CES 2006: MONDAY MORNING QUARTERBACK
What You Really Need To Know About CES 2006
The sheer number of TVs and related products at this show is enough to make anyone’s head spin. But dig we must, to find the wheat buried in the chaff of press releases and hype! Here’s my carefully considered list of CES display products, technology trends, and price trends that you should keep an eye on for 2006.
Hot Technology Trend: Light-emitting diode (LED) backlights
Last year, only Samsung and Sony showed them in LCD TVs, and a handful of companies demonstrated tiny DLP projectors with dim LED-powered images. This year, there were numerous demonstrations of LED backlight technology, while at least three rear-projection TVs shown by Texas Instruments, Sanyo, and Samsung made use of LED arrays.
Are LEDs for real? You bet. Although there were impressive demos of wide color gamut fluorescent backlights at the show, a tri-stimulus RGB LED light engine easily exceeds the SMPTE-C and REC-709 HDTV color spaces. There’s no spectral imbalance in the green/blue wavelengths, such as you’d see with UHP/UHE/UHM lamps and CCFLs. And they’ll last a long time, too — industry-accepted life expectations for LEDs are 50,000 to 100,000 hours.
Don’t forget ever-tightening worldwide restrictions on the use of mercury in consumer products, such as cold-cathode fluorescent lamps and projection lamps including the popular UHP and UHE types. The European Union has already started a countdown to phasing out all lamps containing mercury as soon as is practical.
It’s possible that a majority of LCD displays will use some sort of LED backlight by the end of this decade. There are two questions to be resolved first: (a) Using RGB or white LEDs and (b) operating them in switched or continuous-duty mode. (My vote is for switched-mode white LEDs with individually controllable red, green, and blue elements.)
Figure 1. Yes, purple really “pops” on a 46-inch
Samsung LCD display equipped with LED backlights.
Figure 2. LG’s got your number (1080p) in a 60-inch plasma TV.
Hot Technology Trend: 1080p plasma displays
LCD TV manufacturers threw down the gauntlet when they started showing 1920x1080 resolution in 45-inch panels, then leaped to 37-inch panels midway through 2005. Not unexpectedly, the Big 5 plasma manufacturers (LG, Samsung, Hitachi, Panasonic, Pioneer) fired back by showing they could achieve 1920x1080 resolution in screen sizes ranging from 50 to 60 inches at CES.
Because of the relatively coarse pixel structure of plasma displays, it’s not easy to achieve as high a pixel density as it is with LCD technology. To date, I’ve only seen one prototype of a 42-inch plasma that had full 1366x768 resolution, and that was at the SID show two years ago.
Panasonic had experimented with 1920x1080 plasma many years back, but gave up on it. Now, their long-term market competitiveness may depend on having 1080p resolution to fend off the LCD guys. Of course, there will be a price premium in the short term for 1080p plasma because of the manufacturing complexity. But it could be the return volley that plasma needs to keep LCD TVs from sweeping over the market.
For the time being, don’t expect to see 50-inch 1080p plasma TVs on store shelves real soon, unless they have big price tags attached to them.
Lukewarm Display Trend: SEDs
I know everyone is pumped up about Canon’s Surface-conduction Electron-emitting Display (SED). Those who’ve seen it up close and personal love the black levels, clean grayscale, saturated colors, and wide viewing angles. Well, why not? It’s just a super-thin CRT, when you think about it. And we all know how well CRTs work.
Thing is, Canon’s been working on the SED for 16 years. Their partnership with Toshiba as SED Inc. helps from a manufacturing and marketing standpoint. But the flat-panel TV market is pretty crowded right now with two competing technologies called LCD and plasma. (Perhaps you’ve heard of them?)
The SED I saw at CES 2005 and this year was a 36-inch 1280x720 model. Both companies promised a 55-inch design last year, so where was it? Keep in mind Canon and Toshiba didn’t show the SED at SID 2005, one of the most important display technology shows in the world.
Missing a major trade show for your new product or technology doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence in the trade press and in analysts. The SED may turn out to be the best display technology you ever saw that never made it to market — only time and market forces will tell.
Cold Display Trend: Therapeutic Projectors
Optoma and BenQ have both shown projectors can purify room air by de-ionizing it. That might be useful if someone in the room is a heavy smoker or has too much perfume or cologne on. BenQ went one step further at CES 2006 by adding aromatherapy to one of their conference projectors, using the heat of the lamp to diffuse the oil.
Just a thought: Where does the oil go when it cools off? Does it accumulate on the housing, or on the lens? What if it gets into the electronics?
I’ll pass on this one.
Figure 3. No, I did not make this product up. Read the sign.
Lukewarm Technology Trend: Super-slim rear-projection TVs
Some readers may be aware of the difficulty RCA had in marketing their thin, “hang it on the wall” Scenium 50-inch and 61-inch DLP rear-projection TVs. These sets were too heavy and too expensive, had limited viewing angles, and if you really wanted to hang a TV on the wall, you’d probably buy a plasma TV instead — it takes up less room, and there’s no lamp to change.
Now, Texas Instruments has revisited this idea with a far more sensible solution. They’ve whipped up 44-inch and 50-inch DLP RPTV sets that are about 9 inches thick and have super-small mullions. More importantly, the 44-inch can fit inside many existing TV cabinets and armoires that were originally built for 32-inch and 36-inch 4:3 sets.
