THE FRONT LINE: CES 2006
Too Much Is Never Enough
When it comes to the world’s largest consumer electronics trade show, CES’ motto seems to be “Too much is never enough!” This year’s attendance reportedly exceeded 150,000 and the 2006 event spilled out of the cavernous Las Vegas Convention Center over to the Sands Expo Center, approaching the late, lamented Comdex show in size and scope. (Anyone remember Comdex?)
I had a comparatively short visit this year, coming in on Tuesday for the first-ever HDTV Business Conference at the MGM Grand on Wednesday and spending Thursday and Friday walking the floor and visiting hotel suites. Traffic was crazy as usual — it seemed that 140,000 of those attendees were riding the monorail every time I tried to get on.
Figure 1. Some of the booth designs were mind-boggling.
Although this was the largest CES ever, size isn’t everything. Logistically, it becomes very difficult to cover such a huge show as a member of the press, particularly if you have off-site appointments.
Many manufacturers don’t have a presence on the floor, but prefer to occupy luxurious hotel suites where they can offer customers and other visitors food, drink, and relative quiet — just like the big computer manufacturers used to do in the waning days of Comdex.
For anyone venturing into the convention centers, a game plan was a must! Hundreds of booths, large and small, hawked all kinds of CE products, from flash memory to digital cameras, from iPod accessories to home media server “solutions”, from portable hard drives to stereoscopic eyepieces for gamers.
Needless to say, there were truckloads of TVs and other display products on hand, although the vast majority of them didn’t represent any significant breakthroughs in technology. I saw lots of plasma TVs, even more LCD TVs, plenty of projectors, and rows of rear-projection TVs.
Figure 2. Panasonic is “king of the plasma hill” for now…
From my perspective, CES wasn’t so much about “wow” as it was about “huh!” Yes, Panasonic showed a 103-inch plasma TV, billed as the world’s largest. But that was simply an inch larger than the comparable offerings from Samsung (unveiled at CES 2005) and LG. Both Sony and Samsung showed 82-inch LCD TVs, but Samsung got so much buzz about this product at CeBit 2005 that the CES demos were anticlimactic.
Canon and Toshiba’s elusive SED was much easier to inspect this year — both companies set up small theaters to show arrays of 36-inch models. For some odd reason, the lines were enormous at the Toshiba booth, while you could simply walk right in to the nearby Canon demo any time you wanted.
Figure 3. Sharp’s 57-inch LCD TV is a new “cut” from their Gen 8 line.
Sharp added another screen size to its expansive line of Aquos LCD TVs, plugging the 57-inch LC-57D90U ($15,999) in between their 45-inch and yet-to-ship 65-inch sets. Panasonic, Hitachi, Pioneer, LG, and Samsung showed they could achieve 1920x1080 resolution in 50-inch, 55-inch, and 60-inch plasma sizes, providing another weapon with which to fend off the advance of LCD technology.
Texas Instruments, with fresh memories of the failed InFocus/RCA super-thin Scenium DLP RPTVs in mind, went back to the drawing board and came up with a pair of skinny RPTVs in 44-inch and 50-inch sizes. Both sets had super-thin bezels and the 44-inch design was intended to fit standard TV cabinets and armoires.
Optoma came up with three super-sized BigVizion RPTVs in a crate for in-wall installation. All three have 1080p resolution and the screen size choices are 80, 90, and 100 inches with prices in the $18,000 to $26,000 range. Sony found a way to squash down their SXRD rear-projection sets even further for a slim-look demo, complementing their best-selling line of Bravia LCD TVs.
Figure 4. This might be the largest rear-projection TV ever!
Figure 5. Sony’s 55-inch 1080p SXRD RPTV is on a diet.
None of these products were real surprises. Canon’s been working on the SED for 16 years, but still hasn’t shown the 50-inch+ model they promised a year ago. The RPTV manufacturers need to fend off the onslaught of LCD and plasma products; getting thin was the only way to do it. For the plasma folks, achieving 1080p resolution in 50 to 60-inch sizes gives them a leg up on 1080p RPTVs, while holding LCD technology at arm’s length. And the LCD camp knows they have to get more 50-inch and larger products to market right quick to meet customer demand.
