High Resolution - Veritas et Visus
Transcription
High Resolution - Veritas et Visus
High Resolution Veritas et Visus February 2009 Focus Lighting, p5 NASA, p23 LG Electronics, p54 Vol 3 No 8/9 Maxfield, p77 Letter from the publisher: Aurora Borealis…by Mark Fihn 2 High resolution news from around the world 4 CES Best Buzz Awards, January 8-12, 2009, Las Vegas, Nevada 37 Plastic Electronics Conference and Showcase, October 28-29, 2008, Berlin, Germany 42 SID Mobile Displays Conference 2008, September 23-24, San Diego, California 48 Displaybank San Jose Conference, September 9, 2008, Santa Clara, California 54 Displaybank Korea Display Conference, July 2-4, 2008, Seoul, South Korea 57 Insight Media Projection Summit 2008, June 16-17, Las Vegas, Nevada 61 Society for Information Display 2008 Symposium, May 20-23, Los Angeles, California 67 How can this be? by Alan Stubbs 72 Primary colors by Clive (Max) Maxfield 77 Quality vs. value: when is enough enough? by Michael Reichmann 82 Content everywhere… in what form, what format? by Andy Marken 89 DTV transition: DTV tuner integration by Rodolfo La Maestra 95 Meridian’s beautiful 10-megapixel projector by Chris Chinnock 103 Samsung’s new “QWXGA” pixel format by Mark Fihn 105 Last Word: One size fits all? Too little ≠ too few… by Fluppeteer 108 Display Industry Calendar 110 High Resolution is focused on bringing news and commentary about the developments associated with high performance displays and the human factors that create demand better display products. High Resolution is published electronically 10 times annually by Veritas et Visus, 3305 Chelsea Place, Temple, Texas, USA, 76502. Phone: +1 254 791 0603. http:/www.veritasetvisus.com Publisher & Editor-in-Chief Managing Editor Contributors: Mark Fihn [email protected] Phillip Hill [email protected] Chris Chinnock, Fluppeteer, Rodolfo La Maestra, Andy Marken, Max Maxfield, Michael Reichmann, Alan Stubbs Subscription rate: US$47.99 annually. Single issues: US$7.99 each. Hard copy subscriptions are available upon request, at a rate based on location and mailing method. Copyright 2009 by Veritas et Visus. All rights reserved. Veritas et Visus disclaims any proprietary interest in the marks or names of others. Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 Aurora Borealis… by Mark Fihn I received a note from my father, dated February 25, in which he indicated, “Yesterday the temperature got up to 37oF – first time since early December above freezing”… I grew up in northern Minnesota, and it’s not so long ago that I considered Minnesota’s winters to be a badge of honor, that those from the south simply weren’t worthy to wear, (and I considered Minneapolis to be part of the south)… But 2-1/2 months of constant below freezing – ugh – who would choose to live in that? A few years ago, I flew from Austin, Texas (near my current home), to Minneapolis one day in February. The temperature in Austin was 89oF. A couple of hours later, the temperature in Minneapolis was -12oF, and I quickly realized that the “badge of honor” I once wore, was now relegated to better men… I could no longer claim the purity of soul, (or craziness of mind, I’m not sure which), that marks the people who actually enjoy the ultra-cold… One of the distinct memories from my youth was a time when my father woke me up at 2:00 a.m. to show me a beautiful display of the Northern Lights. While I can frequently remember seeing glimpses, on this night, they were spectacular shimmering across a significant portion of the northern sky in a range of stunningly bright colors. Although I’m quite happy to now be a Texan, there are moments of sheer beauty like this that emerge from the cold… reminding us that the most spectacular displays are still not within man’s capabilities… 2 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 An insightful account of the aurora by Francis Reddy can be viewed at: http://www.trustedlog.com/2007/06/25/, from which I’ve excerpted below: “An aurora is a sporadic, generally faint, atmospheric phenomenon usually seen in the night sky from locations at high latitudes. More commonly known as the “northern lights,” it may first appear as a faint, milky glow low in the north, too dim for the human eye to detect any color but bright enough to silhouette clouds near the horizon. It may develop into steady greenish arcs or form scintillating, swirling curtains of yellow-green light. During the most dramatic displays visible from regions at middle latitudes, such as central Europe and the United States, a crimson glow fills much of the sky. It was this form that inspired European scientists of the 1600s to call the phenomenon aurora borealis, literally “northern dawn”, but it also occurs at high southern latitudes, where it is formally called aurora australis, “southern dawn.” The same processes are at work in both hemispheres – not just on Earth, but on other planets as well — and today, scientists simply refer to this phenomenon as an aurora. The ghostly forms of an aurora include quiescent patches, veils, and arcs, and rapidly moving rays and curtains.” Aurorae occur in two great luminous ovals centered on Earth’s north and south magnetic poles. Collisions between atmospheric gases and showers of electrons and protons guided by Earth’s magnetic field set the ovals aglow, typically between heights of 62 and 155 miles (100 to 250 kilometers). Each gas gives out a characteristic color when bombarded. Excited oxygen atoms give off yellow-green light, the color most commonly observed. Ionized molecular nitrogen emits blue and violet light, colors to which the human eye is less sensitive. At lower altitudes, excited molecules of nitrogen and oxygen glow with a vivid red. These three primary colors together produce the myriad hues of a typical aurora. What causes the showers of charged particles that create the northern lights? Ultimately, the source lies in the solar wind, a fast-moving stream of particles constantly flowing from the Sun that carries the Sun’s magnetic field out into space. The solar wind, typically moving at 250 miles (400 kilometers) per second, flows past Earth’s magnetic field and molds it into an elongated bubble or cavity, compressing its sunward side and stretching its night side far beyond the Moon’s orbit. Under certain conditions, the solar wind’s magnetic field can merge with Earth’s, creating electrical currents that drive protons and electrons into the polar atmosphere. Powerful events occurring on the Sun can drive enormous changes in the solar wind, increasing both its speed and density and enhancing its effect on Earth. Understanding just how Earth’s magnetic field responds to such events is now a focus of much solar and space research. We are increasingly dependent on technologies that are extremely sensitive to changes in the space environment, changes often collectively referred to as “space weather”. The story of Galaxy 4, a heavily used communications satellite, serves as a good example. At 22h UT on May 19, 1998, while in geostationary orbit above the central United States, Galaxy 4 lost its primary and backup attitude control systems. At the time, Galaxy 4 handled about 80% of all US pager traffic. Controllers could no longer maintain a stable link between the satellite and Earth, resulting in a loss of pager service to an estimated 45 million customers. Researchers believe the incident occurred because a sequence of solar events about two weeks prior to the failure created an extremely energetic cloud of electrons that wreaked havoc with the satellite. 3 The Dynamics Explorer 1 (DE-1) satellite captured the massive aurora that occurred on March 14, 1989 over Earth's southern polar regions. NASA Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 High resolution news from around the world compiled by Mark Fihn and Phillip Hill E/T/C London creates monster projection solution on Shell Building The Shell Building in London, England, was transformed into the world’s tallest video projection screen on New Year’s Eve, 2009. Revelers were treated to a projected holiday message from Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, and other celebrities. The installation was sponsored by LG Electronics, which also sponsored the fireworks display for the evening’s festivities. E/T/C London created a projection concept and suggested that they harness the flexibility and power of video for the first time on this event, on which E/T/C has worked for producers Jack Morton Worldwide for the last five years. E/T/C designed the technical installation, which utilized 24 Christie S+20K projectors, all rigged vertically, and run in 12 overlaid pairs. These covered a 12 zone grid – three wide and four high – measuring 55 meters wide by 110 tall on the river facing fascia of the building. Total pixel count was 2888x5184. The projectors were positioned 150 meters away from the Shell Tower in a 12 meter tall purpose built structure, together with a complex E/T/C OnlyView control system that was set up in an adjacent cabin. http://www.projecting.co.uk One of the largest projected solutions, created by E/T/C London, the Shell Building was used as a backdrop during New Year’s Eve festivities to host holiday messages from the mayor of London and others. Adjacent to the London Eye Ferris Wheel, the projection was visible from substantial distances. Prior to the New Year’s Eve festivities, the projected images showcased a broad range of colors and designs, representing about 15-megapixels from 24 projectors. The surface of the image measured 55 meters wide by 110 meters tall. 4 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 The "New" New Year's Eve Ball developed by Focus Lighting A new Times Square New Year’s Eve Ball was introduced this past January 1 – a 12 foot geodesic sphere, double the size of previous Balls, and weighing 11,875 pounds. Covered in 2,668 Waterford Crystals and powered by 32,256 Philips Luxeon Rebel LEDS, the new Ball is capable of creating a palette of more than 16 million colors and billions of patterns producing a spectacular kaleidoscope effect. The new Ball is now a year-round attraction above Times Square in full public view January through December. Focus Lighting created a spectacular and unique lighting design that utilizes over 3,500 lighting cues to orchestrate the moving patterns of light radiating from the Ball. Theatrical techniques were used to show the beauty of each facet of each individual crystal, making the sparkle visible whether viewed from 5 feet away (as members of the press have seen it) or from 500 feet when viewed from the streets of Times Square. http://focuslighting.com A huge range of solutions for the new New Year’s Eve Ball, now shown in Times Square year-round. 5 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 Images from around the world of spectacular light shows during the 2009 New Year’s Eve celebrations A broad range of specialty lighting and fireworks solutions were used around the world to bring on 2009. A few of the most spectacular images follow: From the top, left to right, are lighting and fireworks extravaganzas celebrating the start of 2009 from Kuala Lumpur, Athens, Sydney, Berlin, Niagara Falls, Singapore, and Taipei. 6 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 Apple’s CoreUI aims to tie in hi-res interfaces Apple is moving towards a fully-scalable, vector-based, resolution independent implementation that lets OS X take full advantage of high-resolution displays. There have been various World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC) workshops devoted to this topic, and it was widely expected that Leopard would complete this particular jigsaw, according to various blogs. In essence, CoreUI is a low-level framework that ultimately will be responsible for drawing all the user interface widgets in OS X. Among other things, CoreUI will define the look and feel of the Aqua interface. By default, CoreUI is used for drawing a number of user interface elements in Leopard. Unlike other undocumented frameworks, CoreUI isn’t implemented in Objective-C. It’s actually a C++ class library that makes use of a couple of “art” files contained within the resources directory of CoreUI.framework. http://www.apple.com Microsoft demos augmented reality technology Microsoft researchers demonstrated software that can, in real time, superimpose computer-generated information on top of a digitized view of the real world. Adding additional visual data to a video display is a technique known as augmented reality. Microsoft says that the approach could add another dimension to future smart phones. The device could recognize a restaurant and deliver ratings and the menu, for instance. A smart phone featuring an augmented-reality display could also overlay a bus route and an estimate of when the next bus is due on top of a particular street. The software, which runs on a small portable computer, analyzes scenes from a camera, matches to those stored in a database, and overlays supplementary information on the display. The researchers note that a smart phone with augmented reality could help allow engineers to see the pipes or electrical cables below a street. In recent years, cell phones and portable computers with cameras and other sensors have become powerful enough to handle the computational workload needed to run an augmented-reality system. Researchers at Nokia and Columbia This laptop is running augmentedUniversity, for instance, are also developing augmented-reality systems, reality software developed by and a Japanese startup called Tonchidot hopes to turn the concept into a Microsoft. It can recognize a person’s location using the built-in camera. product. http://www.microsoft.com Pixtronix enhances image quality of TFT LCDs Pixtronix, Inc. introduced the PerfectLight display, the industry’s first flat panel display to deliver both ultra-low power consumption and exceptional image quality. With PerfectLight, Pixtronix realizes a 75% power reduction over traditional LCD displays, while reaching new heights in color gamut, color depth and view angle. Pixtronix demonstrated the PerfectLight display at FPD International in Yokohama, Japan. The display has full speed video with 24-bit color depth, 105% NTSC color gamut, high contrast ratio, and wide view angles. At the heart of the display, Pixtronix digital micro shutter (DMS) technology applies breakthrough innovation utilizing existing display infrastructure. Through the integration of MEMS and TFTs, DMS brings critical differentiation while leveraging TFT-LCD manufacturing equipment, processes and materials. http://www.pixtronix.com 7 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 IMEC builds 11-megapixel micro-mirror array for high-end industrial applications IMEC has presented a monolithically integrated 11-megapixel micro-mirror array for high-end industrial applications, a world’s first both in terms of pixel density and reliability. Each mirror in the array is 8x8μm and can be individually tilted by the high-speed integrated CMOS circuitry underneath the array. This device fits in IMEC’s CMORE initiative, which offers cost-effective solutions for continued system scaling, not by shrinking CMOS but by focusing on monolithic co-integration of heterogeneous technology. IMEC’s 10cm² 11-megapixel mirror array has a pixel density that is almost double that of comparable state-of-the-art micro-mirrors. And IMEC has demonstrated that its mirrors show no creep and meet a 10¹² cycles mechanical lifetime. Integrated micro-mirror arrays such as this one, are used in, for example, video projection or lithography mask writers. IMEC fabricated the 8µm mirrors on top of foundry high-voltage 0.18µm CMOS 200mm wafers with six interconnect levels. The array was built using IMEC’s proprietary SiGe-based MEMS platform, meeting the mirror’s mechanical reliability requirements, device flatness, and compatibility with high-speed CMOS. Poly-SiGe was chosen as structural material for the mirrors, instead of Al. Poly-SiGe solves many of the reliability issues of Al-based mirrors, and it is compatible with CMOS processing, allowing a smooth integration with the CMOS chip. IMEC’s CMORE initiative offers cost-effective solutions for monolithic co-integration of heterogeneous technologies. The services offered range from development-on-demand, over prototyping, to low-volume production. These services profit from the expertise in many research areas available at IMEC. The CMORE solutions are implemented in IMEC’s 200mm fab with advanced packaging capabilities, such as 3D integration. The two process platforms involved are a 0.13µm CMOS process and a versatile SiGe above-IC MEMS process. On customer demand, the CMORE solution can be migrated to IMEC’s 300mm fab. http://www.imec.be GUNNAR Optiks demonstrates digital performance eyewear GUNNAR Optiks has developed specialized lens technology that provides a solution for digital eye fatigue, the repetitive strain caused by the extended viewing of digital screens. The technology includes i-AMP lens technology, which is comprised of diAMIX lens material, a superlight long-chain polymer with superior optics and greater flexibility; i-Fi lens coatings, which capture good light from digital screens while filtering out glare and reflective light; iONik lens tint, which takes harsh artificial light and precisely tunes it to eye physiology; and fRACTYL lens geometry, which mimics nature to aid the natural focusing power of the corneal lens. http://www.Gunnars.com Nvidia launches low form factor hi-res graphics card Nvidia announced a new video card in its Quadro line called the Quadro NVS 420. The NVS 420 is a quad-display graphics solution and will support four 30-inch displays with a resolution of 2560x1600 each. The card uses a small form factor design with a low-profile bracket. The company says that the NVS 420 is the only low profile professional graphics solution in the industry that will allow high resolutions on multiple monitors. Other features include new nView display software that allows users to spread screen content across single or multiple displays with a desktop management application that promises easy use. The software displays gridlines to allow users to divide the desktop into multiple regions. Also supported are virtual desktops that allow users to launch applications on up to 32 different desktops. The Windows Taskbar is also spanned across multiple monitors allowing the application buttons to be spread over the displays as well. The video card features a large frame buffer and provides the performance needed for digital signage solutions. The display channel on the card is a single VHDCI connector and 16 CUDA parallel processing cores are used. Total memory size for the card is 512MB with each GPU getting 256MB of memory. The memory interface totals 128-bit with each GPU getting 64-bit of that number. Nvidia promises memory bandwidth of 11.2GB/s per GPU. http://www.nvidia.com 8 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 CyberLink and S3 Graphics join forces to deliver high-definition playback on PowerDVD 8 CyberLink announced that CyberLink PowerDVD 8 is now optimized for S3 Graphics’ ChromotionHD 2.0 video engine – delivering robust playback of high-definition content on consumer and professional platforms. PowerDVD 8 support for the Chrome 400/500 Series graphics processors is now available on CyberLink’s online store. The combination of CyberLink’s leading high-definition movie playback software and S3 Graphics’ ChromotionHD 2.0 video engine gives users picture-perfect quality and digital surround sound for the ultimate HD video playback experience. PowerDVD 8 leverages S3 Graphics ChromotionHD technology to deliver high quality HD decoding for the latest video codecs, including H.264, VC-1, and MPEG2 for Blu-ray movies. With full bitstream decoding, inverse transform, motion compensation, and in-loop deblocking, the Chrome 400/500 Series GPUs allows PowerDVD 8 to offload HD intensive tasks from the CPU to the GPU, making the decoding process more efficient while minimizing total system power consumption for a better user experience. http://www.cyberlink.com Mercedes to debut Splitview Command display this summer Mercedes has announced plans to implement what they call a Splitview Command display in new S-Class models – a means for the passenger and driver to see different images on the same surface. The system uses side-by-side pixel placement coupled with a “filtering mask”. This filtering mask is essentially the technology found in lenticular printing. While the driver views the GPS, the passenger can watch a DVD, whatever. QD Vision’s platform increases brightness, efficiency and lifetime thresholds QD Vision, developer of nanotechnology-based solutions for displays and lighting, announced it has achieved significant improvements in brightness, efficiency and lifetime thresholds for its Quantum Light product platform, advancing its quest to make quantum-dot-based light-emitting devices (QLEDs) deliver best-in-class performance among display technologies. The company announced that red QLEDs fabricated in its device laboratory have achieved external quantum efficiencies (EQEs) greater than 7% and demonstrated the highest reported brightness – more than 25,000 nits – for a quantum-dot LED. The company said its red devices (with a CIE x, y coordinate of 0.68, 0.32) achieved luminance efficiency of 3-4cd/A at high brightness values ranging from 1,000-10,000 nits, with device lifetimes ranging from hundreds to thousands of hours at 100 nits. The company announced its yellow QLEDs demonstrated a peak brightness of more than 41,000 nits, a peak luminance efficiency of 13cd/A (at 1500 nits) and a peak luminous power efficiency of 14lm/W (at 300 nits) at a CIE x,y color point of (0.58, 0.42); all three peak luminance and efficiency values are the highest ever reported for any type of QLED. The company also announced significant progress in delivering cadmium-free QLEDs, achieving EQEs greater than 3%. http://www.qdvision.com 9 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 Evident Technologies announces key patent for semiconductor nanocrystal synthesis Evident Technologies announced the issuance of US Patent No. 7,482,059 covering the ability to synthesize a semiconductor nanocrystal structure with a metal layer that dramatically enhances the brightness and stability of the semiconductor nanocrystal complex. http://www.evidenttech.com Nanosoccer to be played at 2009 RoboCup in Austria The World Cup may be two years away, but soccer aficionados can get an early start at satisfying their yen for global competition when the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the RoboCup Federation host the second-ever international nanosoccer contest next summer. Nanosoccer – the Lilliputian competition where computer-driven “nanobots” the size of dust mites challenge one another on fields no bigger than a grain of rice – will be part of the RoboCup games in Graz, Austria, from June 29-July 5, 2009. NIST is now accepting applications for organizations wishing to field robots in the events. Viewed under a microscope, the soccer nanobots are operated by remote control and move in response to changing magnetic fields or electrical signals transmitted across the microchip arena. The bots are a few tens of micrometers to a few hundred The 2009 RoboCup Nanosoccer competition micrometers long, but their masses range from only a few nanograms will be played on the gold-colored microchip seen through the window of the “world's to a few hundred nanograms. They are manufactured from materials smallest soccer stadium.” The chip is such as aluminum, nickel, gold, silicon and chromium. Rules for the divided into 16 playing fields each the size of “Nanogram 2009” competition and the application form are available a grain of rice. at http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/calmed/nanosoccer.html. The “NIST and Nanosoccer” website also features detailed information on nanosoccer, summaries of past competitions and a short video showing how the contests “road test” agility, maneuverability, response to computer control and the ability to move objects – all skills that future industrial nanobots will need for tasks such as microsurgery within the human body or the manufacture of tiny components for microscopic electronic devices. New SIM2 Solar Series with Dolby LED backlight technology scheduled for Q2’09 SIM2 Multimedia and Dolby Laboratories unveiled the latest in high-dynamic-range (HDR)-enabled LCD flatscreen display technology featuring Dolby Vision. SIM2 plans to make the new SIM2 Solar Series available in the second quarter of calendar 2009. SIM2’s Solar Series includes a 47-inch LCD display utilizing Dolby Vision technology. Dolby Vision features a proprietary algorithm that manages LEDs behind the liquid crystal panel. Each LED is controlled individually in concert with the image on display. By selectively turning off the backlight behind black areas in scenes, Dolby Vision allows those areas to become truly black. Dolby Vision also has the ability to selectively brighten the backlight behind bright areas. The Solar Series display is able to handle 16-bit processing for HDR signals, producing 65,536 shades per color, beating the number of colors (1,024) shown by the most advanced current displays. The BLU has 2,206 high-power LEDs plus HDR technology producing peak brightness of >4000 cd/m2 with resolution of 1920x1080 Full HD. http://www.dolby.com ABI Research says online video viewers will number nearly one billion by 2013 While today’s consumer is most likely to watch online video on the PC screen, over time more and more consumers will watch over-the-top video delivered to the living room, according a new study from ABI Research. This continued trend towards TV-viewed online video will help drive overall adoption, as the number of online video viewers grows from 563 million at the end of 2008 to 941 million by 2013. “All stakeholders in the online video ecosystem are eyeing the living room,” says research director Michael Wolf. “With the continued adoption of network-connected video game consoles, the porting of popular online video services such as Hulu and Netflix onto third party consumer electronics devices, and network operators’ growing interest in over-the-top video, we see this market for TV-displayed online video continuing to grow.” http://www.abiresearch.com 10 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 Global flat panel TV revenues fall for first time ever in Q4’08 As global economic conditions deteriorated during Q4’08, consumer demand for discretionary purchases suffered, including flat panel TVs. According to the latest findings from the DisplaySearch “Quarterly Global TV Shipment and Forecast Report”, global TV shipments fell more than 5% Y/Y in Q4’08 to 57.7M units from more than 60M units a year earlier. This is the first Y/Y decline in total TV shipments for more than two years. Due to ASP declines, total TV revenues fell even more, declining by 7% to just over $30 billion despite flat panel technologies picking up more than 10% unit share. Combined flat panel TV revenues, which includes LCD, plasma and OLED technologies, posted the first annual decline in a given quarter, falling 3% Y/Y despite 17% growth in unit volume with falling prices affecting revenues. Annual LCD TV shipment results for 2008 as a whole were 105M units, up 33% Y/Y and in line with DisplaySearch’s forecast in Q3’08, which was made prior to the global economic crisis. These positive results also pushed LCD TV past CRT TV worldwide for the first time on an annual basis and mark significant progress in the transition from tube to flat panel technologies. Despite the difficult economy and concerns about consumer spending, demand for larger screen sizes grew during Q4’08. The share of TVs shipped at 40-inch+ screen sizes reached an all-time high of 23%, up from 19% in Q3’08 and 18% in Q4’07. This was largely the result of significant discounts by manufacturers and retailers, both hoping to avoid excessive inventory after the holidays. The volume weighted average price for 32-inch+ TV’s fell 19% Y/Y during Q4’08, while <32-inch was unchanged from a year ago. A review of global TV shipments by technology can be seen in Table 1 below: Technology Q4'08 Units Q4'08 Unit Share Q/Q Growth Y/Y Growth LCD TV PDP TV OLED TV CRT TV RPTV Total 33,528 4,439 1 19,601 115 57,683 58.1% 7.7% 0.0% 34.0% 0.2% 100% 25% 17% -22% -16% 28% 7% 18% 12% -56% -30% -69% -5% Table 1: Q4’08 worldwide TV shipments by technology (000s) On a brand basis, Samsung remained the global brand share leader in revenues for the twelfth straight quarter, holding their revenue share nearly unchanged at 22%, more than 7 share points higher than #2 Sony. However, Sony enjoyed the strongest share growth and Q/Q revenue growth among the top five. Samsung was also the overall unit shipment leader and was in the top three rankings in each technology category (except OLED) and led LCD TV shipments. Sony enjoyed strong Q/Q revenue growth, but their Y/Y revenues declined by 7% due to ASP erosion. LGE rounded out the top three TV brands worldwide at 11.5% revenue share and maintained a very slight advantage over Samsung in the high growth emerging market segment. A complete review of the top five brands can be seen in Table 2. http://www.displaysearch.com Rank Brand Q3'08 Share Q4'08 Share Q/Q Growth Y/Y Growth 1 2 3 4 5 Samsung Sony LGE Panasonic Sharp Other Total 22.3% 12.9% 10.7% 8.6% 8.2% 37.2% 100.0% 22.0% 14.5% 11.5% 8.7% 7.6% 35.7% 100.0% 4% 19% 13% 7% -2% 1% 6% 10% -7% 13% -3% -2% -21% -7% Table 2: Q4’08 worldwide TV brand rankings by revenue share 11 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 DisplaySearch lowers 2009-2010 digital signage/large format commercial display forecast With 2008 sales of flat panel TVs behind expectations, alternate markets for larger-format flat-panel displays like commercial-use advertising and communication are starting to pique display manufacturer’s interests again. This growing market segment is poised for growth despite the economically challenging climate facing the world in 2009 and 2010. Unit volume for LCD and plasma displays used for public display applications (also commonly referred to as digital signage and large format commercial displays) rose 13% Y/Y worldwide, according to the DisplaySearch Q4’08 Quarterly FPD Public Display Shipment and Forecast Report. Growth of 44% is forecast for 2009, which is revised down from previous forecasts. Lower-priced commercial-grade products, as well as highergrade consumer products, will help to lower the costs of digital signage deployments, driving high unit growth rates. As the worldwide economy shifts from consumer to a business spending, many advertisers have had their ad dollars cut severely, and are looking to target their message to their new core audience, the B2B buyer. With more business being done locally and more professionals seeking alternate means of transportation to save money, mass transit is becoming more attractive, especially in major metropolitan areas. Dynamic digital displays on rail platforms and other transportation hubs allow advertisers to focus on business professionals without having to rely on mass media to reach captive audiences. Conversely, consumers are staying close to home and opting to go to the movies rather than on vacation, also known as “staycations”. This trend is leading many movie theaters to overhaul their signage with electronic menu boards, dual-function electronic displays that can tie into POS systems to help concessionaires 26-inch+ large-format FPD (LCD and plasma) shipments for promote what is readily available in commercial public display applications stock, while allowing advertisements for unrelated products. In terms of technology growth, both LCD and plasma are set to see Y/Y growth in deployments in commercial spaces. However, production investments in LCD technology and its cost competitiveness against plasma especially in key 32-42” sizes will allow LCD to continue to outpace plasma-based solutions. For larger sizes, however, the battle continues, as plasma has a cost advantage, but new thin bezel LCD displays allow for almost seamless video walls. http://www.displaysearch.com/ Large-format commercial public display forecasts by technology type 12 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 DisplaySearch says ultra-slim TVs the key to differentiation and continued FPD TV revenues Recent findings from DisplaySearch indicate that ultra-slim TV designs will be one of the most important factors in the continued growth of LCD and plasma TVs. Ultra-slim TVs are TVs with a set depth that is less than 40mm. DisplaySearch believes that the worldwide demand for the ultra-slim LCD TV segment will reach 14 million units in 2012, an impressive 219% compound annual growth rate for 2008-2012. These results and other key Ultra Slim TV results are included in a new topical report called “Ultra Slim Flat Panel TV Market Outlook: The Next Big Trend in TV”. DisplaySearch forecasts that worldwide penetration of Ultra Slim TVs will reach 10% in 2012, while developed regions such as North America, Japan and Western Europe will have the highest ultra-slim TV market penetration at 18% for the same period. “Despite the excellent outlook, wireless links, and designs Ultra-slim LCD TV shipment forecast by region for panels, chassis and remote controls, technologies still need to improve for ultra-slim TVs. Significant investment for these technologies will also be critical to our achieve the forecasted growth,” noted Paul Gray, DisplaySearch Director of European TV Market Research. “Consumers will not accept ultra-slim sets if their viewing experience or ease-of-use is compromised.” http://www.displaysearch.com CEA upbeat about plasma and LCD supply position The Consumer Electronics Association says that the number of plasma and 35-inch and larger LCD displays produced and imported for the United States market has only slightly exceeded the number of displays sold to retailers during the first six weeks of 2009. Inventory of the large flat panel displays peaked in time for Super Bowl sales deliveries in mid-January and are now holding steady at the 300,000 unit level. Retailers and manufacturers are not threatened with heavy inventory levels that will require costly price reductions when new-line models are introduced during the spring and summer months. The bad news is that there may be shortages of large display inventory during the spring months leading up to Father’s Day promotions and the June 12th analog to digital conversion. Sales to dealers of plasma panels during the first six weeks of 2009 are double what was sold during the same period in 2008. Sales to dealers of the jumbo LCD panels are 50% ahead during the same period. This results in weak inventory levels; PDP has only two days of inventory at factory level while LCD has approximately eight days of inventory to support sales at the current rate. http://www.ce.org 13 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 Displaybank says that 16:9 LCD panel shipments for PCs shows tremendous increase 16:9 aspect ratio products are on the rise to account for 17.4% of LCD monitor panels, and 15.6% of note PC panels, according to Displaybank. In 2009, 35% of LCD monitor panels and 32% of note PC panels are expected to be 16:9. In past, major aspect ratios included 4:3 and 5:4, but 16:10W note PC panel shipments started gaining on the existing 4:3 panel shipments from early 2006, and 16:10W monitor panel shipments took the lead from 2H, 2007. As the overall LCD market went through severe market problems with lowered demands in 2008, makers began focusing on maximizing on production efficiency and actively began production of 16:9W products which lower production cost by maximizing production quantity. Moreover, demand for 16:9W products gradually increased as various 16:9 FHD contents were supplied. From the customer perspective, the merit of viewing 16:9 contents without loss of viewing space led the overall market growth. http://www.displaybank.com 70.0% 60.0% 50.0% 40.0% 30.0% 17.4% 20.0% 10.0% 0.2% 0.6% 1.2% 1.7% Nov'07 Dec Jan'08 Feb 3.3% 3.6% 5.4% 7.6% 10.2% 11.1% 13.1% 14.6% Conventional (4:3) Conventional (5:4) Wide (16:10) Wide (16:9) 0.0% Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Shipment share per different aspect ratio (monitor panels) 100.0% 80.0% 60.0% 40.0% 20.0% 13.4% 0.0% 0.1% 0.0% 0.9% 1.4% 1.8% 1.9% 4.2% 6.3% 0.0% Jan'08 Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug 17.9% 15.6% Conventional (4:3) Wide (16:10) 0.0% Nov'07 Dec Sep Oct Nov Wide (16:9) Wide (15:9) -20.0% Shipment share per different aspect ratio (note PC panels) Based on the shipment results of November, 2008, AUO produced the most 16:9 monitor LCD panels and accounted for 39% market share. CMO followed with 20% share and LG Display and Samsung Electronics followed with 16% and 14% share respectively. For 16:9W note PC panels, Samsung Electronics had about 36% shipment share at first position, followed by LG Display with 22% share. 