last two thousand years put together. While that looks like coming true, as long as we don’t blow ourselves up first in some kind of nuclear or environmental catastrophe, new laser technology is threatening to dethrone plasma and LCD TVs from the top of the TV heap. It’s called the Laser TV and it’s from a company called Arasor.

  
Jean-Michel Peraplat and Dr Larry R. Marshall present the Laser TV. You can see it on the left, with much richer colour than the plasma TV on the right.

Launched worldwide from Sydney, Australia yesterday (on Tuesday the 10th of October), Arasor aren’t actually launching a new television, but a new technology that uses a laser to display images on your TV screen. Instead of using a DLP (digital light processing) chip, an electron gun as used in ‘regular’ CRT (cathode ray tube) or plasma TV technology, Arasor have developed a laser display engine to beam images onto your screen, with astounding benefits, including an incredibly rich colour range far exceeding conventional plasma and LCD TVs.

You can’t buy a Laser TV in stores yet, but 8 consumer electronics firms have partnered with Arasor and will be demonstrating Laser TVs at January’s CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas, with units set to be available in stores by late 2007 or early 2008.

  
     The Laser TV is on the left - you can see the difference!

According to Arasor, Laser TVs:

- Are half the weight and half the cost of plasma and LCD TVs

- Have 75% less power output than many plasmas and LCDs

- Are very thin, like most plasmas and LCDs

    
     An image from the Arasor site showing the colour gamut

- Have a very wide colour gamut showing more than twice the range of colours that existing plasma and LCD TVs can display. This is important because even though the latest plasma and LCD TVs can display quite stunning colour, especially when compared with earlier models, they only display about half the colour range the human eye can see. Laser TVs change this forever.

- Can be very large, or can be made very small. In 2008, we are set to see laser TVs in phones, PDAs, laptop comptuers, cinemas, video cameras, pocket TVs and even heads-up displays in cars.

  
       Another demonstration with the Laser TV on the left…

- With small devices such as phones, PDAs and video cameras, a laser projector can beam an image from the device onto a wall, with the same amazing colour reproduction.

- Have a 50,000 hour life (similar to plasma and LCD TVs which are rated at approximately 60,000 hours, and much greater than most projectors which have a lamp life of 3,000 to 4,000 hours)

- Offer almost constant 100% power output from the laser over the 50,000 hour lifespan, meaning a clear, bright and sharp image for the life of the Laser TV without needing recalibration for slowly degrading light and colour output

While we only saw one prototype model at the launch, Arasor says that a number of prototypes have been made and are with their consumer electronics partners.

    
   Once again you can see the difference in colour on the left

The screen we saw offered 1080i HDTV output, with 1080p models to arrive. They’ll be fully compatible with HD-DVD and Blu-Ray players, the XBox 360, the PS3, HDTV set-top boxes, your PC and virtually any other device that can currently plug into a TV.

Arasor are also working on high performance wireless technology to power the next generation of WiMAX wireless networks, along with IPTV, or television delivered over the Internet and private IP networks.

  
 Dr Larry with one of Arasor’s commercial wireless transmitters

Arasor are also interesting as they have taken a technology development in Silicon Valley and have lauched in on the Australian Stock Exchange, instead of on the Nasdaq, as the investors are from Australia and wanted to launch it here first, even though it is slated to be available worldwide in a little over twelve months time.

The development of this technology will prove to be very interesting for existing plasma and LCD TV manufacturers. How will it affect pricing? How expensive will it be for manufacturers to change their factories to accommodate this new technology, if they are one of the companies that plans to offer it? How will having a projector in your phone, PDA, laptop computer or other device, which can beam a clear and colourful image onto the wall, change the way we use mobile devices, conduct meetings, use our computers, watch TV and downloaded/streaming content and more?

It’s clear that we’re set to see many more exciting developments over the next few months and years. Laser TVs are but one more milestone on the road to the future.

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