The Laser TV is coming, but some existing TV manufacturers seem to have some doubts. Naturally, this should come as no surprise, especially as the Laser TV seems set to knock competing technologies off their perch, and the all important Christmas season is nearing. So what are the doubters saying?

It all really comes down to conjecture, as none of the people I’ve spoken to have seen the Laser TV, but they still raise a few interesting questions.

To start with, one well known ‘trick’ of the retail trade when it comes to displaying big screen TVs is to set them all to maximum brightness. This is almost necessary in stores, where the lighting is bright and nothing like the lighting most people have in their living rooms. Most people also don’t have a wall of TVs lined up next to each other, all competing for your visual attention. Keeping all the TV’s pictures bright makes them really stand out.

So one of the questions posed, regarding the plasma TV used in the side-by-side comparison with the Laser TV, is… was the plasma TV set up correctly, or were the colours dulled a little to make the Laser TV look better? And was the Laser TV set to maximum brightness with the colours set to look richer, or was it the standard image you would expect to see once you took a Laser TV out of its box?

Without having a top-end plasma TV to hand, along with the Laser TV itself to do some testing, we don’t know the answer to this question. One would assume that no such underhanded behaviour would have taken place, however the question has been asked, and so the seeds of doubt have been planted – although as we’ve already stated, this is to be expected from the competition who stand to be affected.

Another question is concerning the plasma TV itself. Was it the latest generation of plasma TV being used to compare with the Laser TV? There are many different models available from each brand, with some manufacturers releasing their latest generation in time for the 2006 Christmas season. One manufacturer’s representative said that he wished their latest plasma TV was seen up against the Laser TV, as he believed their newest technology had the brightest, sharpest and richest colours of any plasma TV on the market, and would definitely have given the Laser TV a run for its money. How true that is we can’t say without comparing the two side-by-side, and few will be getting that opportunity before 2007.

Yet another question revolved around the 8 consumer electronics (CE) manufacturers looking to release a Laser TV. The assumption here is that some of these consumer electronics companies are the same companies who in the last year or so have ploughed billions of dollars into plasma and LCD TV factories. Why would they be interested in supporting a technology that devalues their very expensive production lines?

Of course, not knowing exactly who those 8 CE companies are means that we also don’t know if they are the companies that own factories in Japan, Korea and China, so we’ll just have to wait for the Consumer Electronics Show to see who is a partner, and then ask them what it means for their factories. Can the factories be relatively inexpensively refitted to handle the laser TV products, or will it be a mega expensive refit?

One thing is for sure – if you want to buy a Laser TV, or just see one in stores, you’ll have to wait at least 12 months – and possibly more. Brand name and high-end LCD and plasma TVs have certainly reached their highest quality levels ever for sharpness and quality, and if you want to buy a big screen HDTV that can hang on your wall, it’s going to have to be plasma or LCD for now, or a projector that can display an HD image at sizes much greater than consumer level plasmas and LCDs.

Arasor, (makers of the Laser TV) did clearly state that the prototype model, while seemingly far better than the plasma TV it was up against, was just a prototype, and the final version would be even richer in colours. But just as the competitors are expected to raise doubts, you can expect Arasor to say the final version would be even better. It’s what every manufacturer says – even Microsoft with Vista.

If I was to buy a TV right now, my only choices would be plasma or LCD. I wouldn’t be looking at rear projection (unless I wanted a ginormous screen from someone like Sony), while the only other real alternative for now is a front projector capable of HD viewing. And if I want a new TV ‘right now’, I’m not going to wait 12 months to buy one. It’s like an iPod – are you going to buy one this Christmas (or even now), or will you wait until the rumoured widescreen version with Bluetooth, a phone and a kitchen sink will appear in 2007? Plenty of people can’t wait and have taken the plunge. If that wasn’t the case, Apple wouldn’t have sold squillions of iPods and they wouldn’t be the market leaders, as we’d all be waiting for the next version! That said, an iPod is a heck of a lot cheaper than a big screen HDTV.

And as for the 12 months wait scenario, well we’ve been down that track before with SED and LCOS technologies, both of which have been slated to knock plasmas and LCDs of their perch for at least the last couple of years, with only prototype SED TV’s that I’m aware of having been shown at trade shows, while I’ve only ever seen one LCOS TV – and that was a bulky rear projection model.

Then there’s Sharp with their demonstration at the CEATEC Japanese trade show only this week of a TV with a resolution that makes 1080i and 1080p look like a low resolution technology. Their new TV can display images at a whopping 4096×2160 – more than double the 1920×1080 resolution of the latest 1080p panels. Of course, it’s just a prototype, and while there’s no firm release date, the word was that it wasn’t far away – quite possibly the same time frame that the Laser TV is set to be released in (i.e. end of 2007 or early 2008).

We’ll explore some more of the doubts out there, see if we can dig up some new ones, and see what comment Arasor would like to make on the things they’ve heard their competitors saying over the last 24 hours.

Either way, it’s clear that technology isn’t standing still, but is moving faster than ever. Can you, and your bank balance, keep up?

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