14 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 Insight Media says reduced lumen projectors are industry growth opportunity Insight Media has released a new report that finds that “reduced lumen projectors”, i.e. those with lumen outputs of 35 to 700+ lumens over the 2008-2013 time frame, represents one of the best opportunities for unit and revenue growth in the projection industry. The newly released 2009 “LED and Laser-based Ultraportable Projector Report” covers projectors of less than four pounds in weight and focuses on how LED and laser sources will be used to augment and supplant lamp-based projection systems. Current ultraportable projectors are lamp-based and represent about 45% of the total projector unit sales. But revenues for this segment will remain essentially flat over the forecast period, even with increasing unit sales. However, the reduced lumen projector category is forecast to reach over 1.3M units and nearly $800M in revenue by 2013 – with almost all of this being new projector sales. The low end of this class of projectors is sometimes called pocket projectors, with even lower lumen projectors (not included in this report), commonly called pico or companion projectors. These very low lumen output projectors are covered in the Insight Media 2008 Pico-Projector Market Segment Analysis. Currently, there are a several products on the market that qualify as reduced lumen projectors including the Dell M109s (50 lumens), the Acer K10 (100 lumens) and the LG Electronics HS102 and Samsung P400 (both 150 lumens). All use LED sources with laser-based projectors expected later on. The key question the industry is asking is can these projectors find a significant place in the market? Based on the extensive Low/medium lumen projectors with LED illumination forecast analysis performed in this report, the answer is yes, but a qualified yes. To meet the needs of the market, projector makers will need to carefully evaluate product development strategies, projector value propositions and go-tomarket options in order to create compelling products that end users will value. The 2009 LED and Laser-based Ultraportable Projector Report provides 322 pages of technology, market, strategy and forecast analysis looking at how LED and laser-based ultraportable projectors can penetrate handheld, portable and desktop applications. http://www.insightmedia.com Price range for Medium/high ultraportable projectors 15 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 Oregan Networks publishes “Media Browser Technology Adoption Trends” A US consumer study into High Definition TV purchase drivers carried out by Oregan Networks, an Internet TV software company, and Micronas, a supplier of TV application-specific IC system solutions, has revealed that the ability to access the Internet from the comfort of the living room in parallel or in addition to watching regular TV programming, is making its way into the purchasing criteria of today’s tech-savvy consumers who plan to purchase a TV within the next two years. The research measured the importance of Internet and home media browsing, placing emphasis on key features and the difference between the incumbent PC based Internet usage and the emerging TV-based usage scenarios. In addition, the study addressed the social and behavioral aspects of interacting with network-connected TVs. 71% of all respondents would prefer a default media browser to be installed, although they would like the option to be able to change it. Additionally, if their next TV did not come with a pre-installed media browser, 29% of respondents said that they “definitely would” download one, while a further 45% would be likely to download one. 69% of respondents would pay something to download a digital media browser to their next television, if this was supported. 87% of respondents would select a TV with a media browser because it would offer them more entertainment choices. One of the key findings of the research is related to the differentiation between what is seen as desirable use cases and appropriate websites for TV based Internet. User managed video and multimedia sites, including YouTube and Hulu, delivered in a full screen mode, as well as pay per view Hollywood blockbuster services, such as Netflix and CinemaNow, are perceived as adding most value to the regular TV feature set, as well as enabling families to spend more social time together. 85% agreed that a TV media browser would offer a “better audiovisual experience for watching web video” compared to a PC, while the same proportion agreed that it would provide a “more customized and personalized entertainment experience”. For all user segments, the ability to access Video on Demand services without the need for a PC or any other equipment was considered to be the most valuable feature of a TV media browser. http://www.oregan.net Lumens launches desktop HD visual presenter for interactive whiteboards Lumens Integration announced the availability of the Lumens PS660, priced at $1,995, breaking through the $2,000 price barrier for HD desktop visual presenters. Representing a new generation of digital visual presenters, the Lumens PS660 is the first 1280x1024 (SXGA) desktop visual presenter in its class to offer one-touch integrated audio and video recording, HDMI interface and SDHC support. The PS660 also includes premium features such as HD 1080p resolution, true SXGA resolution output, 15x optical zoom and a five-year unlimited warranty. The PS660 works seamlessly when attached to a computer, with an interactive whiteboard, or by itself hooking up directly to a projector, HDTV, or a monitor. This flexibility allows users to easily extend the utility of the PS660 by being able to use it in multiple venues. http://www.mylumens.com 16 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 Microvision demonstrates pre-production handheld accessory pico projector Microvision demonstrated a pre-production ultra-miniature plug-and-play accessory pico projector, code named SHOW WX, and the new PicoHUD vehicle display. Additionally, Microvision introduced the PicoP Evaluation Kit (PEK) to enable a wide variety of consumer, industrial, automotive, medical and military applications. Alexander Tokman, president and CEO of Microvision, explained: “SHOW WX is a major milestone on the transition path to product launch of our first PicoP enabled consumer product later in 2009. We believe that the accessory pico projector is just the beginning for the PicoP display engine which could be deployed in a diverse range of applications. For this reason, we are providing PEKs to help prospective customers cultivate new ideas and products.” SHOW WX uses Microvision’s PicoP display engine technology to deliver stunningly colorful, bright, vivid and detailed images. The patented display engine technology requires no projection lenses or focus adjustment. As a result, SHOW WX images are always in focus, regardless of projection distance, producing wide-screen images as small as 6 inches to as large as 100 inches across. The production version of SHOW WX is planned to be a simple plug-n-play pico projector for people on-the-go who want to spontaneously view mobile TV, movies, photos, presentations and more. Users can take the pocket-sized projector anywhere, plug it into their portable media players, mobile phones, notebooks and other mobile media devices with TV-Out or VGA functionality and share a big screen experience. http://www.microvision.com/showwx Microvision announces $750,000 contract for high-definition eyewear display development Microvision announced that it has been awarded a $750,000 contract to perform initial engineering tasks that support development of a High-Definition (HD), full-color, see-through eyewear display. The name of the customer was not released. The development effort includes demonstration of a unique design approach of a HD system based upon Microvision’s PicoP display engine technology. The work under the contract is consistent with Microvision’s continued development of a lightweight see-through optical system and could lead to a variety of eyewear display applications. Microvision’s eyewear display platform is being designed to combine its miniature PicoP display engine technology with clear eyewear optics that channel light and direct it to the viewer’s eye creating a bright, full color, see-through image while maintaining a transparent view of the surroundings. In addition to the see-through capability, this platform is expected to be differentiated from competitive offerings by its attractive ergonomics and ease-of-use. http://www.microvision.com Light Blue Optics demonstrates brighter miniature projection systems Light Blue Optics (LBO) announced its latest miniature projection systems. The systems demonstrate a range of features and enable new use-case scenarios for hand-held accessory pico projectors. The company plans to make its first product release to OEM customers in the second half of 2009. LBO’s holographic laser projection technology creates bright, high-quality video and still images with applications in markets including automotive and consumer electronics. At CES, LBO unveiled miniature projection systems with real-time operation and optics half the volume and twice the brightness of those previously demonstrated by the company. Additional features include a dynamic throw angle that enables the user to switch between conventional front projection and hands free tabledown projection. The company also demonstrated a novel concept for table-down mode that allows the user to control the projector simply by touching the projected image. http://www.lightblueoptics.com 3M unveils its latest mobile projection technology 3M showcased the MM200, a new design in the company’s expanding miniature projection portfolio. Offering “brilliant color and VGA resolution with an exceptionally thin profile”, the 3M MM200 represents an “evolutionary leap in mobile projection technology”. Just a year ago, 3M debuted its first generation mobile projection engine at CES. Since then, the company has successfully integrated that engine into consumer platforms including the 3M MPro110. When integrated into a cell phone, handheld accessory or digital camera, the MM200 engine can project up to a 50-inch image while drawing only 1 watt of power. The MM200 uses an LCoS electronic imager and is illuminated with multi-colored LEDs. http://3m.com/mpro 17 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 Ambarella hybrid camera platform incorporates Aptina 10-megapixel sensor Ambarella has incorporated the 10-megapixel sensor from Aptina Imaging. The Ambarella A5 combines a highperformance image pipeline with an H.264 compression engine. The Aptina 10MP sensor is a CMOS device capable of acquiring as many as 2 million pixels at a sustained input rate of 60 frames per second. By integrating the Aptina 10 MP sensor into the Ambarella platform, photographers and videographers can purchase a hybrid camera that fits into a shirt pocket yet still shoots high-quality digital still images and full high-definition video separately or in combination. Aptina’s CMOS technology enables high-performance cameras as seen in the MT9J001 10MP image sensor. The sensor incorporates a unique 1.67-micron pixel format and the HiSPi serial data interface to achieve full HD performance, beyond the capabilities of CCD technology. http://www.ambarella.com Aptina ships one billionth CMOS image sensor Aptina, a subsidiary created by Micron Technology last year, announced that it recently shipped its one billionth image sensor. Shipment of the one billionth CMOS image sensor is indicative of Aptina’s ability to meet unit demand within a variety of markets, while maintaining a product portfolio of over 70 CMOS image sensors. Of the one billion sensors shipped, approximately 55% were megapixel or greater. The push for quality continues as Aptina provides camera manufacturers’ with new multi-megapixel sensors and SOCs like the new 5MP MT9P013 and MT9P111 designed for the mobile market and the 10MP MT9J001 CMOS image sensor solution designed for high-end point-and-shoot cameras. http://www.aptina.com Samsung and Uni-Pixel enter into TMOS joint development agreement Uni-Pixel, the developer of color display technology called Time Multiplexed Optical Shutter (TMOS) and the Opcuity family of performance engineered films, announced the signing of a joint development agreement with Samsung Electronics of Korea. Under terms of the agreement, Unipixel and Samsung will collaborate on advancing the development efforts around Unipixel TMOS display technology. Unipixel TMOS display technology is targeted at leveraging a subset of the current LCD manufacturing process, offering the potential of lowering the bill of materials manufacturing costs by as much as 60% in some cases, while improving performance characteristics including lowering power consumption and increasing brightness over existing LCD and OLED flat panel display technologies. http://www.unipixel.com Screen Dreams to stream images to Aquos Screen Dreams’ art and photography collections will soon be streaming to Sharp Aquos Net-connected HDTVs. Screen Dreams has had its DVD set of “Living” series on the market for a while now and announced it will start streaming to such TVs in April, beginning with its “Living Earth” collection of forests, lakes, mountains, and other nature scenes in full 1080p. When not in use as a TV, the screen serves as a digital picture frame, hosting fine art and photography of the highest quality. http://www.screendreamsdvd.com SageTV releases HD theater for Full HD playback of home video, music and photos SageTV released SageTV HD Theater, a $199.95 Full HD capable networked media player that lets you enjoy virtually any home video, music or photo from your home network in Full HD on your HDTV. Internet video from YouTube and many other popular online video services can be browsed, searched and played on the SageTV HD Theater. The SageTV HD Theater can also work as a whole home HDTV DVR solution by running SageTV Media Center software on any PC, Mac or Linux computer with a HDTV Tuner on the home network. With SageTV Media Center the SageTV HD Theater works as a high performance HD Media Extender providing a rich, animated whole home DVR and Media Center experience. All video, music and photos as well as TV tuners and Internet video from the SageTV Media Center system are available when SageTV HD Theater is used as a HD Media Extender. http://www.sagetv.com 18 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 Nikon officially announces 24.5-megapixel D3X SLR Though long-rumored, Nikon has officially announced the 24.5 megapixel, fullframe D3X DLR. The Nikon D3X takes the current, rugged D3 body and puts a 24.5 megapixel, FX-format CMOS sensor inside. The doubling of pixels means that maximum ISO sensitivity is reduced to 6400, and the maximum frames per second for full-resolution drops from nine to five. However, using a DX-format lens will produce 10.5 megapixel images at 7fps. The camera also offers a 5:4 crop mode, which allows photographers to frame images perfectly for the common 8x10 and 16x20 portrait sizes. The D3X still retains the 51-point autofocus system, 3D Focus Tracking, LiveView shooting, and Scene Recognition System for enhanced exposure. http://www.nikon.com US presidential portrait goes digital The official presidential portrait was shot on a digital camera for the first time. The picture was taken by the White House's new official photographer, Pete Souza, and issued by The Office of the President Elect through its website. It was taken using a Canon EOS 5D Mark II, according to the metadata embedded in the image file. The EOS 5D used for Obama’s portrait has a 12.8-megapixel resolution and costs about $2,000. Panasonic expands line of high definition camcorders Panasonic expanded its 2009 High Definition (HD) camcorder line with six new full-HD models, ranging from introductory to semi-professional. Three new models, the HDC-HS300, HDC-TM300 and HDC-HS250, are more advanced and feature a newly developed 3MOS chip system, while the three other introductory models, the HDCHS20, HDC-TM20 and HDC-SD20, offer features ideal for first-time users wanting simple but powerful video capabilities. All six High Definition models feature Panasonic’s first camcorder touch-screen that allows icons displayed on the LCD to be easily operated by touching them with a fingertip. Panasonic’s new 3MOS system, available in the HDC-HS300, HDC-TM300 and HDC-HS250, assures high image quality for both motion and still images by using three full-HD MOS sensors to provide the world’s highest total pixel count of 9,150,000 pixels (3,050,000 pixels x 3). These three semi-professional camcorders are equipped with a newly developed, largeaperture Leica Dicomar lens (filter diameter: 43mm) and a 1/4.1-inch image sensor. They also record still images with a 10.6-megapixel resolution and feature an 8.3-megapixel resolution for still images when simultaneously recording with video. The HDC-HS300, HDC-TM300 and HDC-HS250 have a luminance of 1.6 lux, allowing them to shoot video in very low-light conditions. http://www.panasonic.com Sony showcases 1080p camcorder Sony showcased the new Sony MHS-PM1 “Webbie” HD MP4 camcorder. The device sports full 1080p capture support in native MPEG-4 video. The unit also boasts a 5-megapixel still camera, a light 4-ounce body, a slim profile, 5x optical zoom, 20x digital zoom, and a 2.5-inch LCD screen with 270 degrees of pivot. There are two different configurations: one that has more of a typical camcorder form and another one designed to facilitate pointand-shoot use for less-advanced users. http://www.sonystyle.com Parks Associates says cell phone pixel progress will lead to imaging applications boom The gradual increase in megapixel capacity for cell phone cameras is expected to spur the growth of imaging applications for mobile phones, according to a report issued by Parks Associates. Revenue from imaging apps on mobile phones should exceed $500 million in 2013, the market research firm said. Predicting that the photo-sharing services businesses will expand to personalized content management and social networking applications, Parks Associates said consumers will be willing to pay for the new applications as they improve. Noting the growth in cell phones with cameras, Park Associates predicted that nearly 70% of handsets sold in the United States will include a camera with a capacity of at least two megapixels. Eight megapixel camera phones are also coming onto the US market. Consumers will be willing to pay extra for photo-editing features as well as for social networking services. http://www.parksassociates.com 19 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 Samsung unveils new media processor for digital photo frames Samsung announced a new media processor designed specifically for the digital frame market called the S5L2010. Samsung says that its media processor allows digital frames to decode up to 57MP JPEG images in only one second. The media processor also provides support for touch screen and to decode video as well as audio in a variety of formats. The processors are sampling now and will be in production in Q1’09. http://www.samsung.com Framestore animates movie with 6,000 core supercomputer London’s infamous Soho has become a thriving media rendering and animation center, with creative media professionals using the latest IT gear. Framestore is one of these new companies bolstering Soho’s image. It did the post-production work on “The Golden Compass”, winning Oscar and BAFTA awards. The armored polar bear it animated for that movie had 200 million individual hairs that moved as the bear moved. Rendering it needed a lot of kit, the company said. The company has just finished a two-year project rendering the Universal Studios cartoon feature “The Tale of Despereaux”, and that needed probably the largest CGI rendering supercomputer in Europe to do the job. The work was complicated because the Framestore creatives had been briefed to create a look for the full-length cartoon based on the Dutch Masters with relatively soft lighting and detailed shadows. There was a fixed deadline, meaning animation proceeded in parallel with the development of the processing needed to render the Vermeer-esque final look. This parallel approach increased render farm and storage demands, because many intermediate stages of production data had to be retained to avoid unnecessary animation rework whilst the fine tuning of the lighting effects and color was worked on. There were several teams working in parallel with the rendering, the lighting work being concentrated more towards the end of the project. http://www.framestor-cfc.com Glimmerglass supports new world records in data transfer rates Glimmerglass announced its role in the setting of data transfer world records. An international team led by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) High Energy Physics (HEP) group and the Center for Advanced Computing Research (CACR), with partners from around the world, set new records for sustained data transfer among storage systems over wide area networks. A Glimmerglass Intelligent Optical Switch managed 10Gps lightpaths including 12 WAN paths, demonstrated self healing through optical fail-over utilizing different WAN paths and supplied 10GE signals used for the new data transfer world records. The high-energy physics team's demonstration of “High Speed LHC Data Gathering, Distribution and Analysis Using Next Generation Networks” achieved a bidirectional peak throughput of 114 gigabits per second (Gbps) and a sustained data flow of more than 110Gbps among clusters of servers on the show floor and around the world. According to Professor Harvey Newman of Caltech, head of the high energy physics team and chair of the U.S. Large Hadron Collider (LHC) Users Organization’s Executive Committee: “The Glimmerglass switch proved crucial in an environment where the team needed to efficiently switch between different network topologies, enabling quick reconfiguration and a reduction in router port count necessary for the demonstration. Thanks to the Glimmerglass switch, the switch-over between the two WAN setups could be done in near real-time.” http://www.glimmerglass.com 20 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 New Scale Technologies launches miniature encoder with the smallest size and highest resolution The TRACKER position sensor is a magnetic sensor array with integrated on-chip digital encoding. With small size, 2µm resolution and low sensitivity to external magnetic fields, this miniature magnetic encoder is a robust and cost-effective solution for precision positioning. On-chip encoding provides direct digital output using standard I2C protocol, eliminating the need for external pulse counters. Efficient control system communications allows up to two TRACKER position sensors on a single I2C bus. The highest-resolution magnetic encoder available, the TRACKER position sensor is insensitive to light, shock, vibration, and high-particulate environments. A cost-effective alternative to miniature optical encoders, it can be used as a linear The TRACKER position sensor offers high encoder or off-axis rotary encoder. It is ideal for optical and resolution non-contact sensing. A Hall effect imaging systems, consumer electronics, precision biomedical sensor array is integrated with an on-chip devices, instrumentation, automation, and automotive encoder, providing direct digital output via I2C applications. Its small size makes it perfect for creating tiny, interface. Automatic gain control and offset integrated closed-loop motion systems using micro motors such as correction provide high resolution. New Scale’s SQUIGGLE motor. http://www.newscaletech.com University of Tokyo develops paint that blocks top-end spectrum Japanese researchers have created a cheap paint that will block RF transmissions up to 182GHz - ready for the day someone starts transmitting confidential data at such a high frequency. The research was conducted at University of Tokyo and appears in a paper published by the American Chemical Society. The paper argues that existing technologies are unable to cope with the next generation of high-speed wireless connections, prompting the researchers to create their high-frequency alternative. Existing RF-blocking paint only absorbs frequencies up to around 48GHz, New Scientist reports, but the upper end of the spectrum is starting to look attractive for shortrange-high-capacity connections, and some kit is already operating around at 60GHz where the lack of regulation makes exploitation of international markets easier. The new paint uses of aluminum and iron. A sample production run priced production around £10 a kilogram. St. Andrews University and Masaryk University researchers attempt to make a perfect cat’s eye Recent research into the development of invisibility devices has spurred two physicists to investigate the process by which the behavior of light overcomes the seemingly intractable problem of optical singularities. According to these physicists, this could soon lead to the manufacturing of a perfect cat’s eye, reports photonics.com. Cat’s eyes appear to glow in the dark because of their ability to reflect light from all directions. But when light is shone through a glass of water with a straw in it, it appears as though the straw is bent because of the refractive index. When materials force light down to zero or shoot it up to infinity on the refractive index, this process is called optical singularities, which have long been thought impossible to produce. It is this very process that physicists need to understand to create a material that can reflect light from all directions and create the perfect cat’s eye. Ulf Leonhardt of St Andrew’s University and Tomás Tyc of Masaryk University in the Czech Republic use ideas from one of the latest trends in optics called transformation optics to transmute the infinity mark on the refractive index into something more practical. The scientists have developed materials to create optical illusions – some can be used for invisibility devices, others to make things perfectly visible. Applications will probably first appear in wireless technology and radar, for electromagnetic microwaves instead of light, because the required materials for electromagnetic microwaves are easier to manufacture. http://www.ipo.org 21 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 University of Washington develops GUI for the disabled Researchers at the University of Washington have developed a system, which for the first time, offers an instantly customizable approach to user interfaces. Each participant in the program is placed through a brief skills test and then a mathematically-based version of the user interface optimized for his or her vision and motor abilities is generated. The current off-the-shelf designs are especially discouraging for the disabled, the elderly and others who have trouble controlling a mouse, because most computer programs have standardized button sizes, fonts, and layouts, which are designed for normal users. The newly designed system, named Supple, starts with a one-time evaluation of a person’s mouse pointing, dragging, and clicking skills. The process starts a ring of dots appearing on the user’s screen and as each dot lights up, the user must promptly click on it. The test is then performed with varying-sized dots. The next section questions the user to click and drag, select from a list, and click repeatedly on one spot. Participants can control the cursor using any type of device. An able-bodied person usually takes 20 minutes to complete the test, but someone with motor disabilities might take as long as 90 minutes. The next part of the system is an optimization program, which calculates the duration needed for the specific person with special needs to complete the range of computer tasks. Within a few seconds, the system is able to generate the interface that takes full advantage of the person’s precision and speed when using a specific program. http://uwnews.org NDS Surgical Imaging introduces breakthrough technologies to deliver PACS images into surgical suites NDS Surgical Imaging (NDSsi) announced new advanced visualization tools that allow clinicians and surgeons in an operating room (OR) to view diagnostic images from radiology. This innovation, “Radiology Imaging for the Surgical Environment” or RISE, uses the company’s visualization and informatics technologies to provide a complete solution that enables real-time, interactive consultation for medical professionals in the OR. Digital orthopedic templating on X-Ray images are traditionally completed outside the OR. Using RISETM, these images can be transferred easily to a Boom or Cart mounted Surgical Display in the OR. Additionally, these highresolution grayscale images can be accessed instantaneously and reviewed side-by-side a live HD feed from an orthopedic video camera, raising clinical confidence for orthopedic procedures and beyond. http://www.ndssi.com VAS Communications introduces high-definition television to teach from the operating room VAS Communications has recently custom built a high-definition satellite uplink production vehicle, the first vehicle with high-definition capabilities in Arizona. VAS’s mobile high-definition MD vehicle (HDMD) utilizes a full 1080i signal to broadcast new procedures and techniques to medical conferences around the world. In today’s surgical suite, medical imaging is critical for the surgeon as they perform operations. Now, these high-resolution medical images can be seen in their native resolution to conference attendees, allowing them to appreciate and better understand the procedures. Along with the high-resolution imagery, VAS also utilizes robotic cameras in the operating rooms during the procedures, allowing them to show exactly what the surgeon is doing. Although designed to maximize surgical broadcast, the vehicle and crew of the HDMD van have kept busy since it was built, recently being utilized by local stations in Arizona and CNN. http://www.vascommunications.com IBM creates 3D MRI with 100 million times finer resolution IBM research scientists, in collaboration with the Center for Probing the Nanoscale at Stanford University, have demonstrated magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with