All of these products made for very nice photos (and I took plenty of ‘em), but the truly significant stuff was either off-site or hidden inside the bezels. Perhaps the biggest buzz came from the widespread use of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) in several flat-panel and rear-projection TVs, something hinted at a year ago and extensively previewed at SID 2005.
There are several reasons to move to LEDs as illuminants, not the least of which are looming European Union regulations and bans on products that contain mercury. That would include the cold-cathode fluorescent (CCFL) backlights in LCD TVs and the popular short-arc UHP/UHE lamps in portable projectors.
Another reason to make the switch is color quality. CCFLs are bright and don’t draw much electricity, but their spectral output is quite lopsided in favor of greenish-blue color shades. Samsung and LG both showed CCFLs with improved color rendering, but they didn’t hold a candle to the nearby LED light engines.
The third reason is durability. LEDs last a long, long time when compared to projection lamps. The estimated life of an LED is between 50,000 to 100,000 hours when it is operated within normal current limits. It can withstand quite a bit of mechanical shock without breaking, won’t explode if run to the end of its life, and doesn’t change color as it ages.
Figure 6. Samsung built a rear-projection engine out of LEDs for this DLP TV.
Figure 7. Cree’s 17-inch LED backlight demo was very impressive.
LED color for TVs can be achieved with separate red, green, and blue diodes, operated either in steady-state mode (sucking lots of current along the way) or in switched mode with fast picture refresh rates. White LEDs can also be put to work with embedded color filters much the same way that CCFLs are used, running continuously or pulsed. The pulsing technique has one advantage — it improves motion detail in LCDs.
But there was a fifth LED lighting scheme demonstrated at CES, and it wasn’t easy to locate. Cree Inc, a manufacturer of LEDs in Durham NC, showed an efficient white LED chip with discrete red, green, and blue elements that could be tuned individually. Several of these chips were incorporated into a backlight that used no more power than a CCFL, but was considerably brighter.
Wherever you saw LED backlights, you couldn’t help but be impressed by color quality. Reds just popped better, greens were appealing but not over-saturated, and formerly difficult colors like amber yellow and turquoise came to life in a way they’d never be seen on plasma screens or with CCFLs.
The LED-equipped rear-projection sets were also impressive for their brightness and contrast. In addition to TI’s LED backlight demo, Samsung also had the 56-inch HL-S5679W ($3,999) 1080p DLP model running RGB LEDs, and nearby Sanyo unveiled a rear-projection LCD set with a similar engine. As for cost, wholesale club favorite Akai claimed they would make a 46-inch LED DLP RPTV with 1080p resolution available for well under $2000 at some point.
Figure 8. Sanyo showed an LCD RPTV with LED color that dazzled…
Figure 9. …but Sony’s 82-inch Bravia demo had major color problems with movie clips.
Perhaps the least impressive demo was Sony’s 82-inch Bravia prototype LCD TV. The Sony presentation claimed an impressive, wider color xvYCC gamut for this product with its LED light engine, but the colors from the Sony Pictures demo clips were all out of whack — too contrasty with plenty of false contours seen. The static RGB images looked a whole lot better by comparison.
Speaking of LCDs, prices continue to trend downward with 37-inch 1080p integrated digital TVs coming this year at $2,499 and 42-inch prices quoted as low as $3,999. Note that those are both MSRPs; street prices will be considerably lower, particularly if the manufacturer is using LCD panels from China. 1080p RPTVs are already at $2,500 in 50-inch sizes as they try to stay competitive with flat panel TVs
1080p LCD TVs and “displays” (with NTSC tuners as factory-installed options) were in abundance at BenQ, Westinghouse Digital, Sharp, Norcent, LG, Syntax Olevia, Philips, Samsung, Sony, and in the LG Philips LCD demo room upstairs. 37-inch product is already on the market and the big battle for 2006 will be in the 40-inch and 42-inch sizes against 768p plasma TVs.
