Digital Home Thoughts: The HD TV Evolution: Part 4 – (Big Screen) Life Begins at 50

Competition is Good for Consumers, No?
Competition, especially at the lower end of the size spectrum, will be driving down DLP and LCOS prices but not at the rate of the direct view LCD panels. Micro-displays simply don’t have the worldwide volume to keep up with the LCD panel supply chain economics because really large screens are primarily a North American product. European retailers won’t even display them in their showrooms and Asian buyers are focused on the form factor. Manufacturers are turning to advanced optics and industrial design to bring forth newer, thinner rear projection displays that can compete with flat panels in footprint and beat them in weight, power consumption, and image quality. A point that is encouraging these efforts is that 70+ percent of flat panels are never wall-mounted. Which means, that the footprint of the panel stand (9-12 inches) is the rear target, not the thickness of the panel itself. In other packaging areas (bezel width, display weight, power consumption, etc) it is common to see 60” micro-display units that outperform 50” flat panels. (Indeed, some large rear projectors are so light they come with tie-down straps to ensure they don’t tip over.) So there is hope for broader adoption of the technology beyond North America.

For now, though, pricing curves look to be less aggressive than the LCD panels, although more aggressive than the larger Plasma panels they will be competing with.

3LCD Micro-display Component pricing breakdown, US$



Because of the nature of the technology, rear projection systems tend to scale upwards extremely well, price-wise. The only incremental costs in going from, say, 50” to 60” is a slightly larger cabinet, slightly modified optics, and a brighter light source. The rewards, in contrast, are a much larger profit margin and decreased competition from direct-view technologies at the larger sizes. As a rule of thumb, at most price points at which they compete with panel technologies, rear projection systems offer an extra foot of screen size and often higher resolution, for the same price. For buyers to whom bulk is not that critical, micro-displays are a very attractive high-end option.

Micro-display Rear Projection System Projected Pricing, US$



While rear-projection system manufacturers are not about to concede any market segment, it is easy to read between the lines of their discussions that they do not intend to bleed to death in fighting for the 44-50” market segment and will be focusing their design efforts, going forward, towards ensuring their continuing domination of the 50”-and-larger market.

Which brings up the question of whither Plasma displays?
If direct-view LCD is going to dominate the small and medium sizes and rear projection units the high end, where do PDPs fit into the market that is taking shape around us?

In a word: niche. Not one, though, rather several.

Next up: PDP fans discover life’s a niche.

Felix Torres is a dabbler in home entertainment electronics and a survivor of both the home computing wars of the 80's and the multimedia wars of the 90's who is currently most interested in home media networks and the North American transition away from broadcast media.