volume resolution 100 million times finer than conventional MRI. This result, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), signals a significant step forward in tools for molecular biology and nanotechnology by offering the ability to study complex 3D structures at the nanoscale. By extending MRI to such fine resolution, the scientists have created a microscope that, with further development, may ultimately be powerful enough to unravel the structure and interactions of proteins, paving the way for new advances in personalized healthcare and targeted medicine. This achievement stands to impact the study of materials from proteins to integrated circuits for which a detailed understanding of atomic structure is essential. This advancement was enabled by a technique called magnetic resonance force microscopy (MRFM), which relies on detecting ultra-small magnetic forces. In addition to its high resolution, the imaging technique has the further advantages that it is chemically specific, can “see” below surfaces and, unlike electron microscopy, is non-destructive to sensitive biological materials. http://www.ibm.com 22 Veritas et Visus High Resolution Quasar astronomers use entire galaxy as telescope lens According to a report in Science in December, a team of astrophysicists say they have managed to probe a quasar ten billion light years away using an entire galaxy as the main lens of their telescope. They tackled the problem using the Very Large Telescope (VLT) belonging to the European Southern Observatory. The quasar in question happens to have another galaxy lying between it and our solar system. This foreground galaxy’s colossal mass acts as a gravitational lens, bending and magnifying the light emitted by the quasar lying beyond it. The galaxy also causes multiple images of the quasar to arrive at Earth, arranged in a rough X known to astronomers as “the Einstein cross”. The combination of this natural magnification with the use of a big telescope provides the sharpest details. So sharp is the picture provided by the VLT and galaxy combination, that it offers resolution equivalent to one millionth of an arc second. Such resolution would allow one to see a coin floating in space 13 times as far away as the Moon. http://www.eso.org/projects/vlt/ February 2009 The Einstein Cross NASA releases “Return to the Moon” as spherical projection movie NASA has announced the debut of a promotional film entitled “Return to the Moon”, made for the new “spherical film-making” projection system. Images are projected onto a large sphere hanging suspended in the auditorium. According to the space agency: “The results give the startling impression of the moon hanging magically in the center of darkened theaters. During the five-minute film, viewers will witness NASA’s legacy of lunar exploration and come to understand the rationale for the Agency's ambitious plans to return to the moon, beginning with a robotic mission called the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter or LRO. Both LRO and the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS mission are featured.” The LRO in particular will be looking to map the Moon very precisely from 30 miles up from the lunar surface in a polar orbit that will cover the entire Moon. NASA believes that spherical movies are definitely the way to promote space travel. Previous NASA spherical blockbusters have included “Footprints”, a conceptual framework about the human drive to explore. “Return to the Moon” opens across America February 28. Blogs suggest that people can build their own sphere-movie setup with five Core 2 Duo PCs or better, four HD projectors, plenty of room and a six-foot beach ball. http://www.nasa.gov Xenonics launches high definition night vision system Xenonics Holdings announced the launch of the latest addition to its SuperVision family of high-definition night vision products, the SuperVision VO with record capability. The SuperVision VO system is available with standard 8x zoom, or in the SuperVision Long Range Surveillance configuration featuring up to 100x zoom. SuperVision VO runs on external or internal battery power, and includes a built-in battery charger. The system initially will be available in the SVT-VO tactical kit. http://www.xenonics.com 23 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 Blackmagic Design announces new HD card with dual link SDI Blackmagic Design announced the new DeckLink HD Extreme, a more powerful version of the original DeckLink HD Extreme card. The new DeckLink HD Extreme has all the features of the original model, which it replaces, plus now adds Dual Link 3Gb/s SDI for 4:4:4 quality and a new hardware down converter for simultaneous HD and SD playback at the same time. DeckLink HD Extreme is the world’s first capture card to feature SDI, HDMI and analog component, NTSC, PAL and S-Video capture and playback, combined with Dual Link 3 Gb/s SDI technology, and hardware down conversion for £715/$995/€775. With SDI, HDMI and analog video capture and playback, combined with both balanced analog and AES/EBU digital audio, DeckLink HD Extreme lets customers connect to all decks, cameras and monitors. DeckLink HD Extreme instantly switches between SD and HD video, so is the ideal solution for all post production and broadcast users when working on design, editing, paint and effects tasks. With built in 3 Gb/s SDI, DeckLink HD Extreme can also instantly switch to full resolution 2K feature film editing. DeckLink HD Extreme also includes built in hardware down converter so users can monitor both SD and HD at the same time during playback and capture. http://www.blackmagic-design.com Aptina expands mobile handset portfolio with 8MP image sensor Aptina announced the launch of the MT9E013 8MP image sensor. Aptina’s newest multi-megapixel sensor was created with the demanding, image-centric mobile market in mind. The exceptional performance of the new 1.4micron pixel sensor targets the mobile market with its high-end 1/3.2-inch optical format and excellent image quality. The sensor allows mobile phone manufacturers to easily update existing 1/3.2-inch optical format designs, including those manufacturers using Aptina’s 5MP MT9P012, providing increased resolution from 5MP to 8MP in the same size camera module. The new sensor provides high definition video of 720p at 30 fps and 60fps, or 1080p at 30fps with advanced binning techniques supporting the sensor’s high quality image performance. Additionally, the sensor’s 2-lane MIPI, CCP2 and parallel interfaces provide handset manufacturers with added high-speed flexible options. The new 8MP MT9E013 complements Aptina’s mobile image sensor portfolio, which includes best-in-class 2MP, 3MP, 5MP and 8MP solutions. Aptina’s new 8MP sensor provides a high image quality while also providing key features manufacturers desire such as HD video output, 2x2 pixel binning with re-sampling for improved video image quality, multiple interfaces including parallel, MIPI (2-lane) and CCP2, and an on-chip Voice Coil Motor (VCM) driver to reduce the number of external components and assist manufacturers in reducing module size. Additionally, the sensor’s low power circuit design reduces preview power consumption to low levels to help extend the cell phone battery lifetime. http://www.aptina.com Intertech/PIRA announces program for Image Sensors Europe conference Intertech/PIRA has announced the program for the 2nd edition of their sell out Image Sensors Europe conference in London, set for 24-26 March 2009. It features two plenary sessions with talks from Eastman Kodak, DALSA, Aptina, Samsung, and BBC Research and Innovation and technical breakout sessions. Chaired by well-known industry figures, Lindsay Grant of ST Microelectronics and Dr Edoardo Charbon, professor at Delft University of Technology, the comprehensive program provides market insight into key applications: camera phones, digital still cameras, broadcasting, machine vision, medical sensors, automotive, and personal computing. Afternoon breakout sessions will feature more technical presentations from image sensor and component manufacturers such as Advasense, Dblur, Sypro Optics, CMOSIS, and Robert Bosch, and the latest academic work from Delft University, Oxford University and the University of Sheffield. Two pre-conference workshops led by Albert Theuwissen and DXO Labs complete the line up for this three-day industrial forum. http://www.image-sensors.com 24 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 Future Lighting Solutions offers first true color mixing LED optic Future Lighting Solutions announced the availability of Polymer Optic’s 230 Color Mixer Reflector for LUXEON Rebel Power LEDs, the first off-the-shelf optic for solid-state lighting applications requiring uniform mixing of multiple LED light sources. The new optic offers key color mixing, engineering and flexibility benefits for applications including tunable white spots and downlighters, color-changing luminaires for entertainment and architectural lighting, and medical lamps or forensic torches. The POL 230 can uniformly mix light from up to four closely mounted LUXEON Rebel LEDs into a single +/-5 degree (FWHM) beam. The product’s modular design allows maximum packing density and assembly flexibility, enabling easy construction of optic arrays to produce high performance luminaires. The optic eliminates the need for designers of color-changing or tunable white lighting applications to use separate optics for each LED color or a multichip LED with a single optic. The first option produces poor mixing and adds costs for extra parts and assembly. The second option restricts the designer to multichip LEDs with limited light output and RGB-only color choices. In contrast, the POL 230 takes full advantage of the high flux and lumen maintenance features of LUXEON Rebel LEDs while also enabling the use of any LED color combination. Designers might prefer RGBW (white) for entertainment luminaires that must produce an infinite number of pastel variations, RGBA (amber) for architectural lighting requiring soft tones, RGGB for applications requiring intense color generation, and other white lighting. http://www.futurelightingsolutions.com Bridgelux announces US patent for surface mountable LED chip Bridgelux announced the award of a US patent for its surface mountable chip (SMC) LED design. This SMC architecture fundamentally changes how LEDs will be deployed by eliminating the need for traditional LED packaging. The innovative chip design offers a high flux density LED with an ultra small footprint and thin profile, with the ability to closely pack multiple chips together for increased performance in space limited applications such as camera flash, LCD display backlighting and general or specialty lighting applications. The design of this chip also delivers a surface mountable “thin-film” architecture, providing a flat surface for direct deposition of a phosphor layer on the LED die. http://www.bridgelux.com Luminus’ PhlatLight LEDs showcased in Delta Electronics’ next-generation HD home theater projector Luminus Devices announced that its PhlatLight LED chipset, the PT-120, is the solid-state light source inside the Delta Electronics HT-8000 – the industry’s first full HD LED-based digital light processing projector for the consumer market. The new projectors will be available in Q1 2009. The new projector combines Luminus’ PhlatLight LEDs, Delta’s optical engine technology, and Texas Instruments’ DLP capability. In addition to having the highest levels of brightness, unmatched color and reliability, the combination of technologies in the HT-8000 provides one of Delta’s customers, Vivitek, with a full HD home theater projector. http://www.luminus.com Luminus introduces the CST-90 White PhlatLight LED Luminus Devices announced the CST-90 white PhlatLight LED, the newest addition to the PhlatLight LED family of products developed for fixture manufacturers in the general lighting industry. The CST-90 white PhlatLight LED enables lighting fixture OEMs to replace bulbs and LED arrays with a single large, LED, resulting in simplified designs, lower costs and faster time-to-market. The PhlatLight CST-90 comes in a connectorized chip-on-board package with standard mounting features that make it easy to integrate and is simple to service and upgrade even after the fixture has been installed. The light-emitting surface of the CST-90 is a single, monolithic die that is nine square millimeters in size and integrates seamlessly with industry standard optics. The CST-90 produces 1,000 lumens with 10 watts input (at 6,500K) and 2,750 lumens at its maximum rated drive current. PhlatLight LEDs are mercury-free and highly reliable and have a lifetime of 60,000 hours with lumen maintenance of greater than 70%. The CST-90 is ideally suited for general lighting applications, including architectural, retail and residential lighting as well as wide area street and parking lot lighting. The CST-90 will be available for sampling at the beginning of March with production volume shipments starting in the second quarter of this year. http://www.luminus.com 25 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 Luminus introduces SST-90 White PhlatLight LED surface mount Luminus Devices announced availability of the SST-90 white PhlatLight LED, a large chip white LED in a new surface mount (SMT) package. The SST-90 combines the benefits of high power and efficiency, enabling lighting fixture OEMs to replace bulbs and LED arrays with a single PhlatLight LED. For LED customers, this results in simplified designs, lower costs and faster time-to-market. The SST-90 will be available for sampling in early March with production volume shipments starting in the second quarter of this year. http://www.luminus.com ON Semiconductor launches 6-watt LED driver with integrated DC-DC boost converter ON Semiconductor introduced the CAT4106 - a new 6-watt LED driver with an integrated, high-power DC-DC boost converter and on-chip diagnostics to maximize efficiency in larger, general purpose LCD panel backlighting applications. As the company’s first multi-channel boost device, the CAT4106 is capable of driving as many as 40 white LEDs – or four strings of 10 LEDs with up to 36 volts per string – for a total of 6W of LED output power. Additionally, the device enables designers to maximize backlighting efficiency and reduce space via its built-in diagnostics functions, which automatically adjust the output voltage to drive the highest forward voltage string with the minimum head-room voltage. The on-chip diagnostic circuit allows designers to set the minimum and maximum voltage limits for the acceptable range of operation for LED strings through external programming resistors. Any channel that does not regulate within the set range of Open Circuit or Short Circuit LED will be detected and flagged on the FAULT logic output (active-low, open-drain). The CAT4106 features low dropout LED channels of 500 millivolts at 175 milliamps and a high-frequency pulse width modulation interface, which supports multiple frequencies up to 2kHz, providing precise, high-resolution dimming control while the device remains fully biased. http://www.onsemi.com AmericanAirlines Arena selects A2aMEDIA to install largest transparent digital LED spectacular A2aMEDIA and the HEAT Group announced plans to install the first-of-itskind large-scale digital LED spectacular on the AmericanAirlines Arena, home of the 2006 NBA Champion Miami HEAT. A2aMEDIA’s Mediamesh technology is an energy-efficient digital motion graphic display medium that will integrate seamlessly into the Arena’s existing digital sponsorship and promotional platforms. The Mediamesh facade will cover 12 of the concrete/glass bays that comprise a significant portion of the Arena’s supergrid (front wall of windows) – approximately 3,400 square feet –making it the largest digital LED media display in the Southeast. Installation is scheduled to begin in spring 2009 and is expected to be completed within two months. A2aMEDIA has applied the patent-pending Mediamesh technology to digital LED displays, creating a transparent surface for showcasing digital images on large-scale buildings. Any content that can be displayed on a computer screen can be shown on an A2aMEDIA screen: images, graphics, text/words, movies, etc. When the screen is off, the screen blends with the building architecture. When it’s on, images float across the screen surface in high-pixel resolution. Mediamesh “curtains” are made of linear tubes filled with LED nodes that provide the “pixels” for a large-format display mesh. At only three quarters of an inch thick, the mesh panel is durable, and has the ability to withstand extreme heat and cold. http://www.a2amedia.com 26 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 UIUC presents scalable image distribution in ultra-high resolution displays The Scalable Adaptive Graphics Environment (SAGE) is a specialized middleware that enables real-time streaming of extremely high-resolution graphics and high-definition video from remotely distributed rendering and storage clusters to scalable display walls over ultra high-speed networks. This paper from the University of Illinois extends SAGE to support distant collaboration between multiple endpoints by distributing visualization to all participants. In the SAGE framework, each visualization application streams its rendered pixels to the virtual high-resolution frame buffer of SAGE, allowing users to freely move, resize and overlap the application windows on the display. Every window movement or resize operation requires dynamic and non-trivial reconfigurations of the involved graphics streams. These reconfigurations become even more complex when SAGE is required to support multiple collaboration endpoints with different tiled display configurations and application window layouts. “Visualcasting” is a new SAGE network service to address this problem using a high-speed bridging system that receives pixel streams from rendering clusters to duplicate and send them to each end-point. This enables distant collaboration among international researchers in scalable display environments. Using Visualcasting service, collaborators can share their visualization and interact each other through high-definition video conferencing in the SAGE Framework. http://www.evl.uic.edu/cavern/sage ViBook boosts productivity with multiple display technology Village Tronic, one of the pioneers of multi-display solutions, has announced ViBook which now makes it very easy and inexpensive to run several screens from one computer using just standard USB. Jon Peddie of Jon Peddie Research, explained, “Having several screens can dramatically increase productivity for almost any computer user. Now that the costs of displays and the multi-screen technology have dropped significantly, we are forecasting a market growth for multi-screen solutions of between 25% and 50% in 2009 as people realize just how much better and productive their working environment becomes.” Up to six displays can be driven by one Windows based computer and up to four for a Mac OS one. This gives a huge amount of screen area that can significantly increase productivity as many different programs can be open and visible at the same time. Each display is driven by an ultra compact ViBook that plugs into the DVI socket of the display and the other end of the cable goes to the USB port of the desktop or notebook. Designed and manufactured in Italy, ViBook is extremely small at only 4.3x7x2.4cm (1.7x2.8x0.9 inches). It is supplied as a complete USB graphics system that includes a DVI to VGA cable for high quality analog output to displays, a VESA mounting cradle and Village Tronic’s multi-screen software – VT MultiDisplay software for Windows and VT Voilà for Mac. Other cable options are available as optional extras. The ViBook Graphics USB-DVI Cable is compatible with any computer system with an USB 2.0 port running Mac OS X 10.4 and 10.5; and Windows 2000, Windows XP (32bit), Windows Vista (32 and 64-bit). It can support displays up to 22 inches in size, with a resolution of 1680x1050 (wide screen) and 1600x1200 (standard) in 16 and 32-bit color. As it draws its power from the USB within the specified power rating, no additional power adapters are required and it can even work via a USB hub. It can be used with or independently of the video card already installed in the computer and can even drive projectors and HDTV displays. http://www.villagetronic.com 27 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 Cyviz introduces world’s largest blended display wall Cyviz recently sold and is currently installing what is believed to be the world’s largest blended, high-resolution premium display wall. This wall will offer over 47 million pixels with 52 pixels per inch. It is a combination of 30 WUXGA projectors in a 6x5 configuration. The wall will improve the decision-making process, decrease the time to market and increase sales via customer marketing and testing, the company says. http://www.cyviz.com UMID launches world’s “smallest, lightest” laptop UMID of Korea unveiled what it claimed is the world’s smallest and lightest notebook to date. The mbook measures 158x94.1x18.6mm and weighs only 315g, yet its 4.8in display has a 1024x600 resolution (which translates to 247ppi) and is stylus operated. A speaker sits on one side of the screen and a 1.3Mp webcam on the other. Two versions of the machine are available, one with a 1.1GHz Intel Atom processor and another with a 1.3GHz option. Both come with 1GB of memory, with Flash-based storage ranging between 8GB and 32GB. UMID says the machine is compatible with a selection of communication technologies, including HSDPA, Bluetooth 2.0 and WiBro – a WiMax-like wireless broadband Internet technology developed in South Korea. http://umid.co.kr/ gScreen Computer Corp brings out dual-screen laptop The gScreen G400 is a 15.4-inch LED backlit display screen with Windows Vista or Win XP Pro, Intel Core 2 Duo 2.8GHz T9600 or P8400 2.26GHz with 4-8GB of RAM and 160GB to 500GB 7200-rpm HD. An Nvidia Quadro FX 2700M graphics comes with 512MB dedicated memory, Nvidia GeForce 9800M GT with 512MB memory. Ports are USB 2.0 (x6), VGA, Display Port, RJ-45, Audio, Firewire 1394. The G400 is the first dual screen laptop with two 15.4-inch identical screens and a full-size keyboard, built into one unit. http://www.gscreencorp.com Lenovo mobile workstation now offers dual-screen display Lenovo rolled out a new version of its ThinkPad mobile workstation called the ThinkPad W700ds. This version of Lenovo’s ThinkPad workstation offers two displays, with a secondary, 10.6-inch screen housed inside the main 17.0-inch display. Lenovo is also adding the option of using an Intel Core 2 Quad processor with the ThinkPad W700ds instead of the high-end Intel Core 2 Extreme chip. The Lenovo W700ds is being marketed toward professional photographers and those working in CAD fields. In addition to the secondary screen, Lenovo is offering users the option of ordering the ThinkPad W700ds with a less expensive Intel Core 2 Quad processor running at 2.26GHz and built on the newer 45-nanometer manufacturing process. When the original ThinkPad W700 came out earlier in 2008, Lenovo only offered the mobile workstation with an Intel Core 2 Extreme X9300 chip. What is unique about this particular workstation is the 10.6-inch, 768x1280) secondary display. Engineers added about 10 millimeters of thickness on to the original W700 design to incorporate the horizontal display, which is about the size of the screens commonly used with mini-notebooks and some netbooks. http://www.lenovo.com 28 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 Samsung brings out SyncMaster 22-inch monitor with 7-inch companion The Samsung SyncMaster 2263DX 22-inch monitor comes with a 7-inch LCD auxiliary. For a couple of years now, most discrete graphics cards have been able to support multiple monitors, but a pair of full-size screens can be expensive and cumbersome for most desks. One response is to use a laptop with an external monitor attached. Samsung has come up with a different and novel solution to the problem, namely introducing a smaller secondary monitor that can be used to display all the information that’s useful to have on hand, such as e-mail, widgets, instant messenger conversations, reference documents or a media player. The 7-inch UbiSync 7 monitor is driven by a DisplayLink chip, which means it connects and is powered over USB, so even if the PC only has a single display connector one can still make use of this monitor. The screen can even be used completely independently. http://www.samsung.com NEC Display Solutions launches 26 and 30-inch desktop displays and new SpectraView kit NEC Display Solutions of America announced the 26-inch MultiSync LCD2690W2-BK-SV and 30.0-inch LCD3090W-BK-SV wide-screen displays with SpectraViewII color calibration sensor and software, as well as the new SpectraViewII Kit (SVII-PRO-KIT), which enhances select models of NEC displays. The SpectraViewII Color Calibration Solution combines the two award-winning displays with a color measurement sensor and sophisticated software. The result is a highly accurate, reliable, repeatable and feature-rich display calibration and profiling solution. The SpectraViewII system, available for Mac OS and Windows, uses a customcalibrated, co-branded colorimeter based on the iOne Display 2 from XRite, to take color measurements of the display screen during calibration. The software analyzes these measurements and sends color adjustment commands directly to the display monitor, allowing the full color resolution and fidelity of the system to be maintained. The new sensor is custom manufactured and matched for wide color gamut displays, in order to provide the most precise measurements possible with a colorimeter device. The sensor is also compatible with standard gamut LCD displays. The displays are designed for users in the graphic design, digital animation, photography, print production, image analysis and CAD/CAM industries, as well as soft-copy clinical viewing in the medical field. http://www.necdisplay.com NEC Electronics sharpens image quality with “super-resolution ASSP” NEC Electronics introduced a new application-specific standard product (ASSP) to address the dramatic divergence between yesterday’s image resolution and the high resolution of today’s audio-visual (AV) display systems. Based on the company’s unique single-frame “super-resolution” technology, the small, low-power ASSP reduces the blurring that occurs when low-resolution images are expanded and displayed in high-resolution. The ASSP sharpens out-of-focus images, smoothes rough edges and refines contours by analyzing and processing information contained in one frame of data in real time. The technology is also available as an intellectual property (IP) core that can be embedded into ASICs or other ASSP products, such as NEC Electronics’ Enhanced Multimedia Architecture (EMMA) ASSP for digital AV devices. By 2010, the company expects to receive orders totaling more than $110 million for super-resolution products. The technology enhances image data from 320x240 pixel resolution to 800x480 pixels for clear image display on mobile phones and car navigation systems. The technology also achieves crisp images in 1920x1080 pixel high-definition (HD) television broadcasts by boosting image data in the 640x480 pixel VGA format ordinarily used for TV broadcasts and DVD storage to 6x the resolution. http://www.am.necel.com/superresvideo 29 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 Samsung and Uni-Pixel enter into TMOS joint development agreement Uni-Pixel, the developer of color display technology called Time Multiplexed Optical Shutter (TMOS) and the Opcuity family of performance engineered films, announced the signing of a joint development agreement with Samsung Electronics of Korea. Under terms of the agreement, Unipixel and Samsung will collaborate on advancing the development efforts around Unipixel’s TMOS display technology. Unipixel’s TMOS display technology is targeted at leveraging a subset of the current LCD manufacturing process, offering the potential of lowering the bill of materials manufacturing costs by as much as 60% in some cases, while improving performance characteristics including lowering power consumption and increasing brightness over existing LCD and OLED flat panel display technologies. http://www.unipixel.com Mimo Monitors brings out USB-powered 7.0-inch accessory monitor Mimo Monitors’ USB-powered 710 and 740 7.0-inch USB displays are now available in the US. They run off any available USB 2.0 port. The displays feature an 800x480 pixel format and can pivot between portrait and landscape orientations, weigh just 1.3 pounds, and work with Windows XP/Vista as well as Mac OS X. The Mimo UM-710 has 350 cd/m² of brightness and a 400:1 contrast ratio, while the UM740 has the same specs but adds touch-screen functionality, a microphone input and audio in/pass through, along with a second USB 2.0 connection for pulling extra juice from underpowered USB systems. The UM-710 is priced at $129.99, while the UM-740 is priced at $199.99. http://www.mimomonitors.com LaCie showcases 30-inch premium-price display LaCie showcased its recently released 730 LCD monitor – a 30-inch display with a price of $4240. It has an LEDbacklit screen, a maximum resolution of 2560x1600, a contrast ratio of 1000:1 and viewing angles of 178 degrees both horizontally and vertically. The monitor has a color gamut of 123% of Adobe RGB and 125% of NTSC specs. Such a broad gamut ensures a lossless workflow, meaning that the 730 can keep up with the enlarged gamuts of high-end cameras and printing processes. In addition, the 730 uses a 14-bit look-up table, which allows gradients to be displayed with greater accuracy and smoothness than they are on lesser monitors. Also, the 730 employs what LaCie calls ColorKeeper technology, which, according to the company, “constantly analyzes the brightness and chromaticity of the backlight and adjusts it in real time” to ensure stable colors. Finally, the 730 is bundled with LaCie’s UGRA-certified Proof Edition of its calibration software, to be best used in conjunction with the company's blue eye pro calibration hardware. http://www.lacie.com/uk LG shows super-slim LCD with 2,000,000:1 contrast ratio LG’s 55-inch LH9500 is just 24.8mm thick yet still boasts 1080p and a 2,000,000:1 contrast ratio. Its 240Hz TrueMotion Drive Technology is also 40Hz faster than the frame rate available on Sony’s Z4500 TV. It also features a pair of "invisible” speakers that are claimed to provide stunning sound without adding unnecessary bulk to the body. Da-Lite Screen and Joe Kane Productions launch new projection screens Da-Lite Screen Company and Joe Kane Productions announced the world premiere of the new JKP Affinity Screen series. Through a new strategic partnership between the two companies, the JKP Affinity Screen series are the first new projection screens designed, developed and manufactured to meet the needs of High Definition (HD) 1080p projectors. Da-Lite JKP Affinity HD Progressive projection screens feature low gain for a wide viewing angle and an image uniformity not seen prior to this combination of products. JKP Affinity Screens from Da-Lite are designed for high definition professional broadcast and home cinema applications. http://www.Da-lite.com 30 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 VIZIO expands flagship XVT series of HDTVs VIZIO unveiled several new models to the XVT Series expanding the performance line with five new models. The most dramatic technology introduction is the use of LED panels featuring 240Hz with scanning backlight and VIZIO’s “Smooth Motion II” technology in their largest model, the 55-inch VF551XVT. LED backlight technology provides better picture quality with 1,000,000:1 Mega Dynamic Contrast with local dimming. They are also expanding their collection of 42-inch and 47-inch XVTs to include 240Hz with scanning backlight using Smooth Motion II technology and Mega Dynamic Contrast ratio of 50,000:1. The 42-inch SV421XVT and 47-inch SV471XVT are capable of outstanding realism and are close to eliminating motion blur. http://www.VIZIO.com VIZIO sues Funai over restrained trade VIXIO announced that it has filed an antitrust and unfair competition lawsuit against Funai, alleging that its rival has “unlawfully restrained trade and monopolized the market for the licensing of technology used to interpret and retrieve information from a digital television broadcast signal”. The suit, filed in US District Court for the Central District of California, charges that Funai unlawfully acquired a certain patent, and enforced in ways that violate federal and state antitrust law. The suit follows a ruling by the US International Trade Commission that invalidated a patent that Funai had attempted to enforce against Vizio. “We won’t allow a foreign competitor to divert us from our mission to bring affordable high quality HDTVs to millions of Americans,” Vizio co-founder Laynie Newsome said as part of the announcement of the suit. http://www.vizio.com Samsung’s 1080p LCD HDTVs couple energy-efficiency with advanced picture quality Samsung Electronics America unveiled its next-generation LCD HDTV lineup with CCFL backlighting. The LCD HDTV line-up is led by the Series 7, which is the company’s first CCFL-backlit LCD TV with a 240Hz refresh rate. The Series 7 features a fast 240Hz refresh rate, a speed twice that of current 120Hz sets, and quadruple that of standard HDTVs. The refresh rate and a faster panel work together with Samsung’s proprietary Auto Motion Plus 240Hz frame interpolation technology, to eliminate motion blur and