The problem is that prices for flat panel TVs are lower than ever, and the owner of that old armoire may be tempted to just replace it with a new, sexier TV stand and go to a larger plasma or LCD TV. Of course, if the TV cabinet is built-in to the wall, the 44-inch product becomes the easy way out.
Kudos are due to TI for finally making this concept work (with 1080p resolution, by the way). Now, they need to get it to market ASAP at a competitive price. Look for models from one or more of TI’s 1080p partners (Samsung, Mitsubishi, HP, Toshiba) by Cedia Expo 2006.
By the way, Sony also showed a slim 55-inch SXRD set at CES that was about 10 inches thick. That screen size might be too big for existing TV cabinets; TI’s 44-inch size was obviously designed with the cabinet in mind.
Hot Price Trend: Higher resolution, lower prices in LCD TVs
This is a big one to watch. No doubt you have noticed the precipitous drop in prices of 37-inch 768p LCD TVs the last half of 2005 (about 50%). That’s because the manufacturers want to clear out their warehouses of 37-inch 768 products as much as possible and start pushing same-size 1920x1080p models into retail channels.
The same applies to 42-inch TVs, although not as many of those have been sold to date. I have heard suggested retail prices in the $2500 — $3000 range for 37-inch 1080p sets and $3000 — $3999 for 42-inch 1080p, with street prices dropping considerably. One reseller told me to expect 42-inch 1080p LCD TVs with digital tuners for $2499 in a few months, which would force 37-inch 1080p product well under $2,000.
Sweet!
Figure 4. Look for a $2,495 42-inch LCD TV with integrated
DTV tuner from Westinghouse Digital later this year.
Figure 5. This little guy could be quite disruptive when it comes to setting
and maintaining pricing for 1080p and 720p DLP projectors.
Hot Price Trend: Higher resolution, lower prices in front projectors
Optoma’s HD81 projector will come onto the market priced under $10,000. Sony’s VPL-VW100 SXRD 1080p projector is priced at 10,000. Yet, there are still single-chip 720p DLP projectors selling for the same price or more. Why?
It’s pretty obvious that the low price and phenomenal success of Sanyo and Panasonic’s 1280x720 front LCD home theater projectors have pretty much defined the price point for that screen resolution. Cases in point — both InFocus and Optoma have new 720p DLP boxes for $2,999 list, which will no doubt be heavily discounted to match the LCD guys.
As in the rear-projection TV space, look for single-chip 1080p DLP projectors to quickly occupy the pricing territory that was once occupied by 720p models, and perhaps drop well below that. 2005’s rapid drops in 1080p DLP RPTV pricing vs. 720p and 768p RPTVs are likely to be repeated in the smaller front projection market as manufacturers try and stir up sales.
Lukewarm Technology Trend: Wireless flat-panel TVs
Is it really that difficult to run cables to a TV nowadays, or tie into existing cable or even power line wiring to move signals around? Particularly when the actual interface cabling is becoming more plug-and-play, like HDMI?
Interesting, but not a mainstream item.
Hot Technology Trend: Build-in PVRs
Great idea! Hard drives aren’t that expensive anymore and quite small. As long as they are easy to service and replace when they crash — which they will do at some point — I say, “go for it!” And add that extra DTV tuner, so I can watch and time-shift HDTV just like I can SDTV.
Lukewarm Technology Trend: HD-DVD and Blu-ray
I moderated a panel discussion on both technologies at Insight Media’s HDTV Business Conference, which took place the day before CES opened. After the formal presentations on each format, my first question to the panel was, “Why should I care if either format wins?”
That might sound like a flippant question, but consider all the ways we can move and store content these days that do not depend on proprietary, incompatible media. There’s flash memory, which is cheaper than ever. There are removable, portable hard drives. Set-top boxes have HDD recorders built into them. Heck, you can even get red laser, dual layer 8.5 GB recordable DVDs now for a reasonable price.
It’s not secret that some Hollywood execs consider direct delivery to a HDD media server or set-top box to be a more secure method to distribute movies and other premium content, instead of placing thousands of optical discs into circulation. How important is it to actually own a movie if you can access it at any time?
Don’t get me wrong; optical media still has its place. You should be able, if you so desire, to buy that movie and burn it to disc or store it on other media. But your choice of storage media should be irrelevant to the process and as inexpensive as possible. That won’t be the case with HD-DVD and Blu-ray, or whichever one succeeds in the long run.
Figure 6. If you say so.
Figure 7. All that’s missing is the 1,000 watt subwoofers in the trunk.
Cold Product Demonstrations at CES
Sharp’s 1,000,000:1 contrast LCD demo: Yeah, right. What about those “low gray” black levels I saw in a completely dark room?
Philips AmbiLight: The “low rider” of flat-panel TV sets.
Any 26-inch or smaller LCD TV: They’re basically generic items now. Who cares?
42-inch EDTV plasma: See previous item.
Missing in action: Terrestrial DTV set-top receivers! Where’d they all go?
Home media servers: C’mon guys, is there really that much difference between one platform and another? They’re just computers with custom GUIs.