For that matter, there were a lot more LCD TVs to be seen at CES than plasma, primarily because LCDs can offer HD resolution in sizes as small as 15 inches. Plasma is still cheaper to manufacture in larger screen sizes for now, so the new 1080p sets from Panasonic, Samsung, Hitachi, LG, and Pioneer should more than hold their own against the LCD crowd for another year or two.
In the projector world, lower prices ruled the day. InFocus and Optoma both had low-cost ($2,999) single-chip 720p DLP front projectors and Optoma unveiled a new single-chip 1080p model that will sell for under $10,000. It resembles a SIM2 design with its round shape and recessed lens. Toshiba showed the DT20, a new low-cost home cinema projector in a similar case design with Silicon Optix Realta HQV processing that will retail in the $1400 range.
Figure 10. Optoma’s HD81 1080p projector will retail for under $10,000.
Figure 11. Toshiba’s got Realta HQV processing in their low-cost cinema projector.
My winner for the quirkiest projection product of CES was BenQ’s “SPA” projector. This desktop DLP design has a small compartment where drops of aromatherapy oil can be placed. As the projector warms up, the oil is heated and disperses through the room. BenQ was quick to point out the projector has two VGA inputs and can process split-screen images. Hmmm — looking at two Excel spreadsheets while getting aromatherapy … somehow, that doesn’t work for me!
One of the coolest products was to be found in eMagin’s booths that the numerous ballroom trade fairs. They offer the EyeBud 800, a monocular eyepiece using an 800x600 SM-OLED for watching video off a Video iPod (what else?) as well as the Z800 and X800 stereoscopic visor headsets, each using a pair of those SM-OLEDs, for gaming and watching movies from a DVD player. The z800 and X800 will retail in the $700 - $800 range.
Back in the Sanyo booth, I found a new 720p handheld camcorder with MPEG-4 compression for $800. The Xacti HD1 records 720p/30, 480p/30, and 480i/30 to SD memory cards; capturing about 28 minutes worth of high-quality HD video onto a 2 GB card with a nominal data rate of 9 Mb/s.
Figure 12. Yeah, I know Sanyo’s Xacti HD1 isn’t a display.
But a 720p/30 camcorder for $800 is big news in anyone’s book.
Figure 13. There were Blu-ray players everywhere,
but HD-DVD had more significant announcements at CES.
As for Blu-ray and HD-DVD, there were plenty of demos to be seen around the convention center. Although most of those favored Blu-ray, the HD-DVD camp stole a march at the show with numerous announcements of movie titles and software partners, including Johnny-come-lately HP who had previously been solidly in the Blu-ray camp.
Toshiba claims their HD-DVD players will be shipping shortly; two models were demonstrated at CES with the least expensive priced at $500. In addition to HP and Microsoft, both of who insist on support for the iHD interactive overlay for HD-DVD (something the Blu-ray camp does not plan to support), NBC-Universal, Warner Brothers, and New Line studios will have films available in the HD-DVD format for 2006.
Summing up: If you plan to buy a new flat-panel TV this year, you’ll continue to see big price drops in both LCD and plasma. LCD TVs will be available in 1080p down to 37 inches by 2Q 2006, but don’t expect to see the 50-inch 1080p plasma until the fall. DLP and LCD rear-projection TV prices will also plummet with 720p/768p models approaching $1200 by summer and 1080p models closing in on $2,000 (ESP).
LED color is great, but it will be a while before you can get it affordably in an LCD TV and I wouldn’t expect to see the LED rear-projection sets available in large quantities for another year. In the projector space, the price gap continues to narrow between 720p DLP and 720p LCD. They’ll probably even out in the 4th quarter of 2006. The super-slim rear projection sets from TI partners and Sony will likely have “official” model numbers and MSRPs by the time Cedia Expo 2006 rolls around in September.