judder with fast-action material, for stunning motion detail. Both the Series 7 and Series 6 650 (32-inch and larger) LCD HDTVs impress with Samsung’s improved Ultra Clear panel, a polarizer that reflects room light to produce deeper, darker black tones and bolder colors. By enhancing the performance of the new polarizer, the reflection rate is decreased significantly from previous versions, making blacks even darker, regardless of the ambient lighting conditions in the room. Both series also feature Samsung’s adaptive contrast picture setting, called “Natural” mode, which combines the brightness advantage of LCD displays and the cinema-like viewing experience of plasma displays. The result is a new level of video richness perfect for viewing films. Additionally, both the Series 7 and 6 feature low power consumption, thus saving energy and money for the consumer. They meet the more stringent Energy Star v3.0 efficiency guidelines. The HDTVs all feature Samsung’s new Touch of Color (ToC) design. The unique ToC frame is produced by using dual-injection molding technology to coat a translucent surface over the chassis. http://www.samsung.com Cypress and Legend Silicon debut world’s first USB TV dongle reference design Cypress Semiconductor and Legend Silicon introduced a reference design for a DTMB (Digital Terrestrial Multimedia Broadcast – a DTV standard) USB dongle. The Legend MoBLTV reference design includes the resources to quickly develop a high-performance DTMB dongle that brings television signals to PCs and laptops. The DTMB standard covers both fixed and mobile terminals and is targeted to eventually serve more than half of the television viewers in the People’s Republic of China. The RF tuner of the Legend MoBLTV DTMB dongle selects the appropriate frequency to pass along television signals to the LGS-8GL5/LGS-8G75 demodulator, which converts the signals to an MPEG2-TS transport stream. The EZ-USB FX2LP device controls the demodulator and tuner via an I2C bus, and carries an MPEG2-TS stream to the PC or laptop for viewing. The Legend MoBLTV reference design includes hardware schematics, Gerber files, firmware, Broadcast Driver Architecture (BDA) driver, demo software, and Microsoft certification. http://www.legendsilicon.com http://www.cypress.com 31 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 Silicon Mountain unveils 42-inch HDTV with integrated PC and Blu-ray player Silicon Mountain announced its design for a 32 and 42-inch High Definition LCD TV with an integrated, full-function PC and Blu-ray/DVD player. Named Allio, this system will define an entirely new category of converged products, where entertainment and instant, on-demand information and productivity blend together seamlessly, in high-definition. The Allio HD TV / PC is the first product of its kind in North America, and Silicon Mountain is the first company worldwide to develop a converged HD TV/PC solution that includes Blu-ray. The flagship Allio model marries a full-HD 42-inch LCD display with a combo Blu-ray/DVD player, integrated digital recorder for PVR and a powerful PC, based on the Intel Core2Duo E8400 processor, 4GB of RAM from Silicon Mountain, a 1TB hard drive and the 64-bit version of Windows Vista Home Premium. In addition to the analog and digital audio-video inputs common to high-def televisions, Allio includes wireless and wired networking capabilities and several USB ports to extend the experience to other computers and peripherals in the home. http://www.visionman.com Samsung shows off 55-inch LCD TV at 240Hz Samsung’s LUXIA LN55B8000 is a 55-inch LCD TV at 1920x1080 pixels that sports an LED backlight. The LED backlight is located on the edges and therefore cannot be used in conjunction with local dimming – a technology that can significantly boost contrast. The edge-lit LED backlight however makes the LN55B8000 extremely thin, just about an inch thick. The new LCD TV features a 240Hz frequency to make sure that motion blur and juddering are things of the past. An “Ultra Clear” anti-reflective LCD reduces reflections and improves contrast. The system comes with a built-in Ethernet connection. http://www.samsung.com VIZIO to introduce 240Hz solution VIZIO announced its VF551XVT LCD TV, a 55-inch system at 1920x1080 pixels that features an LED backlight, backlight scanning and a 240Hz frequency. The LED backlight helps boost the display to a 1,000,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio using the company’s Mega Dynamic Contrast technology. The scanning backlight also helps to eliminate motion blur and when couple with 240Hz frequency, blur is a non-issue. The system comes with 5 HDMI ports. The VF551XVT will be available this summer for $1999. http://www.vizio.com Samsung and Vizio both introduced 55-inch LCD TVs featuring LED backlighting at a 240Hz frequency Toshiba 56-inch Quad Full HD LCD TV Prototype with Cell Processor Toshiba showcased a prototype 56-inch LCD TV that sports a 3840x2160 (or Quad Full HD) pixel format. The prototype features a Cell processor to enable simultaneous playback of numerous shows. In addition, the company’s Resolution+ technology up-converts 1080p HD video to 3840x2160. http://www.toshiba.com 32 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 Toshiba teams with IBM to release Cell TV Toshiba’s new “Cell” TV will pair a Cell processor, co-developed with IBM and competitor Sony, with a top-end Regza monitor, The result is a TV capable of recording and playing back six simultaneous HD streams, as well as handling complex internet and picture contrast processing. The Cell processor was originally used mostly by Sony, who put it in its PS3 gaming console. While Sony and IBM mutually shouldered the initially high costs of production of the 90nm process Cell processor, two die shrinks, first to 65nm and then to 45nm, have helped lower the costs. Now IBM is looking to expand outside Sony. Over the course of the last year, it has been cultivating a relationship with Toshiba. The first fruits of that relationship came in June when Toshiba announced that two of its laptops, the Toshiba Qosmio G50 and F40, would feature a 4 SPE variant of the Cell processor as a coprocessor to the main Intel CPU. The Cell processor helped with high definition video processing on the laptops and other activities. Now a second joint product is on the way. Toshiba plans to release the new Cell TV during 2009. With the new Cell TV, Toshiba is not placing the processor within the TV itself. Rather it’s putting it in a small set top box, which Toshiba pairs with one of its top-end Regza LCD monitors. The new cell processor will provide support to picture setting adjustments such as better dynamic dimming based on Toshiba’s new Cell TV will pair a Cell processor, colighting conditions. The biggest feature it brings, developed with IBM and competitor Sony, with a top-end Regza monitor. The result is a TV capable of recording though, is the ability to simultaneously record and and playing back six simultaneous HD streams, as well as playback up to six high definition video streams handling complex Internet and picture contrast processing. simultaneously. http://www.toshiba.com Honeywell enters HDTV market with 82-inch LCD TV Soyo has recently announced it will sell its 82-inch Altura LE LCD HDTV under its Honeywell brand when it enters the US market in late April. The rather large TV will be part of a lineup that begins with 19-inch TVs in various lines, and sports 1080p resolution. It has a 120,000:1 contrast ratio along with a brightness rating of 600cd/m2. Along with the 300lb 82-incher, Honeywell's flagship LE line will include a 47-, 57-, 65- and 70-inch HDTV. All will sport 120Hz panels and 178-degree viewing angles. Each will have three HDMI inputs, two component video inputs, and one each of VGA, composite and S-video connections. Picture-in-picture functionality will be integrated, and there are two 10W speakers built into the glossy black bezel. Pricing and availability for the flagship LE models has not yet been announced. http://www.honeywellce.com LG shows super-slim LCD with 2,000,000:1 contrast ratio LG’s LH9500 is just 24.8mm thick yet still boasts 1080p and a 2,000,000:1 contrast ratio. Its 240Hz TrueMotion Drive Technology is also 40Hz faster than the frame rate available on Sony’s Z4500 TV. It also features a pair of "invisible” speakers that are claimed to provide stunning sound without adding unnecessary bulk to the body. http://www.lgphilips-lcd.com 33 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 Sharp 52-inch AQUOS integrates Blu-ray Sharp’s AQUOS LC-52BD80U is a 52-inch 1080p LCD TV that sports a built-in Blu-ray player. The system uses the company’s new ASV (Advanced Super View) Superlucent 10-bit TFT LCD that has an ultra-smooth finish to minimize gloss and reflections while improving brightness and contrast. The 120Hz Fine Motion Enhanced helps minimize motion coming out of the built-in Blu-ray player. The 10-bit ASV LCD panel also provides more than a billion colors and is Deep Color compatible. The new set also has de-judder technology that makes images appear more film-like. http://www.sharpusa.com Mitsubishi introduces QFHD monitor An increasing number of data visualization applications require extremely high resolution displays to enable fine details to be displayed clearly. High-definition monitors are often used in such applications, but these are not always a convenient solution where a number of observers need to be able to view high-resolution images simultaneously. The Quad Full High Definition (QFHD) display from Mitsubishi Electric was developed for just such a scenario, allowing large format images to be displayed in native high-resolution. The QFHD screen delivers four times higher resolution than a comparable sized HD display. The ultra high-resolution screen crams a staggering 8.3 million pixels into its 56-inch display. The microscopic pixel pitch – barely 0.1mm horizontally – means that individual pixels are not visible to the naked eye, even at extremely close viewing distances. This makes the QFHD perfect for applications requiring exceptionally sharp image rendering, such as mapping, surveillance, CAD, image analysis, medical photography and many others. The large display size allows several observers to work collaboratively around a single screen without having to struggle to see the fine details. In control room applications, the QFHD can be used to give a supervisor a detailed, high-resolution overview of an entire displaywall system without crucial fine details being lost in the scaling process. On the left is Toshiba’s new 56-inch QFHD prototype. Mitsubishi also recently showcased a 56-inch QFD system. 34 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 Philips Cinema 21:9 TV to ship in June Philips introduced the Cinema 21:9, a unique LCD TV with its ultra-wide aspect ratio of 21:9, designed especially for viewing Hollywood widescreen titles in the full director’s cut. The 56-inch model Complimentary three-sided Ambilight Spectra combines with the on-screen action to completely immerse you in the movie and deliver the ultimate home cinematic viewing experience. According to Philips: “Traditional LCD televisions compromise on this experience by distorting the picture to fill the screen – losing the full scope of the original shot – or by displaying the picture in letterbox format with black bars at the top and bottom. Cinema 21:9 solves these issues to give the viewer an uncompromised and absorbing cinematic viewing experience, never before available in the home. This Cinematic Viewing Experience is extremely difficult to replicate at home. Even the largest conventional TV screen cannot provide the total immersion that we enjoy at a cinema because when it comes to watching a film, the viewing experience isn’t determined by screen size. Films fill a cinema screen. The images reach right out to the very limits of the screen and of our peripheral vision, enveloping us so completely in the action that we actively ‘feel’ along with the characters in front of us. This cannot be achieved on a conventional 16:9 widescreen TV at home without moving to a ‘letterbox’ view or losing the full scope of the original shot. With an aspect ratio of 21:9, the Cinema 21:9 is the world’s first cinema-proportioned LCD TV. In combination with Philips’ Ambilight technology - accurately matching on-screen content to extend the picture beyond the confines of the screen - Cinema 21:9 delivers the most completely immersive home viewing experience possible”. Note that 16:9 titles will avoid the letterbox effect – but will instead see a window-box effect; and 4:3 images will see a very substantial reduction of screen real estate. Product release is not expected before June 2009 and is initially limited to just Europe. http://www.digitalnewsroom.philips.com/products/21x9/ The Philips 21:9 solution enables full-screen Hollywood formats. The Ambilight technology, (shown on the right) helps to match on-screen content to extend the picture beyond the confines of the screen. Yahoo! brings out advances to Internet-connected television Yahoo!’s Connected TV group unveiled the next generation of technology and services for Internet-connected televisions. The company has forged partnerships with top CE manufacturers to launch a widget-based user experience for TV that brings the best of the Web to a broad range of living room devices. Powered by the Yahoo! Widget Engine, these devices will enable the discovery and enjoyment of the Cinematic Internet via a new class of interactive applications called TV Widgets. TV Widgets enable popular Internet services and online media to reach viewers with applications specifically tailored to the needs of the television watcher. In August, Yahoo! and Intel announced the Widget Channel, their joint initiative to foster innovation in the connected TV space. Building on that initiative, Yahoo! is announcing partnerships with top consumer electronics manufacturers including Samsung, Sony, LG Electronics and VIZIO. Products produced by these partnerships will enable the industry to bring an innovative Internet and TV experience to millions of consumers globally, starting as early as the spring of 2009. Reinforcing Yahoo!’s open strategy, the company, in partnership with Intel, released the Widget Development Kit (WDK). This will enable developers to create TV Widgets and effectively reach millions of consumers. http://connectedtv.yahoo.com/developer. 35 Veritas et Visus High Resolution 36 February 2009 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 CES 2009 Best Buzz Awards January 8-12, 2009, Las Vegas, Nevada Analysts from Insight Media analysts compiled a list of the products and technologies that generated the most talk on the show floor at the Consumer Electronics Show. The buzz may be about a technology breakthrough, a bold, innovative design or a quirky design, or it may reflect a new social direction, like today’s commitment to “green”. Analysts Ken Werner, Steve Sechrist, Pete Putman, Chris Chinnock, Matt Brennesholtz, Aldo Cugnini, and Mike Kalmanash compared notes on show highlights and presented the Best Buzz Awardees for CES 2009: Best Pico Projector: Samsung Projector Phone – While it was not on display at the Samsung booth, a projector phone currently available in South Korea was shown in the TI booth at the Digital Experience. This unit uses the same basic projector technology as the MBP200, but includes cell phone functions, as well. It is a touch screen handset with 3G, GPS and Samsung’s TouchWiz GUI. Accessing the projector is simple since there is a “'projector”' icon in the main menu, and then you select a source – audio, video or photo files, PDF, PowerPoint, Word, Excel or text files. Image quality is good and, of course, comparable to other pico projectors using the DLP Pico chipset. Best Pico Projector Runner Up: WowWee Cinemin – The Cinemin series of projectors from WowWee generated considerable buzz in the pico category – in particular because this is a toy company and they have a very aggressive price point for their DLP-based pico projector – $299. While there have been a number of pico projectors on the market, most have been introduced by unknown companies that have done little other than build a projection engine into something. WowWee has been around for a while and has a lot of (successful) experience designing, manufacturing and marketing high-priced, technology-oriented toys. If that company can’t make a go of pico projectors in the consumer market, we don’t expect anyone can. Best Home Theater Projector: Vivitek's H6080FD – Vivitek’s H6080FD LED-powered DLP Home Theater projector was among the most interesting products at the show, and it was nearly impossible to locate, given Vivitek’s tiny, remote booth in the lower South Hall. We wouldn’t have expected Vivitek to be the first company to bring out an 800-lumen, 1920x1080p DLP projector. But it did, and it looked pretty darned good – there’s no color wheel, and the red, green, and blue LEDs should last at least 20K hours. Be prepared to fork over a few dollars for it, however – the list price (so far) is $19,999. Availability is in June. Left to right are Samsung’s projector phone, WowWee’s Cinemin pico projector, and Vivitek’s home theater projector Best Projection Screen: Da-Lite JKP Affinity – It’s hard to get worked up about a new projection screen, but the Da-Lite JKP Affinity Projection Screen, which Da-Lite developed in conjunction with Joe Kane Productions, works so well that we had a hard time believing it came from Warsaw, IN (and not those other guys in southern California). The matte texture of the screen material (.85 gain) is so fine that it clearly showed noise problems in 4K and 2K film scans projected onto its surface from a Samsung 1080p home theater projector. Impressive! 37 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 Best 3D Systems: Panasonic and Dolby – Panasonic announced the US debut of its '”world’s firstQ” 3D Full HD (3D FHD) Plasma Home Theater System. It consists of a 103-inch plasma HDTV and a Panasonic Blu-ray disc (BD) player that delivers full 1080p images to each eye. At the show, we wore active-shutter glasses and saw probably the best 3D footage we have ever seen. It was a film of the opening ceremony for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and it was truly stunning, nearly jaw-dropping content. As Panasonic points out, other systems suffer from reduced vertical resolution, caused by the 3D display method that divides the scanning lines between the left and right eyes, and picture quality degradation caused by squeezing two (left and right) screens’ worth of full HD images into one screen of data capacity for image storage and transmission. Its specially developed authoring technology records 3D FHD images onto a single, “standard Blu-ray Disc”. One hitch: 3D content encoded with this process cannot be played back on existing Blu-ray players. Dolby privately showed its approach to encoding 3D content for existing file formats in the home – which enables the immediate delivery of high-quality stereoscopic 3D content to 3D-ready HDTVs or 3DTVs that feature embedded 3D decoding/transcoding electronics over the standard Blu-ray disc medium, using standard Blu-ray players. The solution does not require changes to the Blu-ray, HDMI, or MPEG specifications, and does not require an external decoder box. Left to right are the Da-Lite/JKP projection screen, and Panasonic and Dolby’s 3D systems Best 3D Monitor: Samsung’s 22.0-inch, 120-Hz 3D monitor – Samsung’s 22.0-inch, 120-Hz 3D monitor, compatible with Nvidia’s new GeForce 3D Vision solution, generated a lot of buzz at the show. It’s not a simple matter to produce a 120-Hz active-shutter glass LCD monitor. It requires a special “holding time”. First, all 1,050 rows of the LCD must be written to the panel with left-eye data. Then, the shutter on the glasses for the left-eye view is opened and the LED backlight is flashed on during this image “holding period”. The shutter on the glasses then closes and the backlight is turned off. The cycle is then repeated for the right-eye view. In order to do this at a fast enough rate to avoid flicker (120 Hz per eye), the “on time” of the LED backlight is quite short, so optimizing performance is tricky. Samsung has hit the mark with its new monitor. Best Innovation: Toshiba 4K LCD Cell Processor TV with Spatial Motion Control – Toshiba showed Cellpowered next-generation TVs using spatial motion control (no remote). This is a new type of GUI targeting hand operation and powered by the eight-core Cell processor. “The interface cannot be done with legacy inputs – even though the software was developed on a laptop computer,” according to Akira Nakanishi, a developer of the gesture concept at Toshiba. The IR-based sensor is focused on X, Y, and Z dimensions, allowing hand motions in all three directions. In addition, the sensor can differentiate between right and left-hand motions as well as gestures using both hands. Cell also empowers recording up to six HD streams simultaneously. The technology was demonstrated on a Toshiba 65-inch Cell-based LCD-TV with 4K resolution (4096x2160), full frame upscaling and local dimming LED backlighting. Runner-up: Widget Channel Framework – The Widget Channel framework, co-developed by Intel and Yahoo, got a lot of attention at the show – if for no other reason than it’s showing up on TV sets from Samsung, Panasonic 38 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 and Sony. The Widget Channel puts the PC “dashboard” experience on the TV, allowing consumers direct access to Internet content via their TV remote control. All you need is the built-in Ethernet port or a Wi-Fi USB dongle, and you can get content from Flickr, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Weather and Yahoo! Finance, USA TODAY, YouTube, eBay and Showtime Networks. The list undoubtedly will grow, as TV manufacturers jump on the bandwagon. The HW/SW overhead is relatively small, and the feature could spur a small jump in sales. The true differentiator will be services that play up effortless interactivity and content access, and play down any similarity to the negative aspects of the PC experience – software bugs, slow response, and complicated revision upgrades. Left to right are Samsung’s 22.0-inch 3D monitor, Toshiba’s 4K LCD cell processor on a 4096-x2160 LCD with local dimming, and the Widget Channel framework Best OLED (large): LG 15.0-inch OLED (product not prototype) -- At CES, LG Displays showed a 15.0-inch OLED monitor due to ship next quarter. This was an impressive display, perhaps showing LG’s intent to launch mid-range OLED panels into the hybrid monitor/small TV display space before launching headlong into an LCD TV replacement market. And why not? This size is not a bona fide TV size anyway, no matter what Sony and its 11.0-inch OLED TV claim. The pixel format is 1366x768 driven at 120Hz (Sony is at 60Hz) with a 0.8-mm thin package. This is significant in that, if commercialized, it will be the first native HD OLED TV (supporting 720p signals). The 11.0-inch Sony XEL-1 is an OLED TV, but it is only 960x540 pixel resolution. Best OLED (small display): Sony's Flexible OLED Display (prototype) – Sony’s flexible OLED display (prototype) incorporates durable Flex OLED display and high performance bioplastics, and its '”bendable material'” is meant to simulate the flexible (paperback) book reading experience. Best LCD Monitor Panel: Samsung's New 24.0-inch WUXGA – Samsung’s new 24.0-inch WUXGA (1920x1200 pixels) in 16:10 format boasts 16.7M colors, 300 lumens and 1K:1 contrast. It's 18.5-mm thin and has a 5-ms response time. All that, and it’s green: the panel is mercury free and has a low-power consumption (down from 65W to 24W). Left to right are LG’s 15.0-inch OLD TV, Sony’s flexible OLED, and Samsung’s 24.0-inch 1920x1200 LCD monitor 39 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 Best LCD Technology (3-way Tie): JVC 32-inch Super-Thin – JVC’s 32-inch super-thin LCD demo generated considerable buzz, not only for its skinny-ness, but for its mounting mechanism. It has a built-in magnet on its back that allows the TV to be stuck to any ferrous surface. Yes, there is an umbilical cord to the driving electronics. It stayed amazingly cool, considering the lack of grille work on the rear panel for heat ducting. JVC’s LCD HDTV measures 0.28 inches thick, and weighs all of 11 pounds. Best LCD Technology (3-way Tie): LG's 480Hz LCD – In a world where speed suddenly seems to be paramount in displays (forget brightness and contrast), LG’s demonstration of a 480Hz LCD monitor with a combination of black frame insertion and scanning backlight was impressive. Motion blur is a big problem for LCD TVs and even 120-Hz systems don’t clean it up completely. But 480Hz (four times faster) does, as demonstrated by fast panning shots of sheet music – blurred at 60Hz, still blurred at 120Hz, but very readable at 480Hz. Best LCD Technology (3-way Tie): Samsung 82-inch: The “mine's bigger than yours” HDTV jockeying at CES between Samsung, Sharp, Panasonic and LG may be a thing of the past. While Samsung’s 82-inch Ultra HD LCD monitor isn’t the largest in the world (Sharp’s 103-inch is), it may now be the biggest HD+ product out there, with a resolution of 3840x2160 pixels. Any way you look at it, that’s a lot of picture. Left to right are JVC’s super thin 32-inch LCD TV; LG’s 480Hz LCD technology, and Samsung’s 82-inch HDTV Best Plasma TV: Panasonic Z1 – Panasonic Z1 series sets offer high-contrast NeoPDP panels that are wireless, less than 1 inch thick, and cut in half last year's power consumption (for comparable sizes). And the Z1 series gives Panasonic a premium product with margin. Prices in Japan will be $6K to $8K depending on size (46, 50, 54-inch). They’re shooting for summer availability, and at least one size will be sold in the US. Best LCD-TV Value: Vizio VF551XVT – Vizio has launched the VF551XVT, a 240Hz TV (actually it's 120Hz plus backlight scanning), featuring a 55-inch panel from LGD and a direct W-LED backlight with local-area dimming. It also features USB (with MPEG-2, H.264, WMV9, JPG, MP3, FAT32 for use as hard drive), SRS TruVolume and TruSurround, and built-in sound bar – all for an amazing $1,999.99. Other comparable models cost two to three times as much. Wow! Best Interconnect Device: PPC HDMI Cable – The PPC HDMI cable with patented locking connectors wins in this category. The standard HDMI connector has a pull strength of only three pounds, and the weight of the cable plus vibration over time can loosen the connector spontaneously, resulting in a poor connection or no connection at all. (This is so common that the volume of “help”' calls from PPC customers induced them to come up with a solution.) The clever, solid design has a 12-pound pull strength and is compatible with standard HDMI sockets – unlike competing designs, which require matching custom sockets. There is a broad market here, including cable manufacturers (if PPC wants to license), CEDIA-type installers, commercial networks, Geek Squad type installers and end users. 40 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 Left to right are Panasonic’s ultra-thin PDP, Visio’s 240Hz LCD TV, and PPC’s locking HDMI solution Best Mobile Technology: Open Mobile Video Coalition – The Open Mobile Video Coalition gets kudos for pledging the over-the-air deployment of Mobile TV services later this year. At CES, the alliance of US broadcasters announced that they will be launching mobile digital television (DTV) services in 2009 across 63 stations in 22 markets, covering 35% of US television households. Of the 63 stations, there will be 14 NBC affiliates, nine ABC affiliates, nine CBS affiliates, five FOX affiliates, nine ION Television affiliates, four CW affiliates and four MyNetworkTV affiliates. Also, nine PBS stations are in discussions with the OMVC to join the 2009 launch. In the months to come, the OMVC will conduct extensive interoperability testing and trials in various markets nationwide. The mobile service will be advertiser-supported, which will probably be a more profitable proposition than pay services. Best New Notebook Display: Lenovo W700DS – Lenovo was showing its new W700DS, a large and powerful laptop workstation PC with a 17.0-inch 1920x1200 main screen and a 10.0-inch 768x1280 side display that slides out from behind the main display. Fonts are stable as you drag them across the mullion from the main display to the side display. Best New Display Innovation or Category: D-link Notebook Add-on Display – D-Link was showing a 7.0-inch USB-powered monitor called the Side Stage. D-Link will introduce it in March or April, and the price is undecided, but will be “$500 or less”. This is a nice little product, but it is little. We think the price needs to be around $200 if the Side Stage wants to take center stage and be a star. Biggest/Busiest Booth of the Show: Samsung – Samsung’s, with its video wall display and “Samsung Cavern”. Whose show was this anyway – the industry’s or Samsung’s? Left to right are Lenovo’s dual screen notebook PC, D-link’s add-on display, and Samsung’s monster video wall which attracted enormous attention at the show… 41 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 Plastic Electronics Conference and Showcase October 28-29, 2008, Berlin, Germany Although this key conference covered by Phillip Hill, and organized by the Plastic Electronics Foundation and Intertech/PIRA, was mainly about flexible displays and electronics, there were many presentations relevant to High Resolution: Siemens, Kodak, Rutgers University, Silecs Oy, UDC, QD Vision, and CDT Quantum Dot Light Emitting Devices for Solid State Lighting Peter Kazlas, QD Vision, Watertown, Massachusetts Kazlas first looked at existing LED technologies. There are incomplete solutions for design, color and stability. Inorganic LEDs are point sources and are rigid. Organic LEDs have inherently poor color matching, the manufacturing cost is high, and scaling to large glass is difficult for small-molecule OLEDs. Quantum dot semiconductor nanocrystals are a practical solution to deliver light with extraordinary color and efficiency, tunable from the visible to infrared, Kazlas said. He showed a graph of QD photoluminescence spectra (see illustration). QDs operate in two modes: electroluminescence (EL mode), activated by electronic energy giving direct emission of colored light; and photoluminescence (PL mode), activated by light energy – conversion of color from other light sources – any light with shorter wavelengths (LEDs, lasers, and OLEDs). The company has demonstrated the highest achieved peak EQE (>7%) for QLEDs and demonstrated the highest achieved brightness (>13,000 nits) for a QLED; and 3-4.6cd/A at brightness values ranging from 1000 to 10,000 nits. All devices exhibit excellent color saturation at high brightness values. Current QLED lifetimes range from 100’s to1000+ of hours at 100 nits. QD Printing and solution processing offer important benefits compared to the shadow mask evaporation processes typically employed for small molecule OLEDs: high material utilization; fine feature resolution; scalability; high uniformity. QD printing methods include spin casting, contact printing and inkjetting. QDs are not triplet emitters. However, performance is not limited by the singlet:triplet ratio due to thermal mixing. The result is that 100% of excitons in a QD device can emit. The unique combination of high efficiency, extraordinary color, intrinsic stability and low-cost patterning makes QLEDs an exciting and beneficial EL technology for next generation and solid-state lighting and display applications, Kazlas concluded. Based on the company’s understanding of QLED device physics, with continued development QLEDs can achieve external quantum efficiencies of 20%, similar to PHOLEDs. 42 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 The Efficiency Staircase for OLED Lighting Arvid Hunze, Siemens, Erlangen, Germany An intriguing title and an intriguing presentation... Hunze gave an introduction to OLED lighting and white color requirements on the CIE chromaticity diagram. The starting point on the staircase was full fluorescent white at 5-7 lm/W with the structure on the left: Improvements were made by lowering the voltage (e.g. with n/p-doped layers) to give this at 8-12 lm/W, (center left). Further improvements were made to OLEDs by introducing phosphorescent green and red emitters allowing further improvement of white possible with hybrid whites: stable fluorescent blue, and phosphorescent green and red emitters, to give 25-30 lm/W. Improvements by enhanced out coupling from the OLED layer achieved 40-50 lm/W. The development of a hybrid 3-color white OLED, although the mode distribution depends strongly on the distance between EML and cathode, led to this at 60-70 lm/W (the ovals below the glass layer represent the enhanced out coupling) – (center right). A full phosphorescent 3-color white OLED was then developed with materials from BASF (in asterisks) giving the structure on the right. Simulations have been carried out to compare the performance of a phosphorescent deep blue vs. light blue emitter. With a deep blue emitter, and adapted red/green, and slightly improved out coupling, 100 lm/W at cold white color coordinates could be possible. The full staircase is shown here: Hunze concluded by saying that a key parameter for OLED lighting is the power efficiency at white color coordinates. Using doped injection layers and easily applicable and production related out coupling structures and phosphorescent green and red emitters can achieve high efficiency values for future lighting products. With the hybrid approach already 3-color white 46 lm/W has been demonstrated. With a phosphorescent light blue emitter, full phosphorescent 3-color white at warm white color coordinates with further improved power efficiency is possible. Full phosphorescent white with 62 lm/W has been demonstrated (with very good color vs. luminance stability possible). Further efficiency improvements with cold white color coordinates and CRI make it possible to achieve efficiency in the range of 100 lm/W with deep blue phosphorescent emitters according to calculations. 43 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 OLED: Challenges and Solutions for Display and Lighting James R. Buntaine, Kodak, Rochester, New York Buntaine first pointed out that all AMOLED products use LTPS TFT and RGB-patterned OLED. All AMOLED products have the OLED vapor deposited onto half glass of size Gen 4 (or smaller). The industry will not become significantly profitable until Gen 5 or larger is achieved. He outlined what it will take to manufacture at Gen 5: scalable backplane (LTPS, a-Si, Mox, oTFT); and scalable OLED deposition (vapor, solution, transfer). Turning to manufacturing yield improvement in terms of GMC and shorting reduction, Buntaine said that Global Mura Compensation eliminates nearly all Mura caused by LTPS TFT manufacture and has been proven in mass production and demonstrated in five unique TFT size panels. Kodak has demonstrated a new technology to reduce more than 100x the number density of shorting defects leading to unlit dots. Buntaine then told his audience about the hype that OLED must avoid based on reflections gathered from discussions with a prominent (and frustrated) lighting designer. In specifying performance, be truthful in a practical sense. Many LED lighting companies claim lifetimes, but will not warrantee them. If CIExy is not on the Planckian locus, color temperature has no meaning. If CIExy is not on the Planckian locus, CRI has no meaning. Power efficiency (LPW) must be evaluated in the illuminated space, not in some maximal manner in an R&D Kodak’s recently announced digital OLED picture frame lab. “When OLED lighting delivers true with a 7.6-inch diagonal, 800x600 pixels, and 30,000:1 performance, it will be successful,” he said. contrast ratio Hybrid Semiconductors: Designer Materials with Enhanced Properties for Optoelectronic Applications Jing Li, Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey Rutgers University has developed an unprecedented type of inorganic-organic hybrid semiconductor. These materials show very strong structure-induced quantum confinement effect (QCE). They exhibit exceptionally large blue shift in their optical absorption edge, which is similar to, and in most cases exceeds, that of the smallest quantum dots grown by colloidal methods (e.g. InP, ZnSe). Perfectly ordered and extended crystal structures are promising for optoelectronic devices requiring high conductivity and mobility (e.g. LEDs, PVs, TEs). The essential electronic and optical properties and functionality of the parent semiconductor bulk are retained in these hybrid semiconductors, with enhanced and new/interesting features. The organic spacers play an important role in their structural, mechanical, and thermal expansion properties. The strong property tunability as a result of structureinduced QCE, the capability of systematic modification of their structures and dimensionality, and unique and new properties make these hybrid semiconductors particularly interesting (both fundamentally and with respect to possible applications). The concept of particlesize-independent (or structure-induced) QCE may be applicable in other nanostructured crystal systems. Infinite 2D layers allowing conduction pathways and thus high mobility and conductivity are anticipated, promising for electroluminescence Blue LED (a); sample coated blue LED (not illuminated) and direct use as active emitting layers in white (b); coated LED (c); coated LED (Mn 0.5%) (d) light LED configurations. 44 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 Organo-Siloxane Based Light Management Materials Juha T. Rantala, Silecs Oy, Espoo, Finland Silecs produces advanced polymer materials for manufacturing semiconductors and optoelectronics devices. It has a high volume production site in Finland for various silicon-based products with global distribution channels qualified by the leading semiconductor manufacturers. Chemical technology and IP-driven application customized products are backed by more than 30 patents granted or pending covering mainly various monomers, polymer compositions and processing methods. The materials address optoelectronics device performance and cost down through organo-siloxane based materials for opto-device light management. With the right selection of monomers equal One of the company’s focuses is on atmospheric printing quality to organic polymers can be obtained with processes and printable polymeric materials superior and properties, Rantala said. To maximize light controllability in an imaging device a low index of refraction is required. Organo-siloxanes with special catalytic chemistry offer a route to low refractive index optical coatings. At the other end of the spectrum, high index of refraction siloxanes provide an excellent matrix for nanoparticle incorporation. Commercial and custom-made surface modifying agents are available. Silanes are the most common surface modifying agent of inorganic particles. Inorganic nanoparticles can increase significantly the index of refraction of a bulk optical medium. Novel organo-siloxane based optical dielectrics offer a viable route to address light management issues in common optoelectronics devices. With careful design of materials the company can address various device and manufacturing specific challenges, e.g. non-yellowing, contrast enhancing, high-resolution materials for TFT-LCD manufacturing. The company’s materials also enable pixel shrink in advanced CMOS digital image sensor products; and improve quantum efficiency and color repeatability of opto devices. Status of High Efficiency and Long Lifetime Phosphorescent OLEDs Mike Hack, Universal Display Corporation, Ewing, New Jersey The outline of Mike Hack’s talk was an introduction to phosphorescence – a critical technology for OLED displays and lighting; the current status of UDC’s RGB phosphorescent OLEDs (PHOLEDs); dual-doped PHOLEDs with improved performance; and white PHOLEDs and applications to solid-state lighting. Hack outlined the phosphorescent OLED advantage. Radiation is from triplet excitons, i.e. four of four spin states or ~100% internal quantum efficiency (IQE). With fluorescent OLEDs, radiation is restricted to singlet excitons, i.e. one of four spin states or ~25%. Phosphorescence is achieved through the use of phosphorescent molecules that contain a heavy metal atom core such as iridium or platinum. Which facilitates intersystem crossing of singlets to triplets. Hack said that his company’s PHOLEDs were energy efficient and ideal for mobile devices, a key for AMOLED TVs, and critical for lighting. Prospective cost savings come from batteries, drivers, and heat dissipation components. They are also compatible with multiple manufacturing methods and active-matrix backplanes. Hack went into details of dual-doped PHOLED structure and materials before turning to white OLEDs and their latest impressive performance figures as measured by the independent Luminaire Testing Laboratory. In conclusion, Hack made the analogy of “from pixels to prototypes”, “from bulbs to panels”, “from heat to light”. More light than heat 45 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 The Bright Future of OLED Lighting Richard Wilson, CDT, Cambridge, England After giving a brief history of CDT and its takeover by Sumitomo, Wilson made the obvious case for energyefficient lighting. Before discussing anything about OLEDs, Wilson hit out at compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs). They have slow turn-on (albeit improving), have poor color rendering (albeit improving), and lifetimes can be shorter than advertised – for example, 6,000-15,000 hours continuous vs. 1,000 hours if turned on and off every five minutes. The lamps also contain mercury (up to 5mg of mercury in each CFL) with the potential for widespread mercury contamination in incinerators and landfill. Practical efficiencies drop due to fixture losses from drivers, reflectors, etc. Installed luminaire efficiencies are around 30-60 lm/W. Many organizations are investigating OLEDs for lighting. In many cases, governments are funding developments. The drivers for OLEDs in solid-state lighting include: potential for long lifetime (important cost savings in buildings, transport systems, etc.); high efficiency; lower bill of materials than CFLs; and no mercury. OLED design advantages for lighting are that it is a large area diffuse light source; it gives directional light – no reflectors are required; devices are thin, flat, and lightweight; they give fast switch-on and are fully dimmable; many colors are possible, including different white points; and they are transparent or mirror-like in the off-state. Wilson then turned to OLEDs compared to high-brightness LEDs. OLEDs are best suited to applications requiring uniform, diffuse large area emission. OLEDs are not a good match for point source or highly directional applications. Inorganic LEDs are best suited to applications requiring point sources of light. Inorganic LEDs are not a good match for uniform, diffuse large area emission. For that they would require diffuser materials, arrays of LEDs, and costly assembly and integration. Inorganic and organic LEDs are complementary and together will be able to cover a wide range of lighting needs. Wilson then turned his attention to the flaws of small molecule OLED devices. They require many layers for optimum performance; each layer requires precise thickness control; yield remains an issue; materials are deposited by evaporation under vacuum; there is poor material utilization; and the cost of vacuum equipment scales as the dimension cubed. Polymer OLED (P-OLED) device fabrication, on the other hand, requires significantly fewer layers, color is controlled during polymer manufacture; and solution processing is A polymer OLED from Siemens; on the right is a polymer OLED ceiling low cost and give a higher lumen/$. lighting fixture demo from Osram and Ingo Maurer Towards the end his presentation following on from the technical aspects of P-OLEDs, Wilson mentioned the “Topless” project (Thin Organic Polymeric Light Emitting Semiconductor Surfaces). It is a UK consortium comprising Thorn Lighting, Sumation (CDT), and the University of Durham, sponsored by a UK government grant. Its objective is to develop efficient single white light emitting polymer devices (40 lm/W @ 1,000cd/m2 and >10k hours lifetime). In summary, Wilson said that OLED technology is rapidly expanding from displays into lighting application spaces. SSL is an attractive market and OLED capabilities are well placed to meet product requirements. P-OLED offers significant manufacturing advantages over SM-OLEDs for SSL in the diffuse lighting market. P-OLEDs complement – not compete with – HB-LEDs in replacing incumbent, but flawed, technologies (a reference to CFLs). The applications will be in general and architectural lighting. 46 Veritas et Visus High Resolution 47 February 2009 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 SID Mobile Displays Conference 2008 September 23-24, 2008, San Diego, California Phillip Hill covers the high-resolution aspects of this conference with presentations from Uni-Pixel Displays, Global Lighting Technologies, 3M, Samsung Electro-Mechanics, Microvision, and EpiCrystals Mobile Projection Devices Ian Brown, Microvision, Redmond, Washington The talk covered PicoP technology. The company’s business strategy and focus is on the development and commercialization of the PicoP miniature laser projector engine. It has over 200 issued and pending US patents, and 150 employees. The PicoP utilizes a bi-axial MEMS scanner, RGB lasers, tiny laser optics, and custom electronics. The MEMS scanner is a silicon-based device at the center of which is a tiny mirror that simultaneously oscillates both vertically and horizontally. The image is created pixel-by-pixel analogous to a CRT. The key advantages of PicoP are its thickness (<7 mm thick engine); thinness is independent of resolution; it is always in focus; no projection lenses or user adjustment required; wide projection angle (~1:1 throw ratio); lower power – light sources only used when needed; vivid colors (>200% NTSC possible – see chromaticity diagram); and exceptional contrast. “SHOW” plug-and-play prototype. The production version will be 25% smaller and thinner. 48 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 Field Sequential Color in Mobile Applications Dan van Ostrand, Uni-Pixel Displays, The Woodlands, Texas Van Ostrand’s presentation was mainly visual, some of which is shown below. The talk concentrated on Time Multiplexed Optical Shutter (TMOS) with a technology overview, outlining performance advantages, followed by Field Sequential Color (FSC) challenges and solutions. He first showed a graphic comparing LCD layers with TMOS layers. Van Ostrand then explained how light is guided in TMOS with single pixel activation by electrostatic attraction. He then looked at optical efficiency of TMOS vs. LCD (see illustration below). The estimated performance of TMOS is based on modeling and empirical measurements to date. Turning to power efficiency in lm/W, van Ostrand said that TMOS was 6x to 10x more efficient than LCD with identical specifications. The LEDs consume most of the energy in TMOS. He then discussed FSC and color breakup. If either the eye or the observed object move too quickly, the bursts of color can hit different parts of the retina causing color breakup. If color bursts reach the eye within 4ms, it has been shown that color breakup is eliminated. TMOS pixel speed is <2μs response time (1,000x faster than LCD). TMOS video frame rates are >150 fps and the FSC field rate is >3600/sec. 49 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 Continuing on the theme of color breakup, van Ostrand dealt with non-contiguous primary colors. TMOS not restricted to contiguous primary color sub-frames. With bit rearrangement, R-G-B bits can occur in any order. The red light need not be emitted from the display in a single contiguous time segment within a frame (see illustrations). Intensity modulation is also used to shorten overall frame time. As the number of different LED intensities increase, the time required for each color subframe decreases. Overlapping primaries can also shorten the overall frame time. The amount of savings depends on program content. Uni-Pixel has demonstrated savings of over 50% with video content. Turning off the light source when no pixels are open can also shorten the overall frame time. Again, the amount of savings depends on program content. Projection Image Modulation of a Novel Diffractive Optical MEMS Device JongHyeong Song, Samsung Electro-Mechanics, Suwon City, South Korea Most of the presentation dealt with the SOM (spatial optical modulator) technology. It uses piezoelectric operation and diffraction and micro ribbons (see illustration below left). Specific technical functions of the SOM image processor include a low power consumption algorithm, geometric image distortion compensation (distortion is <1%) and natural laser color compensation (converts to sRGB). The SOM produces a fast modulation speed of ~0.7 microseconds. Song devoted much of the presentation to speckle suppression. The features of SOM are that it gives a seamless image by 100% fill factor with no color breakup, no image blur, low speckle, and a wide operation temperature. The Spatial Optical Modulator is shown on the left; on the right is an optical diagram of SOM-based color projection displays 50 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 Backlighting Mobile Displays Brett Shriver, Global Lighting Systems, Brecksville, Ohio GLT is a technology-based lighting company. Its proprietary know-how includes precise optical design and processing; proprietary 3D optical ray tracing; proprietary software for “MicroLens” pattern development; precision in-house equipment to produce optical MicroLens and lens arrays; in-house tool design and mold fabrication; and in-house rapid prototyping. It has over 2400 employees worldwide. Its strategy is to be a leading supplier of optoelectronics with focus on high volume backlights for LCDs, by delivering a better lighting technology at competitive costs. Handheld portable devices are becoming smaller and smaller. As a result all components are being driven to utilize less real estate and become more efficient. The unique challenges are in fitting light guide plate (LGP) assemblies into a thin form factor while maintaining efficiency. Design considerations are the LED package, number of LEDs, spacing of LEDs, and LED power consumption. These design factors will determine what is possible in terms of backlight thickness, uniformity, brightness, and visual smoothness. Shriver turned to light directing features (specular vs. non specular). Specular light extraction features are optimized to deliver light within the acceptance angle of the optical system. Printed, chemical, or laser etch dots scatter light in random directions. He went into details of the company’s specular light extraction technology – MicroLens. This uses pixelbased light-extraction where 2D uniformity correction is possible. It produces high brightness and the optical features are transparent. Normal reflection and transmission percentages are roughly 60% and 40% respectively. Light is reflected and transmitted from the optical features in a specular manner. The angles at which light is emitted from the light guide can be controlled. MicroLens depths can be controlled to within +/-2 microns permitting a high degree of control throughout the panel. The angle of the reflective surface(s) for the MicroLens can be chosen to customize the angles that the light rays exit the light guide. Density can be continuously and precisely varied to maximize brightness and optimize uniformity in two dimensions. Randomization can be introduced into MicroLens patterns to improve moiré or other undesirable visual effects. MicroLens or other light extracting features can be populated on the top (exit) surface of the light guide to maximize brightness. Light extraction features can be distributed, arranged, and optimized to work with almost any light source location. Lens arrays provide a uniform visual appearance using a reduced number of light sources; the GLT solution is shown in an illuminated keypad As a result of GLT’s proprietary light ray analysis software and engineering experience as well as patented technology GLT can offer uniformly illuminated keypads with limited numbers of LEDs (see photo above). LGPs as thin as 0.4mm can be produced with total backlight assemblies of 1.0mm or less. 51 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 How to Fit a 50-inch Display in Your Pocket Michael O’Keefe, 3M, St. Paul, Minnesota O’Keefe said that the challenge is to develop a miniature projector that meets all the requirements (listed in the table below) for adoption in a mobile device. The result is the 3M Mobile Projection Engine with LED illumination and LCoS microdisplay (see photo). The benefits of LED illumination are that it is proven, reliable, efficient, high volume manufacturing, low cost, and safe. Heavy investment equates to rapid improvement. The challenge of LED illumination is that most LEDs are designed for maximum light extraction, without regard to angular light output. It is very difficult to efficiently, and in a small package, capture LED light for projection systems. 3M’s answer is to create an illumination system that captures the maximum amount of light within the smallest area – based on proprietary designs, 3M enabling components, and industry partnerships. Advanced 3M materials and designs offer the promise of ever-increasing efficiency and reduced size using LEDs. The benefits of LCoS for mobile projection are that it is proven, efficient, flexible, low cost, high resolution in a small package, it produces an excellent image, and there are multiple suppliers. The challenge of LCoS is that it requires polarized light and optics to manage polarized light. 3M’s answer is to use the 3M PBS with a high extinction ratio and wide operating angle, which enables ultra compact and efficient design. It is a polarized LED illumination system based on proprietary multilayer optical film. O’Keefe described the color filter LCoS from Himax Display. It creates clear, natural images for video and data applications (just like an LCD). It is robust, stable, meets stringent reliability requirements, and is easily integrated. Himax provides a total solution, including driver IC. When coupled with 3M’s LED illumination optics and polarization management optics, it results in a compact, efficient optical engine (see illustration). O’Keefe concluded by looking at other technologies. He said that a number of companies are developing other technologies – such as DMD and laserbased projectors. 3M is looking at all technologies to see where it can add value. One potential product is a LED illumination optical system that could reduce the size and increase the lumens of a DMD miniature projector. 3M advanced optics are also well-suited to laser LCoS systems (possibly laser scan as well). As RGB lasers suitable for mobile projection are introduced and available, 3M will evaluate the potential benefits, he said. 52 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 Novel Laser Light Sources for Display Applications Janne Konttinen, EpiCrystals, Tampere, Finland The company was founded in 2003 and has 17 employees including seven PhDs. It is a technology-oriented team with 200+ published scientific papers. Key team members have background at the Optoelectronics Research Centre, Tampere University of Technology, Finland. Its main products are visible lasers for projection display applications. Products are novel RGB laser modules including the patented DeCIBEL laser platform. The consumer electronics industry is calling for light sources for ultracompact projectors. The main requirements are low cost, low speckle, high efficiency, and low étendue. The design parameters of DeCIBEL are that it is the most compact design for a frequency-converted laser. It is suitable for any ultra-compact projection engine and has a simplified module assembly and produces low speckle contrast on the display. No additional speckle reduction required and it has excellent temperature performance. There is no temperature control for highest efficiency and it allows for a high-temperature compatible 620 nm red laser. It has high modulation bandwidth suitable for raster scanning projection. DeCIBEL stands for Double-Cavity Integrated Bottom-Emitting Laser (see diagram). >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< Twenty Interviews Volume 4 Interviews from Veritas et Visus newsletters – Volume 4 + 2D-3D Video, Craig Summers, Founder + Fox Sports Network, Mike Anastassiou, Sr. Exe. Producer + Axis Films, Paul Carter, CEO + Dallas Mavericks, Dave Evans, Director of Broadcasting + Can Communicate, David Wooster, Head of Production + Ceravision, Tim Reynolds, CEO + Cypress Semiconductor, Darrin Vallis, Director + Dolby, Barath Rajagopalan, Director + Fusion Optix, Terry Yeo, CEO/Founder + LG Display, Eddie Yeo, Executive Vice President + Luminus Devices, John Langevin, VP of Sales/Marketing + MacDermid Autotype, Steven Abbott, Technical Director + Merck KGaA, Roman Maisch, Sr. VP of Marketing/Sales + Mitsubishi, David Naranjo, Director of Product Dev. + Nouvoyance, Candice B. Elliott, CEO + nVidia, Andrew Fear, Product Marketing Manager + Rutherford Appleton Lab, Bob Stephens, Prin. Scientist + SID, Tom Miller, Executive Director + Synaptics, John Feland, Human Interface Architect + Westar Display Technologies, Phil Downen, Sales Mgr 80 pages, only $12.99 http://www.veritasetvisus.com 53 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 Displaybank San Jose Conference September 9, 2008, Santa Clara, California Phillip Hill covers presentations from LG Electronics, Samsung SDI, and NEC Promising LED LCD TV Jeong Soo Lee, LG Electronics, Seoul, South Korea The merits of LED backlights are high color gamut (NTSC 120%)/tunable CCT; high contrast; long lifetime (>100,000 hours); no mercury, RoHS compliant; low voltage driving; rapid response time (microseconds); no limitation for dimming range by PWM; dynamic backlight control (scanning/blinking/local dimming) reducing motion blur and power consumption and increasing CR; cold start/instant start (< 100ns); color filter-less; and color sequential LCD is possible. Current issues are high cost and performance/reliability. Contributing to the high cost issues are the number of LEDs in a backlight system; LED sorting increasing cost (IF, VF, I-V, I-L, wavelength, etc.); high power chip supply and yield; local dimming vs. driver cost; additional control circuits/color sensors, calibration. On the performance/reliability side, the problems are low lm/W (power consumption, heat management); unreliable electric/optical characteristics; steep electrical, optical and thermal characteristics change; structure for color mixing; unproven reliability in the backlight and TV set; phosphor reliability issue for white LED backlights. Lee moved on to prospects and future work covering local dimming, and pixel compensation/inter-block correction (see illustration and photos). Due to the cost issues, white LED backlights will be the mega-trend for the time being followed by RGB color dimming. New design, manufacturing, and testing methodologies for mass deployment of LED BLUs are needed for cost minimization, Lee concluded. [No Local Dimming] [Local Dimming Only] Local dimming of LED BLUs [Pixel Compensation] Pixel compensation means higher picture quality and reduced energy consumption 54 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 AMOLED, a Journey to Perfection Sean Sunam Lee, Samsung SDI, Seoul, South Korea In a presentation that shows that the different arms of Samsung are still in healthy disagreement, Lee spent most of the talk unfavorably comparing LCD performance with that of OLED. He first showed a graphic (see below) illustrating the company’s impressive progress in OLED development from the first tentative steps in 2001 to the present time. He then went into details of all the different products on the market. SDI’s AMOLED technology is based on color patterning with RGB individually evaporated, top emission, with an LTPS backplane. Lee said that true black and vivid color can be represented through AMOLED. In the case of TFT-LCD, a backlight unit has to be on all the time regardless of the image, making true black unattainable. For LCDs, viewing angle and response time have to be evaluated. The characteristics are based on the original characteristics of the LC. TFT-LCD’s contrast ratio drops with change in viewing angle. In AMOLED, measuring viewing angle is not necessary. The response time of TFTLCD changes with change in temperature. In AMOLED, measuring response time is not necessary. The color gamut of TFT-LCD decreases with change in gray levels. For AMOLED, color gamut maintains about 100% color gamut regardless of the change in gray scale. Lee then discussed backplane technologies used by SDI. LTPS TFTs provide excellent mobility and stability that meet OLED current drive requirements, but needs the development of facilities of large glass and the reduction of manufacturing cost, Lee said. He then discussed the world’s largest (at the time) AMOLED driven by oxide TFTs array – a 12.1-inch 1280x768 notebook (see photo). Lee concluded with color patterning technology. 55 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 Public Display Market and Product Trends Pierre Rocher. NEC, Tokyo, Japan Much of this presentation was given over to general market growth forecasts across all sectors and technologies before Rocher concentrated on the topic of expanding information display options with superior screen performance, lower total cost of ownership, and enhanced display management. He listed the ideal features for information display products. These included high brightness level and contrast ratio, to enhance the user experience; NEC’s XtraView technology that allows for up 178° wide-angle viewing; userfriendly, efficient design featuring VESA-standard mounting and an overall lightweight construction for easy transport and installation; automatic black level adjustment regulating grayscale images for optimal picture quality; reduced reflection and glare in high ambient light environments providing a more comfortable view of the screen; built-in expansion slot allowing for seamless integration of future third-party components; optional detachable speakers delivering an enhanced multimedia experience; optional digital tuner expanding the display’s capabilities for high-definition television; optional internal HD-SDI card achieving broadcast-grade video; NEC’s Rapid Response technology delivering virtually uninterrupted, undistorted viewing of high-speed, full-motion video. Rocher went into detail on NEC’s “Digital Signage Technology Suite” (DSTS). It is a set of over 20 features addressing three key areas that are specific to digital signage that is unique to the industry and offers state of the art performance: improved screen performance; lower total cost of ownership; and enhanced display management. It addresses the requirements of demanding commercial applications and differentiates a digital signage network from low-end networks based on consumer TVs or low cost feature poor bands. DSTS uses 1366x768 for true 16:9 aspect ratio. The high-definition capable display supports 480i, 480p, 720p and 1080i. A high quality backlight system leads to better brightness uniformity. Zoom mode enables you to customize the screen size in three directions. TileMatrix allows you to build video walls and TileComp works in tandem with TileMatrix to compensate for the bezel width and create a more seamless video wall. Image flip allows you to properly display content originally prepared for alternative display technologies such as rear projection. Film mode delivers a smoother image for DVD movies by bypassing frame buffer. It is color temperature adjustable from 2,600K to 10,000K, allowing for perfect matching to input/output devices. Turning to the DSTS enhanced display management, improved CableComp technology equalizes the video signal to eliminate color halos on long cable runs. Video detect automatically finds the first or last signal used for easy setup. Picture-in picture (PIP) places a smaller video frame within the full-screen video frame. Picture-on-picture (POP) places a smaller video frame next to the full-screen video frame. DDC/CI enables communication between the PC and monitor for display management, diagnostics and the remote control. Power-on delay allows for multiple displays on a single electrical circuit. A 6-axis color control engine allows for precise and simplified color, color temperature and saturation adjustment. Daisy chain capability is enabled through RS-232C allowing for individually addressable display control. Digital signage market competitive landscape according to 2007 Frost and Sullivan’s “World Digital Signage Markets” 56 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 Displaybank Korea Display Conference July 2-4, 2008, Seoul, South Korea Phillip Hill covers talks from Samsung Cheil Industries, Samsung SDI, Displaybank, Lite-On Technology Corporation, and SAIT Trend of Key Parts and Materials Technologies for Advanced LCD Kyuha Chung, Samsung Cheil Industries, Seoul, South Korea Chung went into detail on the TFT-LCD structure and TFT-LCD module cost structure for a 17-inch monitor and a 32-inch LCD TV (see graphic). He then looked at the components of an LCD BLU. Because an LCD cannot emit light itself, a backlight source is necessary involving a light source, optical sheets, a mold frame and chassis. He showed a slide (below) illustrating the difference between an LCD monitor and an LCD TV. The talk then turned to overall trends in BLU materials before looking in detail at polarizers. New PVA films will improve polarizing efficiency more easily and achieve high contrast ratios up to 5,000:1. There is also new optical phase compensation of LCDs, which improves the contrast ratio at the front and side and reduces cost. Optical coatings for surface structure will improve contrast ratio and visual clarity. In terms of color filter trends, finer pigments will produce high contrast ratio and brightness. Maintaining dispersion stability is also required. New printing processes (inkjet, off-set) will give lower costs (less mask), together with panel uniformity and reproducibility. 57 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 The Future of SDI PDP Technology I.H. Song, Samsung SDI, Seoul, South Korea Song first looked at the flat panel TV outlook. 2008 was PDP TV’s turning point. The PDP market was set to increase by 40% in 2008. He then outlined the advantages of plasma displays. There is currently a paradigm shift in display quality. “Emotional Picture Quality” is more important than big numbers (he cited LCD numbers of 1,000,000:1 for LCDs). For Song, emotional picture quality means deep black, vivid skin, and moving picture expression. PDP has great moving picture performance, he said, with natural picture quality. A higher number of gradation levels gives enhanced image depth, conveys fine detail, and recreates ambience. He showed a slide that illustrated perfect black expression with delicate and detailed black. The slide compared a PDP at normal brightness with an LCD at low brightness and an LCD at high brightness (see below). In the third part of the presentation, Song covered the strategy of SDI PDP technology. Energy efficiency will increase from a level of 1.0cd/W in 2008 to 2.5cd/W in 2010. Key technologies are innovative cell structure, new materials, and optimal driving methods. Slim design developments will reduce module thickness from about 62mm in 2008 to about 15mm in 2010. Key technologies are glass-less film filters, highly integrated circuit boards, and high efficiency components. Contrast ratios will move to 2,000:1 in a bright room in 2008 to 4,000:1 in 2010. Key technologies are “extreme contrast”, C/R enhancement algorithms, and noise-free algorithms. Extreme contrast means reducing reflection by 30%, upgrading film filter by adding enhanced anti-reflection layers, and increasing brightness by using lower transparent filters. Public Information Display Market Trend Calvin Lee; Displaybank, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea Lee first looked at size and resolution positioning by device. CRT covers from 10 to 32-inch small and medium area while TFT-LCD occupies from 10 to 108 inches. In the case of PDP, it occupies from 32 to 150 inches. LCD and PDP are mainly used for public information display, replacing CRT in small and medium-size applications. PID shares relatively the same area with TV but covers a wider range. FPD is ready for PID, Lee said. Affordable prices attract new applications and expand market availability. The FPD penetration ratio is already mature for notebook PCs and monitors. Even for TV, the penetration ratio exceeded 50%. Growing size of FPD stimulates advertisers and meets commercial needs to replace existing print and still advertising market. 58 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 Lee turned to recent issues particularly high reliability. Long-term operation can cause burn-in (see photo). There is also a need for dust flow protection, excellent temperature uniformity, constant brightness control during the whole lifetime (3-5 years), and durability against unstable power. In conclusion, Lee said that PID is a rising market for display applications. There are still lots of technology obstacles to overcome: reliability, large displays, outdoors, cost, weight. An integrated business with hardware (display device) and software would be the best solution. It is a complicated and mixed market. As new applications appear, expectation will get higher and the consumer requires higher specifications and features. LED Technology Trend for Backlight Application Francis Wong, Lite-On Technology Corporation, Taipei, Taiwan LCD backlights are a key demand driver. Wong looked at the advantage of LED backlights. They are lighter in weight. The thickness of the LCD module can be reduced to half when it is equipped with thinner LCD glass and an LED backlight module. LED is a directional light source. It can easily be coupled into a light guide. Therefore an LED backlight gains 20-30% of power. With a conjugated low voltage CPU and other low power components, the total power of notebook PCs can be reduced more than 30% and battery life extended. There are issues with slim backlights in terms of low yield. There is also a poor supplier pool. Most of the investment of light guide production before 2005 was dedicated to normal CCFL backlight modules. And total light guide production capacity worldwide is over demand. But this production capability is not able to support slim type light guides. Do we really need such thin backlight modules (BLMs), Wong asked. Side view package costs are higher than with top LEDs. There are worse characteristics compared with CCFL. Module cost is going up and yield is going down due to the need for thin BLMs and thin panels. The current investment in injection machines can’t support thin BLM production. One issue to be closed is long color mixing (see illustration for explanation). New light patterns are being developed to reduce the mixing distance. Wong said that LED backlights are adopting high reliability packages with lower thermal resistance. LED is being implemented on mainstream monitors and TV backlights with RG phosphor technology. LED is solving the long color mixing distance and hot spots issue by new LED light pattern designs. 59 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 Trend of Technology for Picture Quality Improvement on TV Du-Sik Park, SAIT (Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology), Gyunggi-do, South Korea Park addressed the question, “what is image quality?” It is very important and easily recognizable, but is hard to define and difficult to measure. He gave two definitions: “An integrated set of perceptions of the overall degree of excellence of an image” [Peter G. Engledrum, Imcoteck], and “The subjective impression formed in the mind of the observer relating to the degree of excellence exhibited by an image [Ralph Jacobson, University of Westminster]. Park looked at image quality on TV. Perceived image quality is given by the formula IQIIF x IQDPF x IQHPF (see illustration for how it works). He gave examples of image quality metrics: IQIIF: peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR) IQDPF/IQHPF: square root integral (SQRI), modulation transfer function area (MTFA), Δea*b* (CIELAB) IQIIF/IQDPF/IQHPF: mean opinion score (MOS), scaled mean score (sMOS). Park went into detail on contrast improvement and all the different methods around. There is no standard contrast measure for complex images. The same applies to color quality improvement. There is no standard colorfulness measure for complex images. Well-produced memory colors will improve the overall image quality. A wide gamut display can reproduce more vivid natural colors. Turning to brightness and gradation improvement, brightness can be improved by adding digital value or light sources, but new approaches are on test, such as four-color displays. Bit resolution improvement technology is being explored to recover gradation information from lower bit images or degraded. The real solution for a good gradation is a good display having higher bits. On spatial quality improvement, detail improvement technology is moving to sub-pixel rendering technology related to display pixel structure. Interpolation based resolution scaling is not enough, said Park. We need sophisticated resolution reconstruction techniques such as SR because HD is dominating the market and ultra high definition is coming. Image quality improvement technology for TV has made tremendous progress in producing more vivid and natural images due to the development of image processing technology and flat-panel displays. Image/video processing technology will be more tightly combined with display driving technology for the reproduction of “ultra realistic” images on future TVs, such as UDTV and 3DTV. Further research on the mechanism of human perception is very important for realizing ultimate realism on TV, Park concluded. 60 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 Insight Media Projection Summit 2008 June 16-17, 2008, Las Vegas, Nevada In this third report of three, Phillip Hill covers presentations from Philips Lighting, Arasor Corporation, Barco Simulation, Scalable Display Technologies, Insight Media, and Pacific Media Associates Is Simulation the Future of LCoS? Paul Lyon, Barco Simulation, Kortrijk, Belgium CRTs have been king for a long time in simulation with good black level, good light points and good quality. The simulation industry now needs a replacement for CRTs. The CRT market for simulation is diminishing and causing much concern for current users. The operational costs of CRT are increasing. Features of CRT that need to be maintained with alternate technology include: low smear; low latency; no artifacts; no pixel structure; good nighttime; good edge blending; good resolution; and automatic alignment. Lyon went on to describe some potential technologies. Laser as a light source for DLP and LCoS will be more successful in the simulation market than traditional scanned or grating light valve laser displays. LCoS has the resolution advantage (see illustration) and JVC has announced Super Hi-Vision LCoS: 7,680 pixels across by 4,320 pixels. The simulation markets want eye-limited resolution. Lyon looked at latency in CRT, LCD, LCoS and DLP. There is no inherent frame latency for a CRT or LCD projector. Input is displayed instantaneously. DLP has latency on the other hand. Looking at smear reduction and response time, Lyon said the problem was response time – the time the projector needs to adapt to new information and change the pixel’s color. The shift between colors (especially gray-to-gray) takes too much time for a fastmoving image. The solution to LCoS response time smearing can be reduced by Barco’s “True Motion Reproduction” (TMR). Peaking add extra force to the signal to speed up the switching. LCoS smearing can be reduced by solving the problem of sample and hold. Digital projectors leave and object fixed on the retina for an entire field time. The human visual system expects an object to move smoothly, not in 16.67ms steps. The result is jitter or smearing. The solution is to “shutter” the amount of time an object remains stationary on the retina. An AFRL study states that smearing is reduced to CRT levels. Lyon discussed brightness dynamic range and color depth of LCoS projectors. The sequential contrast of LCoS projectors has significantly improved. Typical contrast now ranges from 6,000:1 to 15,000:1. Further improvements are expected. The brightness dynamic range is being increased past the sequential contrast via optical apertures and “4th chip” modulators. LCoS has more than 8 bits per color capability at the “chip” interface to better handle these large brightness dynamic ranges. Typical DVI interfaces only allow 8 bits of data per color. Alternative interfaces are being devised. 61 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 Ultra High Power and Advanced Driving Schemes Theodoor Scheerder, Philips Lighting, Eindhoven, the Netherlands Scheerder first gave an introduction to Philips’ lighting activities and the front projection market environment. He then looked at the illumination system requirements for the large venue segment, which is currently dominated by xenon. Looking at application performance improvements and the roadmap for UHP, power will be up enabling large venue applications, and arc size will be down enabling smaller, low-cost panels. Turning to the value proposition of UHP vs. xenon, Scheerder said that the UHP technology benefits are efficacy 75% up (UHP is ~70lm/W, xenon ~40lm/W); luminance level 3x up; improved TCO (lower lamp system costs, lower cooling needs (6A vs. 80A), and lower replacements costs); improved design flexibility (very compact/etendue matching, and lower acoustical noise); and improved reliability by multi-lamps. There will be continued innovation in UHP lamp systems: higher power and third-generation ultra short arc. High power up to 400W could be introduced in Q4’09 enabling >6000Alm single lamp projectors and >7500Alm dual-lamp projectors. Third-generation UHP solution, due to be introduced in Q2’09, will give significant brightness efficiency gain – more than 10% for next-generation small panels; excellent lifetime through Intelligent Driving Scheme (IDS); and enhanced video performance. The next level of flexible driving schemes (VIDI2) will act as a brightness booster. Dynamic brightness technology will act as a contrast booster, and high-power short arc solutions will enable downsizing of panels. The front projection market environment: sub-segments have different end users, different needs, and different product architectures Lasers and Large Venues: Do They Go Together? Gregory Niven, Arasor Corporation, Sunnyvale, California Arasor, an Australian-origin company, took over Novalux at the beginning of 2008 and spun out Necsel Inc. in the middle of 2008 to exploit this new laser technology. The agenda for Niven’s presentation was a Necsel update; key benefits of lasers versus laps; the value proposition of lasers for digital cinema; and the value proposition of lasers for large venues. 62 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 Niven predicted that laser TVs would launch in 2008. However, several design wins evaporated in 2007 and many future designs would depend on Mitsubishi. There were delays to several laser-based products and the supply chain of “laser components” was the main reason. Looking forward, large venues are aggressively adopting lasers and there have been home theater/data projector design wins. Lasers are in an advanced R&D stage for LCD BLUs. Arasor’s strengths are it produces periodically poled lithium niobate crystals for lasers and has low cost laser assembly. Novalux’s strengths are its Necsel IP and know-how and its markets and customers. The result of the combination is lowest possible costs with complete control of the laser BOM. Faster development cycles are possible – no more license partners, and all components can be optimized. Lasers will follow a natural progression into several major markets: microdisplay projection products; direct scan projection products (with 2D MEMS scanners); and specialty lighting and illumination applications. Niven defined “large venue” as any projector over 5,000 lumens or intended for large screens and audiences. Only lasers and lamps are suitable for large venue projection. LEDs will never be capable due to their physical limitations, he said. Lasers are the only light source that produce saturated primary colors that reach over 90% of what your eye can see in nature, Niven pointed out. Lamps are about 45-50%, LEDs about 55-60%, and CCFL and phosphors about 4045%. Lasers also offer color stability and consistency. Necsel lasers can be tuned to any wavelength in the visible spectrum beyond the standard RGB (see chromaticity diagrams). Large venue projectors can allow for custom wavelengths to extend the gamut even further. Laser lifetime greatly exceeds lamps – lasers will last 7-10 years before replacement compared to lamps that last 3-6 months. This saves about $3,000 per year in lamp costs per projector, and saves on maintenance costs. Lasers can run with constant power – there is no degradation as with lamps and the projector never needs calibration. Lasers offer substantial power savings over lamps. There is roughly 50% less electrical consumption and improving. This saves about $1,000 per year in electricity costs per projector. Lasers offer scalable brightness by adding as many lasers as necessary to achieve the lumen target, something that cannot be done with lamps, and makes it great for 3D. The lasers can be located remotely or integrated directly into the projector. For digital cinema, lasers enhance the creative process with true color films and animations, more precise color management, increased contrast ratio, ultra-wide color gamut, tunable color gamut, dynamic white point control, and dynamic level control. In conclusion, Niven said, yes, lasers and large venues go together. Lasers win over lamps for cost, color, lifetime, efficiency and brightness. They are also safe – laser projector permits are not a significant issue for cinemas and other large venues. Lasers solve a number of key problems currently facing both cinema and large venue projectors. On the right, a 27-laser, 81W light source using 1mm fibers and a 20m fiber umbilical; on the left, a laser projector for digital cinema 63 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 Multi-Projector Displays Andrew Jamison, Scalable Display Technologies, Cambridge, Massachusetts Jamison first showed some photographs of four and five-projector array systems. He then discussed how a multiprojector array scales: Warp the images to align the pixels Create over-lapped “common area” Blend the intensity in the overlap Color balance the projectors. Example of a four-projector array at the Museum of Modern Art in New York He pointed out that four low-cost projectors in an array is lower cost than one large projector. Some factors to be considered are color and intensity calibration. Aging of lam-s results in a need for frequent color calibration. Geometry needs to be calibrated by manual or automatic alignment. Edge blending also needs to be considered. Color matching techniques involve firstly modifying the characteristics of the projectors by manipulating each projector’s color values. Weaker lamps are boosted to achieve the best possible images. Secondly, the image signals sent to the projector can be modified. This is easier to implement but results in inferior images. One weak lamp can drag down the performance of the entire array. With geometry calibration, the emerging approach is for fully automatic calibration. Domes, cylinders and other complex geometries are very difficult to correct manually. A 5-projector array with an articulated wall Markets and Forecasts for Pico and Pocket Projectors Matthew Brennesholtz; Insight Media, Norwalk, Connecticut This talk covered battery powered projectors – pico projectors (both integrated and companion), and battery powered pocket projectors – and included market overviews and forecasts. There are three categories of small projector products. Firstly, pico projectors integrated into hand-held systems are expected to be available in 2010. Secondly, companion pico projectors have a size comparable to a cell-phone or PDA and products have been announced. Thirdly, pocket projectors have a larger and higher lumen output worked by battery or wall plug. They are available now. 64 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 There will be multiple revenue streams for industry: sales of the projector to the end user; data stream revenues to mobile service providers; mobile TV revenues through subscriptions and ad revenue. Success does not have to rely on a simple sales model. Pocket projectors are stand-alone projectors to be used with a variety of video sources: laptops, portable DVD players, PMPs, cell phones, PDAs, etc. Manufacturers are migrating away from battery power in this category of projector because the battery is just too heavy and expensive for a 150 lumen projector. Brennesholtz said that this may be a dead end. How can a 150 lumen line-powered projector compete with a 1000 lumen line-powered projector that costs less and doesn’t weigh much more? The current generation of products are too expensive for consumer use. Products are currently available but have not sold well because of high prices ($700-$900). The current generation are LED powered but lasers may be coming into this segment. LED-based pocket projectors cannot compete with lamp-based Companion pico projector with iPod projectors on price until at least 2013. Brennesholtz concluded by saying that a total of about 40,000 pocket projectors (at the time of the conference) had been sold since the product category was introduced in 2005. Initial products were expensive and low output. Current products are expensive and larger. Higher outputs come partly from larger size, not more efficient design. By 2012, most battery powered projectors will be in the companion projector category based on size and price. Pocket projectors are floundering as a category. They must maintain their weight/size differentiation from linepowered ultra-portable projectors. The category is likely to merge with companion projectors. Companion projectors were due to arrive on the market at the end of 2008 from multiple vendors. Acceptance is expected to be good despite the low lumen output. The low price (<$300) should open new markets. Prices are expected to decline to <$75 by 2012. On the left is the market for companion projectors: 11M vs. 45M is a large variation. Integrated sales will have almost overtaken companion sales by 2012. On the right is the market forecasts for integrated projectors: 4M or 40M in 2012? There is a huge variation due to the lack of history of the product category. 65 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 Integrated projectors are expected on the market by 2010. A few may be available in late 2009. Sales will be from multiple vendors using multiple technologies. Acceptance is expected to be good despite low lumen output. The low price (<$160 in 2010) should open new markets. Prices are expected to decline to <$75 by 2012. Low prices make it almost (but not quite) and impulse purchase. Can it reach the cost/value level of camera phones? Mobile service providers look to pico projectors as a way to increase data revenue. They may even subsidize projectors to capture revenue streams. Pico/Pocket Projector Opportunities William Coggshall; Pacific Media Associates, Menlo Park, California The talk covered the overall front projector market and the “new era” front projector market (gaming and personal projectors, and miniature projectors). “New era” means less than 500 lumens. Something big is happening in small projectors, said Coggshall. There were big investments, both within large corporations and venture capital into start-ups. Hundreds/thousands of potential industrial customers are seeking solutions to as-yet-unfulfilled display needs. The miniature projector demandenhancing factors are that there is a large installed base, and solid continued growth, of devices that could use a companion or embedded miniature projector: mobile phones, music/video players, and digital cameras. There is an increasingly widely perceived benefit of pictures larger than those on built-in screens of mobile devices on the part of content owners, content transmitters, and mobile device manufacturers. Coggshall turned to miniature projector demand-limiting factors. Some potential killer apps have been duds so far: TV and video, and games. New mobile devices will have larger screens – touch-screen mobile phones, mobile Internet devices, and ultra mobile PCs and netbooks. There is an apparent communications bottleneck between content-laden mobile devices and companion projectors – a lack of an ideal wired solution, and a lack of a fast-enough wireless solution. There are still unanswered questions regarding miniature projectors. Companion or embedded form? Consumer vs. professional end market? Which “household name” brands? Which distribution channel(s)? Front projectors by brightness bands (worldwide unit shipments) Total “new era” front projector market (worldwide unit shipments) 66 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 SID Display Week 2008 Symposium May 20-23, Los Angeles, California Phillip Hill covers presentations from Tokyo Institute of Technology/National Taiwan University, Barco, Sharp Corporation/CIS Laboratories/Rochester Institute of Technology, Taiwan TFT LCD Association, University of Central Florida/Chi-Mei Optoelectronics, Seoul National University/Hanyang University, HYDIS, and UDC/University of Southern California Modeling of Amorphous Oxide Semiconductor Thin Film Transistors and Sub-gap Density of States Hsing-Hung Hsieh, Toshio Kamiya, Kenji Nomura, and Hideo Hosono; Tokyo Institute of Technology, Yokohama, Japan; Chung-Chih Wu, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan The researchers report a model of the carrier transport and the sub-gap density of states in a representative amorphous oxide semiconductor, amorphous InGaZnO4 (a-IGZO), for device simulation of a-IGZO TFTs. To design electronic devices and circuits, it is important to know the physical properties of the materials. This simple model is valid for a wide variety of a-IGZO TFTs including depletion-type and enhancement-type TFTs, indicating that the aIGZO TFT operates as a nearly ideal field-effect transistor except for the subgap DOS. The obtained sub-gap density of states revealed that a-IGZO has very small density of states in the band gap compared to covalent semiconductors like hydrogenated amorphous silicon. The TFT model presented in this work will be of general use for designs of TFT devices and circuits from a-IGZO or other AOSs, and will benefit further development of the oxide TFT technology toward the computer aided design stage. The bottom gate and topcontact type device structure of the a-IGZO TFTs studied in this work A Near Infrared OLED for Day/Night Display Jason Brooks, Lech Michalski, Ray Ma, Mike Hack, and Julie J. Brown, UDC, Ewing, New Jersey Carsten Borek, Laurent Griffe, and Mark E. Thompson, University of Southern California, LA, California Recently there has been a growing interest in OLEDs that emit in the near infrared region (700-1250nm) for covert night vision applications. The poster reports results on a high efficiency phosphorescent metalloporphyrin OLED device with a λmax=765nm. The researchers demonstrate a bi-color day/covert night active matrix display fabricated on flexible metal using this material for the IR pixel. They demonstrate a new Pt based porphyrin that emits with high efficiency at a wavelength of 769nm. This dopant has been shown to give reasonable device efficiencies for near infrared emission and long device lifetime. They plan to use this dopant to fabricate a bicolor day/night display for covert nighttime operations. The display will be on a steel foil substrate with a polysilicon active matrix TFT backplane. Following OLED deposition, the display will be monolithically encapsulated. They presented data showing further device optimization of the IR device architecture that will be incorporated into the flexible display, as well as the results from the display fabrication itself. 67 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 Color Bias Elimination Technique for Motion Image Yueh-Yi Lai, Wen-Hung Liao, and Kai-Chieh Chang, Taiwan TFT LCD Association, Hsinchu, Taiwan The issue of color motion blur has become the most significant study of LCD image quality, the researchers claim. The motion blur edge width and the motion color bias are two major components of the color motion blur. In this paper, a color bias elimination technique is proposed to improve the image quality of motion color images. Added pseudo color is presented to reduce the level of color bias and new color bias index is used to judge the level of color bias of captured images via a pursuit camera system. A color lookup table (CLUT) has been built automatically by this technique to improve the image quality of moving color images. Experimental results revealed that the added pseudo color images had better image quality than the original moving images not only in the color bias index evaluation but also in the subjective test. The illustration is an example of a complex image using the CLUT to improve moving image quality by eliminating color bias. The red circles are some improved regions where moving edges were sharper and color transition were more natural. The added pseudo color was the symmetric color of expectative color in the color shift region. The pursuit camera system was used to capture images and build the CLUT An example of a complex image using the color bias elimination automatically. There are few color pairs that technique to improve the image quality of a moving edge didn’t have a better visual effect when using the added pseudo color. The researchers will attempt another uniformity color space and focus on these color pairs to find the appropriate pseudo color added into the boundary of color pairs. Then the exact color lookup table can be generated to reduce the color bias of any moving color pairs. The different scrolling speed and different moving direction are two very interesting topics in future works, the researchers conclude. Sharp Corporation, Osaka, Japan Yoichi Yamamoto, CIS Laboratories Inc., Nara, Japan Noboru Ohta, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, New York The researchers clarified how wide the gamut of subjects intended to be reproduced on a display are, and what kind of characteristics the BT.709 display has. First they revealed the theoretical limit of real object colors (surfacecolors) with pseudo optimal color, and the gamut of real object colors referred SOCS. Then they revealed the characteristics of the BT.709 display gamut from comparison between BT.709 display gamut and TV color signal distribution which was measured. Then they estimated a probability distribution of real object colors, and suggested a display color design strategy with this knowledge. In this research, first they revealed the theoretical limit of real object colors with pseudo object colors, and compared theoretical limit to gamut of real object colors which is converted SOCS under D65. Secondly from comparison between SOCS and the Pointer’s database, they revealed problems about reference data of real object colors. Thirdly from comparison between BT.709 display gamut and natural and artificial object colors of SOCS, the limiting characteristics of BT.709 display gamut for real object colors is revealed. It was verified by measuring TV broadcast color distribution. Finally they pointed out that they could efficiently improve display color reproduction ability based on the probability distribution of real object colors. distribution. Finally they pointed out that they could efficiently improve display color reproduction ability based on the probability distribution of real object color. 68 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 A New Methodology for Clinical and Perceived Quality of Medical Displays Cédric Marchessoux, Guillaume Spalla, and Tom Kimpe, Barco, Kortrijk, Belgium The aim of the study presented in this paper is to develop and validate a new methodology for comparing medical displays by means of a clinical perceived image quality approach. For this purpose, as virtual specialist, a Human Visual Observer Model (HVOM) was developed and can determine when the signal pathology can be perceived on the displays. A new methodology for comparing medical displays by means of a clinical perceived image quality approach has been developed and validated. A HVOM was developed that can determine visibility of a signal pathology. Based on this HVOM, a new type of curve corresponding to the perception vs. signal contrast can be generated and used to compare performance of display systems. This methodology has been used to compare three display systems for lung nodule detection and has proven to be able to predict some important characteristics of medical displays such as noise. The methodology described in this paper could become a standard for testing and validating medical displays. Fast Response Transflective Display using a Tight Pitch Ferroelectric Liquid Crystal Dong-Woo Kim, Eunje Jang, Yong-Woon Lim, and Sin-Doo Lee, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea Chang-Jae Yu, Hanyang University, Seoul, South Korea This is a report on a fast response transflective display using a vertically aligned tight pitch ferroelectric liquid crystal (FLC) in a single gap configuration. The optical path difference between transmissive and reflective regions is compensated by adopting in-plane electrodes on two substrates and on one substrate, respectively. In the transflective FLC display, several unique features such as uniform alignment, fast response, and gray scale capability are demonstrated. In this configuration, the extremely uniform alignment over large area was naturally achieved without additional processes including a rubbing process and an electric field treatment. The response times were found to be on the order of hundred microseconds. The left image is related to the Barco presentation above showing mammography a: original x-ray chest image (1536x2048 pixels); b: example of the background with signal inserted at different densities. The image on the right is a schematic diagram of the transflective FLC cell in a single gap geometry with in-plane electrodes on two substrates in the T regions and on one substrate in the R regions: (a) under no applied electric field (a dark state) and (b) under an applied electric field (a bright state). 69 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 New Polarization Converter for Enhancing LCD Brightness Chang-Ching Tsai and Shin-Tson Wu, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida Wang-Yang Li and Chung-Kuang Wei, Chi-Mei Optoelectronics Corp., Tainan, Taiwan A novel polarization converter using reflective metallic gratings has been developed. This device converts unpolarized light to linear polarization with over 85% efficiency. Its application for enhancing the brightness of direct-view liquid crystal displays is emphasized in the poster. Power consumption is a critical issue for the LCD industry. More than half of the backlight energy is wasted without using a polarization converter. This broadband wide-angle polarization converter can recycle over 87% of the incident light with consideration of absorption and dispersion. This device will have a great impact to LCD backlight industry, especially for these portable devices, where power consumption is always a great concern, the researchers say. Enhanced Outdoor Readability in AFFS Plus Technology by Negative LC Suk Choi, Jun Baek Park, Soon Ju Jang, Kwang Hyun Park and Yoon sung Cho, HYDIS, Gyeonggi-do, Korea The researchers have developed 10.4-inch 1024x768 tablet with upgraded advanced fringe-field switching plus (AFFS+ Ver.2). AFFS+ Ver.2 adopts optimized electro-dynamics technology of negative LC with high reflectance (~ 2.0%) and high contrast ratio (~ 900:1) as well as high transmittance (~9.3%) for superior outdoor readability. In AFFS+ technology, they increased aperture ratio and created an embossing patterned reflector on the gate area. However, compared to the transflective mode, in spite of excellent indoor characteristics, it is evident that that outdoor readability is relatively low due to the narrow reflection area. To improve outdoor readability toward a level of transflective mode, we should improve inner reflectance of the pixel area as well as LC efficiency and contrast ratio. So, the researchers propose AFFS+ with negative LC technology for upgraded outdoor readability than AFFS+. They evaluated indoor and sunlight readability in 10.4-inch XGA panel with a new AFFS+ design (called as AFFS+ Ver. 2) and compared the display images of 10.4-inch XGA panels with AFFS+ Ver.2 and AFFS+, respectively. Competing with transflective mode in outdoor environments and any LC modes in indoor environments, this newly developed AFFS Plus Ver.2 will dominate tablet market by superior indoor and outdoor readability as well as riffle-free characteristics, according to the company. Image comparison between Ver 1 and Ver 2 in 10.4 inch XGA: indoor image (top) and outdoor image (bottom) (Ver 1: left, Ver 2: right). 70 Veritas et Visus High Resolution 71 February 2009 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 How this can be… In the last edition of High Resolution, we showed the leopard/elephant illusion, showing the interchangeable importance of resolution and viewing distance. Up close, and at high pixel densities, the image is clearly a leopard, but with viewing distance and increased blur, the image is clearly an elephant. In many ways, the leopard/elephant example illustrates the basic concept of spatial dithering. Another example is shown using the colors red and yellow. Up close and at high resolution, the center bar appears as alternating red and yellow stripes, but from a distance and increased blur, the center bar turns orange. If you are looking at these images on a low-resolution display, you will be able to see the elephant and the orange color much more easily… Of course dithering and the grayscale phenomenon of anti-aliasing are much more complex than these simple examples. The checkerboard pattern below is a famous example of the effectiveness of anti-aliasing algorithms: Figure 1-a Figure 1-b Figure 1-c Figure 2 Figure 1-a illustrates the visual distortion that occurs when anti-aliasing is not used. Notice that near the top of the image, where the checkerboard is very distant, the image is impossible to recognize, and is not aesthetically appealing. By contrast, Figure 1-b is anti-aliased. The checkerboard near the top blends into gray, which is usually the desired effect when the resolution is insufficient to show the detail. Even near the bottom of the image, the edges appear much smoother in the antialiased image. Figure 1-c shows another anti-aliasing algorithm, based on the sinc filter, which is considered better than the algorithm used in 1-b. Figure 2 shows magnified portions of Figure 1 for comparison. The left half of the image is taken from Figure 1-a, and the right half of the image is taken from Figure 1-c. Observe that the gray pixels help make 1-c much smoother than 1-a, though they are not very attractive at the scale used in Figure 2. 72 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 How can this be? Visual comments by Alan Stubbs Alan Stubbs teaches for the Psychology Department and the Art Department at the University of Maine. His area of interest in psychology is perception and in art it is photography and digital imaging. I addition to illusions, he is interested in the design of graphs and large format printing on a variety of papers. A current hobby is cooking better habenero cornbread. He maintains a website that features many of the fascinating optical illusions that he has created: http://perceptualstuff.org The circular illusions in High Resolution #26-27 are both beautiful and fascinating. Since they are a varied lot and have been created in a variety of ways, there is not yet an easy two-orAlan Stubbs is illuminated by a lightbox that three sentence explanation that will cover all of them. An shows one of his dynamic luminance illusions. excellent source is the website of Akiyoshi Kitaoka. (http://www.ritsumei.ac.jp/~akitaoka/index-e.html). He created many of these and similar illusions, has provided a good category system for different illusions, and has offered excellent information about and detailed explanations for many of them. Publisher’s note: We showed the above twelve circular optical illusions in the last edition of the High Resolution newsletter. When reduced to this smaller size, it’s interesting to note that the effects of the optical illusions are different – and diminished. I would like to show a few examples that will (a) point to an underlying set of conditions that produce an illusory effect, (b) examples that apply to what at first glance might seem like very different illusions, and (c) examples that look different but are really the same: simple and complex cases might seem different, but the same underlying elements are involved. Let’s start with a classic illusion, the Café Wall illusion. In the first example, the wall has offset yellow and red “tiles” and the “mortar” separating them is gray. Although the horizontal lines are all parallel, they appear to diverge and do not look parallel. The illusion does not work if the red and yellow tiles are not offset. If red tiles sit right on top of yellow and vice versa, the illusion disappears. Many people who describe the illusion fail to mention another important factor – that the illusion also depends on the thickness of the mortar. If, for example, the gray lines become much thicker than they are, the illusion will go away. 73 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 The important factor for the Café Wall illusion is that darker and lighter tiles are utilized and that the mortar is of an intermediate value. This example used light, yellow tiles and dark, red tiles and middle gray mortar. If black mortar is used (example 2) or white mortar (example 3), the illusion vanishes. If the color of the mortar were changed to a middle blue, or middle green, or some other middle value hue the illusion would still work. The Café Wall illusion would still be present if black and white tiles replaced red and green (or light green and dark blue, or light orange and dark indigo). Example 4 uses a simple black and white tiling, but the tiles are placed in perspective. And example 5 also contains black and white, but this example uses more complex designs in each tile. But, both examples retain the basic feature of lighter and darker tiles and mortar of an intermediate shade. These two examples are starting to look different from the previous examples, but the essential aspects for producing the illusion are still present. Example 1: The Café Wall illusion In example 2 (left) the Café Wall illusion doesn’t work if the mortar is black or if it is white, as in example 3. In examples 4 and 5, black and white tiles in different formats illustrate the same effects as the Café Wall illusion although the visual appearance is starting to look quite different. 74 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 The next three figures were created with different design issues and questions in mind. In example 6, different colors were employed, rather than the usual arrangement of one lighter color and a second, darker color. Also, this example does not have the standard arrangement of a strict alternation of light-dark-light-dark. Instead, dark tiles (and also light) were sometimes adjacent to each other. A final change from the usual arrangement is that the columns are not all of the same width: thicker and thinner tiles were used. In the figure every tile is rectangular and all of the vertical lines are straight and parallel. But, the lines appear to curve and there is in addition an undulating appearance to the figure due to the irregular arrangement of lighter and darker tiles. Although the figure differs in a number of ways from the usual Café Wall figures, it still has the basic features of light and dark tiles with an intermediate shade of mortar. Example 7 has tiles that at first glance might seem of a different sort. But although the neighbors are all colored colors lighter than the mortar alternate with colors darker than the mortar. In this example, only some tiles are filled, and the illusory effects occur only there. When the different colors are omitted, the lines straighten and are all perceived correctly. In examples 6 and 7, a variety of colors and column thicknesses were used, resulting in some fascinating illusions. Having worked on many variants of the Café Wall, I explored using other forms to see what effects that might have. Figure 8 is one example with round-edge tiles. Even with this change the illusory effects are still present. The Café Wall illusion can be related to the circular illusions in High Resolution #26-27. The Café Wall examples are all arranged focusing on horizontal or vertical lines. But it is also possible to use the same feature of dark and light tiles with curved lines to see what will happen. Example 9 shows one example. And in this case, the circles seem to be offset as in the different cases in the last issue of High Resolution. Example 8: The Café Wall illusion still works with When circular arrangements are used the result is more round-edge tiles complex and perhaps more interesting than the illusory rising or falling of parallel lines in the Café Wall examples. But, just as irregular placement of light and dark tiles can lead to an undulating effect in the Café Wall, use of curves lines can also lead to interesting illusory distortions. 75 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 I have concentrated on one way of producing illusory distortions. There are others. Rather than using offset light and dark tiles with mortar of an intermediate shade, similar distortions can be produced with a light and dark checkerboard pattern with small darker and/or lighter areas in corners. Figure 10 show one example of the effects one can obtain. Many other examples can be found at Akiyoshi Kitaoka’s website, (see previously referenced URL), as well as more information and detailed explanations for many illusions. Although this last example is different, in one way from the prior figures, they all have a common feature of a change in brightness near the corners. The final example makes a general point. Figure 11 came from hours of exploring (and playing) with various combinations. The arrangement is certainly different from the previous examples. But that is only in the particulars of the design. At the most basic level, however, this figure has the same features as does the very first figure and the others. Example 9: The Café Wall illusion can create intriguing illusory distortions in a round pattern Examples 10 and 11 show some complex examples of different ways of producing illusory distortions 76 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 Primary colors by Clive (Max) Maxfield Clive (Max) Maxfield is president of TechBites Interactive (http://www.TechBites.com), a marketing consultancy firm specializing in high technology. Max is the author and coauthor of a number of books, including Bebop to the Boolean Boogie (An Unconventional Guide to Electronics) (ISBN: 0750675438) and How Computers Do Math (ISBN: 0471732788) featuring the pedagogical and phantasmagorical virtual DIY Calculator http://www.DIYCalculator.com. Widely regarded as being an expert in all aspects of computing and electronics (at least by his mother), Max was once referred to as “an industry notable” and a “semiconductor design expert” by someone famous who wasn’t prompted, coerced, or remunerated in any way. Max can be reached at [email protected]. This article is abstracted from the paper “The Origin of the Computer Console” from the author’s http://www.DIYCalculator.com website. In the case of color televisions and computer screens, each picture element (pixel) is formed from a group of red, green, and blue (RGB) dots (The Origin of the Computer Console: http://www.diycalculator.com/sp-console.shtml). If all three of these dots are active (lit up) at the same time, from a distance we’ll perceive the group as a whole as being white. (If we looked really closely we’d still see each dot as having its own individual color.) If we stimulate just the red and green dots we’ll see yellow; combining the green and blue dots will give us cyan (a greenish, lightbluish); while mixing the red and blue dots will result in magenta (the color magenta, which is a sort of purple, was named after the dye with the same moniker; in turn, this dye was named after the battle of Magenta, which occurred in Italy in 1859, the year in which the dye was discovered). Furthermore, mixing different proportions of the three light sources will result in a gamut of colors, where the word “gamut” means “a complete range or extent”. Now, this may seem counter-intuitive at first, because it doesn’t seem to work the way we recall being taught at school, which was that mixing yellow and blue paints together would give us green, mixing all of the colored paints together would result in black (not white as discussed above), and so on. The reason for this is that mixing light is additive, while mixing paints or pigments is subtractive (Figure 1). The appellation “primary colors” refers to a small collection of colors that can be combined to form a range of additional colors. In the case of light, the primary colors we typically use are red, green, and blue. Since bringing in new color components “adds” to the final color, these are known as the “additive primaries”. Figure 1: Additive and subtractive primary color combinations By comparison, when it comes to paints or pigments, the primary colors used by printers are cyan, magenta, and yellow (CMY). In this case (for the reasons discussed in the following topic), bringing in new color components “subtracts” from the final color, so these are known as the “subtractive primaries”. 77 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 Actually, forming black by mixing cyan, magenta, and yellow inks together is expensive and typically results in a “muddy” form of black, so printers typically augment these primary colors with the use of black ink. The result is referred to as CMYK, where the “K” stands for “black” (we don’t use “B” to represent “black” because this could be mistakenly assumed to refer to “blue”). Now, it may be that you have accepted all of the above without a quiver of doubt. On the other hand, you may be staring at this page with a furrowed frown on your forehead saying to yourself: “Just a minute, that's not what my old art teacher – Professor Cuthbert Dribble – taught me at elementary school. When it came to paints, he said that the three primary colors were red, yellow, and blue (RYB); that mixing red and yellow gave orange; combining red and blue gave purple; and blending yellow and blue gave green. So, can you explain this conundrum?” Well of course I can! Look into my eyes... have I ever lied to you before? The simplest explanation is that teachers can tell you anything they like at elementary school and you’ll believe them. A slightly more complex answer is that the concept of red, yellow, and blue as primary colors predates our modern scientific understanding of color theory. However, although both of these arguments are true in their own way, the fact that you are reading this article marks you as a person of high discernment, sharp wit, and keen intellect who demands nothing less than the most fulsome of explanations for your reading pleasure, so here goes... In reality, you can pretty much pick any three (or more) colors and call them “primary” colors, and this will be true on the basis that they are your primary colors. Mixing two of your primary colors together will result in a secondary color; mixing one of your primary colors with one of your secondary colors will result in a tertiary color, and so forth. One example of a non-standard collection of primary colors was an early color photographic process known as Autochrome, which was invented circa 1903-1904 in France by the Lumière brothers, Auguste and Louis. This process typically used orange, green, and violet as its primary colors. In 1666, as part of his experiments with prisms, Sir Isaac Newton developed a circular diagram of colors that is now commonly referred to as a “color wheel”. For one reason or another, theorists of that time decided that red, yellow, and blue were the best primary colors for pigments, and – even though we now know that red, yellow, and blue primaries cannot be used to mix all of the other colors – they have survived in color theory and art education to the present day. Purely for the sake of completeness, let’s consider a color wheel based on red, yellow, and blue as its primary triad as shown in Figure 2. Using our three primary colors as a starting point, we can generate three secondary hues: mixing red and yellow gives orange; yellow and blue gives green; and blue and red gives purple. Similarly, mixing the primary colors with their adjacent secondary colors results in six tertiary hues: red-orange, yellow-orange, yellow-green, bluegreen, blue-purple, and red-purple. There are lots of different theories regarding the way in which different colors can be used in conjunction with each other so as to produce a pleasing effect to the eye (that is, so that it looks good to humans). For example, Figure 2: Primary, secondary, and tertiary colors based on red, yellow, and blue (RYB) as being the primary triad on a standard “color wheel” 78 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 complementary colors are any two colors that are directly opposite each other on the color wheel and provide maximum contrast, such as red and green, red-orange and blue-green, and so forth as illustrated in Figure 3(a). By comparison, analogous colors are any three colors that are side-by-side on the color wheel, such as yellow, yellowgreen, and green as illustrated in Figure 3(b). The problem is that – Figures 2 and 3 notwithstanding – red, yellow, and blue are not well-spaced around a perceptuallyuniform color wheel that embraces the entire spectrum of colors. This means that using red, yellow, and blue as primaries yields a relatively small gamut, and it is impossible to mix them so as to achieve a wide range of colorful greens, cyans, and magentas. This is the reason why modern color photography and three-color printing processes employ cyan, magenta, and yellow as primaries, because these offer a much wider gamut of colors. At this juncture, we should perhaps briefly mention terms like shade, tint, and hue. The problem is that all of these words have several different meanings depending on whom you Figure 3: Two examples of different ways in which colors can be are talking to. For our purposes here, we may used together. say that hue is the quality of a color that allows us to assign it a name like “greenish-blue” or “reddish-orange”. More formally, one might say that the hue is the dominant wavelength of a particular color – that is, the “color of a color”. Meanwhile, shade may be described as “the degree of darkness within a hue” and tint may be considered to be “the degree of lightness within a hue”. In the case of painting, for example, artists have long used the word “shade” in the context of mixing a color with black, so a shade is a color that has been made darker in this way. By comparison, artists use the word “tint” to refer to the mixing of a color with white, so a tint is a color which has been made lighter in this way. As a further point of interest, it is common to refer to red, yellow, green, blue, white, and black as being the psychological primaries, because we subjectively and instinctively believe that these are the basis for all of the other colors. Before we move on, a reader of an earlier version of this paper – retired electronics engineer Dwight W. Grimes – e-mailed me to say that he’d been pondering my original “Additive and subtractive color combinations” diagram shown at the beginning of this topic. After considering the additive and subtractive color combinations in the context of Venn Diagrams (one of the logical tools used by electronics and computing engineers), Dwight suggested that a slightly more intuitive representation might be as illustrated in Figure 4. Dwight’s idea is that, in the case of light, the surrounding “world” (in the form of an empty theater/stage/room with the lights turned off, for example) should be black, then we add red, green, and blue light by activating appropriately colored spotlights; the combination of all of these light sources results in white light. By comparison, in the case of paint, the surrounding “world” (in the form of a large piece of paper, for example) should be white, then we subtract colors by applying cyan, magenta, and yellow pigments to the paper; the combination of all of these pigments results in black. By Jove, I think Dwight is right (I’m a poet and I never knew it). I will use this new representation in the future. (If you want to know more about the origin of Venn Diagrams, please feel free to peruse and ponder my paper Logic Diagrams and Machines at http://www.diycalculator.com/sp-logicdiag.shtml). 79 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 Last but not least, I recently (as I pen these words) ran across yet another representation of the mixing of primary colors that rather took my fancy. As you can see in Figure 5, this is similar to Dwight’s proposal, except that this new version is presented as a gradual merge between the various primary colors (I’m sorry I couldn't arrange for the primary colors in this new illustration to be in the same relative locations as for my earlier diagrams, but this is the way I found them). Mixing light versus mixing paint: So why does mixing light work one way while mixing paint works another? Gosh, I was hoping you wouldn’t ask me that one. Well, here’s a question right back at you – what colors come to mind when you hear the words “tomato”, “grass”, and “sky”? You almost certainly responded with red, green, and blue, respectively, but why? The main reason is that when you were young, your mother told you that “Tomatoes are red, grass is green, and the sky is blue”, and you certainly had no cause to doubt her word. Figure 4: A slightly different representation of the additive and subtractive color combinations. Figure 5: Yet another way of looking at things (Courtesy of http://home.wanadoo.nl/paulschils) However, the terms “red”, “green”, and “blue” are just labels that we have collectively chosen to assign to certain portions of the visible spectrum. If our mothers had told us that “Tomatoes are blue, grass is red, and the sky is green”, then we would all quite happily use those labels instead. What we can say is that, using an instrument called a spectrometer, we can divide the visible part of the spectrum into different bands of frequencies, and we’ve collectively agreed to call certain of these bands “red”, “green”, and “blue”. Of course everyone’s eyes are slightly different, so there’s no guarantee that your companions are seeing exactly the same colors that you are. Also, our brains filter and modify the information coming from our eyes, so a number of people looking at the same scene will almost certainly perceive the colors forming that scene in slightly different ways. Here’s another question for you: “Why is grass green?” In fact we might go so far as to ask: “Is grass really green at all?” Surprisingly, this isn’t as stupid a question as it might seem, because from one point of view we might say that grass is a mixture of red and blue; that is, anything and everything except green! The reason we say this is that, when we look at something like grass, what we actually see are the colors it didn’t absorb. For example, consider what happens when we shine white light on patches of different colored paint (Figure 6). 80 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 The red paint absorbs the green and blue light, but it reflects the red light, which is what we end up seeing. Similarly, the green paint absorbs the red and blue light and reflects the green, while the blue paint absorbs the red and green and reflects the blue. The white paint reflects all of the colors and the black paint absorbs them all, which means that black is really an absence of any color. Thus, returning to our original question about the color of grass: we could say that grass is green because that’s the color that it reflects for us to see, or we could say that grass is both blue and red because those are the colors it absorbs. Figure 6: The effect of shining white light on different colored paints. This explains why the process of mixing paints acts differently to that of mixing light. If we start off with two tins of paint – say cyan and yellow – and shine white light at them, then each of the paints absorbs some of the colors from the white light and reflects others. If we now mix the two paints together, they each continue to absorb the same colors that they did before, so we end up seeing whichever colors neither of them absorbed, which is green in this case. This is why we say mixing paints is subtractive, because the more paints we mix together, the greater the number of colors the combination subtracts from the white light. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< Enough resolution, p18 Square pixels, p57 Ray tracing, p67 Megapixels, p18 The MultiView compilation newsletters bring together the contributions of various regular contributors to the Veritas et Visus newsletters to provide a compendium of insights and observations from specific experts in the display industry. http://www.veritasetvisus.com 81 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 Quality vs. value: when is enough enough? by Michael Reichmann Michael Reichmann has been a professional photographer for some 45 years and operates a fine-art photography gallery located in Toronto, Canada. His works have appeared in numerous magazines and books in six countries. For the past 15 years he’s instructed photography at the college level and he teaches photographic workshops and seminars throughout the world. He’s also author of more than 300 articles on photographic technique as well as equipment reviews. He serves as a consultant to numerous companies with regard to product design and marketing. He is founder, publisher, and primary author of the Luminous Landscape and the Luminous Landscape Video Journal, in which this article first appeared. http://www.luminous-landscape.com We are coming to a significant crossroad in the evolution of digital photography. There is a convergence of factors underway that is changing the way in which we perceive the merits and value of the equipment that we purchase. On the one hand we have a rapidly flattening slope on the image quality side of the ledger, where it takes a serious additional expenditure to derive what is often only a moderate increase in image quality. On the other we have the worst global economic environment in our lifetimes, which is causing photographers to more seriously evaluate the value proposition of their purchases than ever before. The third hand holds the issue of numeric analysis vs. the evidence of one’s eyes. What do we do when the test numbers tell us one thing and ours eyes tell us another? Cloud Shrouded Mountain – Antarctica, January 2009 Phase One 645 with P65+ back and 75-150mm lens @ ISO 100 82 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 That was then: As photographers we are constantly searching for cameras and lenses that will produce the highest quality images. In the days before digital this search for the holy grail of image quality meant using the finest grained and highest resolving B&W films available, along with the best lenses that money could buy. Of course we also would shoot with the largest format that we could, along with using the best shooting techniques to optimize image quality. But all of this came with a price – a practical one more often than financial. Yes, a 4x5-inch view camera could produce much higher image quality than a 35mm, but bulk and practicality were sacrificed for many applications. ASA 25 film had very fine grain, but didn’t lend itself well to hand-held shooting. Top-of-the-line lenses cost an arm and a leg, as they still do today, and primes not zooms were always the order of the day. Slow films along with large formats usually meant tripods, and optimum shooting techniques were a must if highest quality images were to be achieved. This is now: During the past ten years photography has undergone a massive shakeup. Many of the old rules have been turned on their heads, but others are as true today as they were before the turn of the past century, just nine years ago. Whereas 35mm film was rarely able to produce high quality prints above 11x14 inch, today with 21-25 megapixel sensors 35mm DSLRs we can routinely produce 20x24-inch prints of excellent quality by almost any standard. This quality would once have been the domain of the best medium format systems. Medium format backs are now available offering between 39 and 60 megapixels, at a full 15-16 bit bit-depth. Such files, again – when shot with the best lenses and appropriate technique – can produce 30x40-inch prints that not just rival but easily surpass the quality possible from large format sheet film. Boat Wreck – Half Moon Island, Antarctica. January, 2009 Nikon D3x with 24-70mm f/2.8 @ ISO 200 Price not size as a determinant: More so than ever before though, price is a significant determining factor in what one can achieve when it comes to an image’s technical quality. In fact, unlike in the days of film when exceptional technical quality was possible from often modest systems – as long as the largest possible film sizes were used – the goodness of today's sensor-based imaging system’s quality correlates most directly with cost rather than size. 83 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 So, putting aside common factors such as the use of quality lenses, appropriate shooting technique, and optimum post processing and printing, what we come down to is a paradigm shift. Yes, size does matter, but cost is a more significant determining factor when it comes to technical quality than in the pre-digital days where, all other things being equal, film size was the most significant factor. Then, a used $500 4x5-inch camera with a decent lens could produce a print that was technically head and shoulders better than that from the best and most expensive small format systems. Godzilla was right – size mattered. The value factor: Today though, there is a direct link between image quality and price. Using the same lens a 1960’s $200 Nikkormat and a $1,500 Nikon F would produce identical image quality. The camera itself hardly contributed to image quality. It was the type of film and especially the film format's size that mattered most. This is definitely not the case when it comes to today’s DSLRs. Continuing the Nikon analogy, a D40 and a D3x produce different image quality but are separated by more than an order of magnitude in price! Now we get to the crux of the matter. How big is that image quality difference? At a price ratio of 10x does this mean that the D3x is ten times better than a D40 in terms of image quality? Similarly, and so I’m not accused of Nikon bashing (I'm an equal opportunity basher) is a Canon 1Ds MKIII worth 10x the price of a Canon Rebel XS? Since it’s obvious that today’s photographer contends with a different size/performance and price/performance paradigm than in the past, now more than ever we need to consider what I’m calling the value factor. I shook up (actually pissed-off is more like it) a lot of people late last year when I compared the image quality possible from a $500 15-megapixel Canon G10 with a $40,000 Phase One P45+ 39-megapixel back on a Hasselblad H2. My little test showed that on a selection of 13x19-inch prints a panel of industry pros couldn’t differentiate between the two more than roughly 50% of the time. What the hell was that about? The answer is the value factor, and the extent to which it is becoming a significant issue in the photographic industry. Nikon fans were both excited and depressed when the D3x was announced. It appeared to be an exciting new flagship for the company, breaking Canon’s nearly eight-year-long dominance of high-resolution pro-level camera bodies, but at over $8,000 the price seemed a bridge too far, as I called it at the time. Why? Because of two things. The D3 camera, which is absolutely identical to the D3x other than for its sensor, costs $4,000. This means that the sensor alone in the D3x is costing us a cool $4 grand. But the Sony A900 also has a 25-megapixel sensor and sells for under $3,000 – less than the cost of the Nikon sensor alone! What’s with that, especially since it is now known that these two camera’s sensors share the same underlying Sony fabricated silicon, so chip yield can’t be a significant factor? Exacerbate this with Canon simultaneously shipping the 5D MKII, a sub-$3,000 21-megapixel camera, and photographers were left wondering about a lot of things. Further compound this with the worst economic downturn in a lifetime, and the plot thickens. Value vs. perceived quality: All of this was on my mind during the first three weeks of January during my Antarctic Photographic Expedition. Here were 77 photographers working together on a ship almost 24 hours a day for 13 days. These people were primarily advanced amateurs and pros, and more to the point, were affluent enough to have afforded a trip, which, with travel expenses, cost close to $15,000. Looking at the mix of camera system represented, about 70% were shooting Canon and some 30% were shooting Nikon – with lots of D700's represented in that group. Of the Canon shooters a surprising 50%, a total of 26 people, had the new Canon 5D MKII, while among the Nikon shooters there was just one D3x (other than the test sample I was carrying). Looking at the 50 Canon photographers we saw that the vast majority also had various expensive 1 Series bodies, and among the total group there were also eleven people shooting with medium format systems as well as their DSLRs. These consisted of ten Phase One backs mounted on a mix of Phase One and Hasselblad 84 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 bodies, with one older Imacon (Hasselblad) back as well. Incidentally, this count did not include either me or Kevin Raber, who were also shooting with Phase One systems. Midnight – Marguerite Bay, Antarctica, January 2009 Sony A900 with Sony 70–300mm f/4.5-5.6 G @ ISO 200 One last point of interest. Kevin and I were each shooting with the just-released 60-megapixel P65+ back, and were loaning them to anyone on the trip that cared to try them. Of the ten people already shooting with medium format backs I know that six have now committed to upgrading to the P65+ after seeing what it was capable of – a very high percentage, and at not an inconsiderable expenditure. The point I’m making is that this relatively affluent group of ardent amateurs and pros seemed through their purchases to be expressing a very clear bias toward a combination of both image quality and value. The value proposition of the Canon 5D MKII clearly appealed to many since 50% of them had bought one for this trip along with whatever other Canon cameras that they already owned, mostly 1 Series. Conversely, the perceived image quality proposition represented by the P65+ obviously appealed to existing Phase One owners on the trip, though the price of an upgrade is considerable – more in fact than the price of any current DSLR! The take-away from this, at least to my mind, is that those that can afford cameras that produce the best image quality will spend the money, but there has to be both perceived as well as actual value. Value in this instance is a multifaceted metric, representing a balance between dollars and performance. The value curve: One only has to look at the DxOMark chart which compares price to performance to see how various cameras compare. On the next page, we see a chart that shows price on the bottom axis along with the DxOMark score on the left. The further to the right the higher the price, and the further up the chart, the better the image quality, according to their criteria. A DxOMark score without reference to price is a fairly meaningless number for most people, at least when it comes to making a purchasing decision. 85 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 Before going further I should mention that I also have a serious beef with DxOMark in that it does not take resolution into account. This seriously skews the results, because a relatively low-resolution camera with high image quality (such as the Nikon D90) scores very well, though it only has 12 megapixels. If you only make small prints, then that’s fine, but if largish prints or layouts are your thing then you have to take absolute resolution into account, and for this purpose 12 megapixels is likely not enough, even if the image quality of those pixels is high. As a consequence, a small group of individuals active in the industry, including an economist trained in the requisite mathematics, are trying to come up with a template which will integrate DxOMark ranking, price, and resolution into a composite that will be useful for people with varying needs in making purchasing decisions. More on this in a future article... So – keeping these caveats in mind, how do things shape up? If you load this chart directly yourself on the DxOMark web site (http://www.dxomark.com/index.php/eng/DxOMark-Sensor) what you’ll see is that the highest performing camera along with the highest price tag is the Nikon D3x, at the far top right. Based on my own shooting experience with it in Antarctica I can verify that indeed the image quality from this camera is outstanding, and it offers build quality and features that one can see are commensurate with it likely being the best DSLR currently on the market. But, on the value scale it runs aground. The highlighted camera on the graph is the Sony A900. Besides the D3x there are three other cameras that surpass the A900 in DxOMark score – the Nikon D700, D3 and the Canon 1Ds MKIII. In each of these cases the score differences are trivial, and in the case of the D3 and D700 these are 12MP cameras, not 25MP. As for the 1Ds MKIII it is twice the price of the A900. Are you getting my drift yet? Unless you recently won the lottery, now more than at any time in most people’s lifetimes, value has to be considered when making a purchase. How is value determined? By balancing price and performance based on one’s own particular needs and abilities. Using this metric, in my opinion the best camera value on the market today is the Sony A900. It offers the fifth highest DxOMark score of all cameras and of the four cameras ahead of it two offer only half the resolution and the other two cost between two and three times as much. What about features and build quality? After a week in the Arizona desert followed by two weeks in Antarctica, all without a hint of problem, I can say that the Sony body and lenses offer all the ruggedness that most people need, and as for features, while not being the most feature laden, they do have such niceties as in-body stabilization and sensor dust shake removal, which the class-leading D3x doesn’t. Am I trying to sell you an A900 or dis the D3x? No, of course not. This was my choice, not yours. It is completely immaterial to me what camera you purchase. As an equipment reviewer, teacher and journalist I own all three 86 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 brands, and have paid for each of them through purchase at retail. I have no brand loyalty or bias. Simply a personal preference for both high image quality and value. It was based on this calculation that several months ago I purchased a Sony A900 system, consisting of a couple of bodies and a selection of Sony and Zeiss lenses. Given the changing economic times I wanted to see how the marketplace was going to handle the value factor, and my calculation was that the A900 represented the sweet spot in that equation. But – and this will really confuse some people, I have also just finished field testing a production Phase One P65+ back, a 60-megapixel medium format back costing more than $40,000, and have decided to buy one by upgrading from my current P45+. Why? Not because I feel that the P65+ scores well on the value scale – by any measure it doesn’t – but because I believe that it scores at the absolute pinnacle of the performance scale, offering image quality beyond anything that I've seen before. So as a professional landscape and nature photographer I find this expenditure to be worthwhile – for me. Car Shadow, Tin Roof and Flowers, Ushuia Argentina. January, 2009 Canon G10 @ ISO 200 Where now? Confused? Annoyed? Frustrated? Understandably. Life isn’t simple, and neither are purchasing decisions. What I do, and the reasons why, may not be right for you, and vice versa. I have the freedom to buy different gear for long-term use and testing because of the nature of my business. Few photographers other than the very wealthy do similarly (though I know a few, and some are also really exceptional photographers, so don’t be too cynical about those with high disposable income and talent). The point of this ramble is that we are now in a different technical as well as economic environment than most of us have lived though for the past several decades. On the one hand we have price being an absolute factor in determining image quality (the Nikon D3x and Phase One P65+ as but two examples), and a flattening price/ performance curve as evidenced by the Sony A900, offering maybe 90% of the goodness of the higher priced spread at less than a third of the price. 87 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 And in an era where a $500 pocket camera like the Canon G10 can produce A3 sized prints that can fool industry experts as to whether they were from a medium format back, we really need to start applying some rationality to our discussions, if not our purchasing decisions. Those who demand and can afford the very best will continue to purchase it, be it a Nikon D3x, a Phase One P65+, or something else. Those with high image quality demands but more moderate budgets will shop carefully and reap the benefits. And those with very low budgets will be able to purchase and use gear that while inexpensive is remarkable in its ability to produce excellent quality results when used within certain constraints. Not everyone needs either ISO 25,000 or 30x40-inch prints. And, finally, I’m sure that there are still countless happy photographers out there shooting 4x5-inch film with their sub-$500 thirty year old view cameras and producing large prints of astonishing quality in the chemical darkroom. Notwithstanding the dire economy, this really is the golden age of choice when it comes to photographic equipment. Kinetica Art Fair and Technologies Workshop March 2, 2009 Venue: P3, London’s newest art space, located opposite Baker Street Tube This event is a unique opportunity to network with, talk to, and be truly inspired by the imaginations of cutting edge new media artists and technologists. The Kinetica Art Fair is taking place over four days bringing together galleries, museums and organizations from around the world. With Exhibitions and Performances from some of the world’s leading artists in kinetic, electronic, robotic, light, sound, timebased and interdisciplinary new media art. On Monday 2nd March, Kinetica Art Fair will host a comprehensive series of presentations in association with UK Displays & Lighting KTN. Ten pioneering artists, engineers and technologists specializing in electronics, display technology and light art will be presenting their work and ideas over the course of the day. The purpose of this Emerging Technologies Day is to bring the arts and science communities together to explore the many opportunities and innovations presented by new technology. Artists Jason Bruges Chris O Shea Dominic Harris Chris Levine Martin Richman Rory Marples http://www.jasonbruges.com http://www.chrisoshea.org http://www.cinimodstudio.com http://www.chrislevine.com http://www.martinrichman.com http://www.iGuzzini.co.uk Technologists Richard Kirk Phil Surman Bill Crossland Adrian Cable Polyphotonix De Montfort University Cambridge University Light Blue Optics The technologists will present on leading edge 3D research, printable OLED lighting, state-of-the-art projection systems and color reflective displays. For further details: http://www.kinetica-artfair.com/ 88 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 Content everywhere… in what form, what format? by Andy Marken Andy Marken is president of Marken Communications in Santa Clara, California. He has been involved in the video/illustration content and storage industry for more than 20 years. Years ago, he was instrumental in helping Philips introduce CD technology to the US. He has helped launch and educate the market regarding DVD-R and DVD-RAM. Today he is working to launch the blue laser technologies – Blu-ray and HD-DVD. Andy has also been instrumental in supporting a wide range of video and content firms including Sigma Designs, Dazzle, Pinnacle Systems, FAST, InterVideo, Ulead, and other firms in the software and hardware industries. He can be reached at http://www.markencom.com. Photos grab moments. Videos/movies tell stories. The challenge is to figure out which one the market will want (or get) in the next 3, 5, 10 years That sort of sums up the annual information-rich 6Sight Conference in Monterey, CA. Sure there are a few of the boring “gee we’re great” company sessions but for the most part the event keeps a clear focus on the light at the end of the tunnel… information, imaging, communications convergence. The broad brush: The chip industry has long had its Moore’s Law (transistors double every two years). Not to be outdone the imaging industry has (Barry) Hendy’s Law – pixels per dollar. Figure 1: Laws of the land – Moore’s Law (l) of computer power increases has been around since 1958. Hendry’s since 1998. Image sensor price/performance is very good but not quite keeping pace with the chip industry. Sources – Wikipedia, PMA The microprocessor industry ships over 400M units a year and 10B embedded microprocessors a year. The imaging industry ships over 100M photo/video devices annually and 1 billion camphones. Obviously photo/video folks have some catching up to do. In addition to dropping them into cameras, camcorders and phones they plan to put cheap and ultra small complete and general purpose units… everywhere! Chris Aubuchon of Tessera gave attendees a look at what could be possible when you get image sensors wafer level small, power conservative, onboard intelligent and cheap. As he said, “If it can be done, it will!” OK, so he sees cameras everywhere. But if the industry can come close to Hendy’s Law units could be used for: TV – gesture control and personalized settings, content/lighting settings Autos – safety, lane change detection, passenger monitoring, security systems 89 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 Toys – speech/emotional detection/personalization Advertising – crowd/demographic settings, content control/modification Home – security, family monitoring, personalized settings, safety Public – security, foot and auto traffic flow, activity monitoring The British already complain about their images being captured at least 300 times a day. If Aubuchon’s vision turns into reality we may have to give up eating, going to the bathroom and having… ever again! Figure 2: Photo panel – beyond megapixels, camera Capturing today, tomorrow: It became painfully obvious manufacturers continue to add features and that professional and casual consumers wanted/expected capabilities to encourage and expand sales. Panel more for less… even if they didn’t need it, didn’t know members are (L-R): Paul Worthington, Future Image; how to use it. Camera sales peaked a year ago and while Chuck Westfall, Canon; Daniel Grotta, initial projections showed a slight increase, analysts felt DigitalBenchmarks; Gregg Vandivert, Kodak; Darin the market would be flat or even drop a little. NPD noted Pepple, Fujifilm; Dr. Goulin Ma, DxO Labs that there was a total 76% camera penetration in the US, 74% compacts and 10% SLR (single lens reflex). Globally, Gfk said sales rose from 126M units (+18%) in ’07 to 140M (+11%) in ’08. InfoTrends noted that device sales would remain static or experience a slight increase in ’09. To stimulate demand there’s a growing stress on delivering higher resolution, increased sensitivity, speed/performance, packaging style, in-camera processing, overall ease-of-use. Two years ago the average resolution was 5MP. It jumped to 7+MP last year and this year it’s 10MP. Tomorrow? While the panelists agree that more MP is so much BS, no one is willing to blink in the MP race. Devices with 50MP and AVCHD capture just mean more storage requirements. But RED’s 261MP camera seems a little over the top unless you make your living using this instrument. Higher resolution units are sitting in the wings. Raising the bar on MP resolution also causes sensitivity problems. New devices have increased computational power to reduce noise, improve low-light sensitivity and reduce blur. Early digital camera users hated the horrendous click-tocapture shutter lag. Today it’s pretty difficult to see any difference in devices. Speed and performance are expected. Manufacturers continue to push the envelope with 5-7 frames-per-second (fps). Leave it to RED, their camera captures 120 RAW fps and some of the leading edge movie cameras capture 1,000 + fps. It’s seems ironic that the industry talks about device specs in old-fashioned photography terminology. Younger videographers never “used” them and you get a blank stare when you discuss them with normal consumers. It was agreed that added capabilities and functions would Figure 3: Flat to down – cameras and camcorders hit their peak in ’07 include onboard computer editing and were expect to be flat or down slightly in ’08. While compact unit capabilities to help make even sales are falling off, single lens reflex (SLR) unit sales remain strong. photos/videos “viewable”. Source – PMA 90 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 Cameras/camcorders are available with computerized features: enhanced scene and face/smile/blink detection facial/ shadow enhancement object/image tracking red-eye, complexion modification High dynamic range (HDR) luminescent/image techniques We’re not certain who but firms that leap to the next level will deliver: automated face recognition/labeling GPS geo-tagging Automated means of finding either of these without searching every folder, every image Analyst check: Kristy Holch, one of the founders of InfoTrends, moderated a blue ribbon analyst roundtable to give attendees the 30,000 ft view of issues, opportunities and challenges. Figure 4: MP race – since no manufacturer will blink in delivering greater megapixel performance, the median resolution continues to grow from 5 to 7 to 10MP. Source -- NPD Key execs from Lyra, InfoTrends, Gfk, NPD, PMA and Future Image had similar crystal ball visions of 2011. While they agreed on the challenges for ’09, their priorities were all over the scale: Economy HD – living room Telling stories with images Camera types (emerging, DSLR, compact) Video/still convergence Image management, preservation, retrieval Content infrastructure, connected experiences Tagging/sorting/managing images That’s what makes the industry interesting. Figure 5: Near term, long term – the industry’s leading camera/video/imaging industry analysts gathered on the stage at the 6Sight to discuss the industry’s challenges and opportunities for the short term (through ‘09) as well as long term (2011). They all were in agreement on the issues, just not the priority order. Source – Kristy Holch Veni, video, vici: Today, nearly every camera shoots video and every camcorder shoots video. The two devices coexist in the consumer market. In the professional and prosumer markets there are clear distinctions. Paul Worthington, moderator and FutureImage analyst, set the stage by noting that video is the most powerful communications tool available. Anyone can access the tools to capture, view, distribute high quality video. He said good VGA content can be captured with cameras, camcorders and even camphones but few people do anything more than file it… somewhere. 91 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 Tanguy Leborgne, VP of worldwide marketing for Pinnacle, made a distinction between photos and videos. “Photos capture a moment, videos tell a story – HD on the TV screen or VGA on YouTube,” he noted. People want to tell their story,” he continued, “but non-professionals don’t have the training or self-discipline to think through, begin and end the story.” He noted it’s not a daunting task but the thought and flow functions are foreign to average users”: “Our task as hardware and software providers is to help them break hurdles and help them produce really interesting videos,” he added. “They may never produce a Hollywood spectacular but at least they will be movies for their family, their church, their school, their neighbors that they can be proud of. When they do that… we make the world a more beautiful place.” Content calls: Tony Henning, senior analyst at Future Image, referred back to the camera market update and noted that while camera/camcorder sales were flat in the established markets and increasing only slightly in the emerging market, which certainly wasn’t the case for camphones. As with most people, he credits the iPhone in turning the “nice to have” feature of camphones to a requirement. The growth inhibitors for camphones have been poor image quality, awkward hardware design, nearly impossible software, poor transfer options, slow/spotty networks and overly expensive data plans. But in looking at sites like Flickr that tracks the type of device photos and videos are uploaded from, the iPhone leads the pack by more than 3:1! Despite the introduction of a wide range of iPhone “competitors,” the recently introduced Motorola Motozine comes close to being a serious camera/camcorder/phone. Henning sees a steady increase in camphone resolution and at this stage he feels pixels do matter. He believes in the next year or two we will see camphones with: Auto-focus mechanisms Improved video including VGA at 30fps, slow-mo, fast-mo, HD DSC features including anti-shake, face/smile/blink detection, red-eye reduction, panorama/scene modes, and more Larger, tighter displays with richer color palettes Geo-tagging Complete connectivity options Figure 6: Helping hand – executives in the video session agreed that most of the video content captured – phone, camera or camcorder – seldom moves from the device to storage to viewing. Education seems to be the key. Panel members (L-R): Paul Worthington, Future Image; Stephan Cote, Arcsoft; Chuck Westfall, Canon; Andrei Andrievsky, Kodak; and Tanguy Leborgne, Pinnacle Figure 7: Phone Resolution – For the younger crowd better quality photos, even with their camphones, is important. As a result, resolution increases continue to improve. Soon they’ll be looking for intelligent units with advanced capabilities as well. Source – Future Image 92 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 Shrinking pixels: Henning’s projections were probable music to Tessera’s Aubuchon ears who showed the audience how the industry had progressed from Apple’s 1994 Quicktake 100 to today’s cameras, camcorders, camphones and next generation modules. Back then the image sensors were 9 micro millimeters costing about $20 per module. Today they are 1.75 um costing about $2.30 per VGA module. While camphones have stimulated the development of smaller, more integrated, more intelligent mechanisms; he sees a world of “camera” opportunities in the years ahead. The new compact imaging sensors are only the tip of the iceberg in his estimation thanks to significant research including: Sub-wavelength pixel research sub-500 nm at Stanford U Color filter, complex optical integrated color pixels at Stanford U Multi-aperture imaging/polydioptric cameras at Stanford U Smart and OptiML algorithm optics at Tel-Aviv U Compressive sensing/imaging at Rice U Fast 3D Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR), photo stitching – UC Berkeley Polynomial texture mapping - HP Real-time image processing/generation – UCSD Figure 8: Size doesn’t matter – there is a world of difference between Apple’s 1994 QuickTake 100 imaging sensor electronics and today’s advanced chip level units. Source -- Tessera He added that there are hundreds of photo and video research projects that will place will put cameras… everywhere! During the dinner reception at the Monterey Aquarium, Alexis Gerard (founder of Future Image) noted that the content industry is growing in both depth and breadth. “There are some outstanding solutions being introduced for professional and prosumer photographers and videographers,” he commented. “But the real excitement is the rapid improvement of and merging of imaging and communications technologies that is being put into use by normal people around the globe. “Photos and videos are really the universal language that make ideas and things easy to understand no matter where you work, live or relax,” he added. Figure 9: Cameras everywhere – Extremely small imaging sensors such as those developed by Tessera will expand the performance of image capture devices (cameras, camcorders, camphones) and lower costs. The range of applications for camera and camera modules will continue to expand with each new generation of hardware and software. It’s all in the palm of the hand. Source -- Tessera Veritas et Visus publishes the LCD TV Association newsletter, filled with news and information about the booming market for LCD TVs. You can freely download these informative documents from the Veritas et Visus website: http://www.veritasetvisus.com/lcdtva.htm 93 Veritas et Visus High Resolution 94 February 2009 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 DTV transition: DTV tuner integration by Rodolfo La Maestra Rodolfo La Maestra is the senior technical director at HDTV Magazine. Rodolfo has participated in the HDTV vision since the late 1980s when HDTV was proposed as an analog system. In the late 1990s, he began tracking and reviewing HDTV related technologies and hundreds of consumer products, which prompted him in 2002 to pioneer the authoring of the annual HDTV Technology Review report. Rodolfo considers himself an educator, not a journalist, transferring knowledge, research, and experience. In addition to this annual publication, he has authored a variety tutorials, books, and educative articles for HDTV Magazine, DVDetc, HDTVetc Magazine, Veritas et Visus, DisplaySearch, and served as technical consultant/editor for the “Reference Guide” and the “HDTV Glossary of Terms” for HDTVetc Magazine. Publisher’s note: President Obama made the digital TV delay official earlier February, signing legislation to put off the switch until June 12. He and Congress hope to give millions of unprepared viewers four more months to upgrade their equipment so they don’t lose over-the-air programming. The law allowed stations to apply to switch on the original date (February 19) or any time before June 12. More than a quarter of the nation's 1,749 full-power stations have applied for permission to turn off their analog signals on the original date. But there is a requirement that at least one station in the market continue analog broadcasts of local news and public affairs programming, as well as emergency and digital TV transition information for at least 60 days. Rodolfo’s article was written in September, prior to the delay legislation. Note also that a more complete version of this article and others in the same series about the DTV transition, along with numerous links to related articles from Rodolfo and others is available at: http://www.hdtvmagazine.com/articles/2008/11/dtv_transition_can_you_help_part_4_dtv_tuner_integration.php This is one of a series of articles with the purpose of helping the public and the industry understand the digital television (DTV) transition, and to motivate readers to help others. This part is dedicated to tuner integration and the role it was expected to play in the DTV transition. As mentioned in a previous article in this series, 15 million households have over-the-air-only TVs, and many cable/satellite subscribers may also tune broadcast on their secondary TVs. Would DTV tuner integration address this situation? Yes, for those that purchased an integrated DTV, but the rest would have to use a set-top-box tuner/converter to receive a digital signal, and in both cases an antenna pointing to the digital stations would be needed. The idea is simple, a digital tuner could be within the DTV, or could be within a separate set-top-box (STB). The STB could be used for an analog TV but also for a digital TV that lacks a tuner (a monitor manufactured before the FCC’s tuner integration mandate). However, a digital monitor that does not have tuning capabilities can only give its full potential when connected to a digital HD-STB that is capable to tune and send to the DTV the SD/ED/HD program at its full resolution, a feature that is not possible with a government coupon-program tuner/converter. Analog TVs can only display at 480i resolution. A government-coupon-program converter would tune to digital channels but would down-convert their resolution to 480i so the analog TV could display them. Analog TVs do not need to be replaced if that level of image quality is satisfactory enough for the viewer. Coupon-program converters do not output digital HD signals as fully capable HD-STBs do. While it is possible to use these coupon-converters to feed analog 480i to even a tunerless monitor DTV, the DTV resolution capabilities would be under-utilized when a high-resolution image is tuned and the coupon-program converter box reduces its quality to just 480i. An integrated DTV tuner would perform a similar function as a separate HD-STB regarding tuning HD, but it has the virtue of not having a separate box around the TV and also save the cost/inconvenience of additional wiring to the TV. The trade-off? If the internal tuner fails, performs badly, or becomes obsolete, the integrated DTV itself is 95 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 subjected to the inconvenience/service, rather than just a box that can be independently serviced or replaced while the TV can still be used with another STB or for other purposes. Original integrated tuner mandate: In 2002, the FCC issued a mandate for over-the-air tuners to be gradually included into every DTV manufactured after that date. On-the-clear QAM cable tuners (for unscrambled content) were also included into DTVs as part of an industry agreement made around that time. Beware of some recent erroneous and misleading claims of uninformed journalists, such as: “many of these DTVs lack ATSC tuners; all DTVs weren’t mandated to include tuners until last March.” The claim is “just” five years off. Actually integrated DTVs were gradually introduced with 2003 models following a five-year phased-in plan, which originally was issued as follows: 50 percent of sets measuring 36 inches and larger by July 1, 2004; 100 percent by July 1, 2005. 50 percent of sets measuring 25 inches to 35 inches were to add DTV tuners by July 1, 2005; 100 percent by July 1, 2006. The rest were to conform by July 1, 2007. In 2005, that plan was modified with stricter deadlines and screen sizes. Updated integrated tuner mandate: In mid 2005, the FCC made a tentative decision to change the deadline, and requested feedback from manufacturers, broadcasters, and industry trade groups. The decision was to accelerate the deadline of tuner integration for TVs under 25 inches to make them compliant six months earlier than planned, advancing the date from July 1, 2007 to December 31, 2006. The decision also included smaller sets under 13 inches, not included within the original mandate. Advancing the deadline was also viewed as a way to reduce the number of D/A converters that would be needed in the subsidy program when analog signals stop broadcasting. On their response, the CEA requested to eliminate the July 1, 2005 deadline that required manufacturers to make half of the 25/35 inches sets capable of receiving digital. The argument from manufacturers was that consumers would end up buying the cheaper analog sets, and retailers were less willing to order the more expensive digital sets. The FCC rejected that request. Walt Disney, the NAB, and the Association for Maximum Service Television (MSTV) urged the FCC to adopt the advanced deadline of December 31st, 2006, while the CEA, the CERC (Consumer Electronics Retailers’ Association), Sharp Electronics, and Philips Electronics North America opposed to it, and claimed not having enough time to manufacture those DTVs by the end of 2006. The CEA and CERC issued the following statement: “The FCC should refrain from making any rulings regarding the inclusion of digital tuners in new receivers with screen sizes less than 13 inches until manufacturers, retailers and the commission adequately are able to examine the impact of the small chassis products that currently are subject to the commission’s tuner requirements.” They opposed accelerating the timetable claiming that no evidence justified the change. Other comments from the CEA regarding the effect of accelerating the mandate on manufacturing and consumers were as follows: “Some manufacturers could opt to market monitor-only models that remove both digital and analog tuners, or stop manufacturing certain sets altogether. For smaller sets, 13 to 26 inches, the requirement would double the development costs for manufacturers, as well as double the price of a typical 13-inch television to consumers.” “If the product is rejected by lower income and other consumers because the price exceeds their budget, it will not be carried by retailers and, eventually, not produced by manufacturers.” “The unfortunate result of accelerating the tuner mandate deadlines for all sets would be to decrease the number of DTV tuners in the marketplace, which clearly does not serve the transition.” 96 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 Finally, in November 2005, the FCC voted for setting the new date as March 1, 2007 for all sizes including those smaller than 13 inches, which received the support from the NAB taking into consideration how important they are in times of emergency and are commonly used without STBs. The FCC revised the deadline dates for DTVs to have integrated tuners as follows: Upon approval By March 1, 2006 for By March 1, 2007 for By March 1, 2007 for >=36 inches >= 25 inches (was July 1, 2006 on the original plan) >= 13 inches (was July 1, 2007, and was agreed for March 07 although the FCC proposed it for December 31, 2006) < 13 inches (was not required before) The mandate does not apply to other small screen video capable devices that do not receive analog OTA broadcasting, even when they might be used to watch TV shows, such as PDAs, mobile phones, iPODs, etc., but it applies to other non-screen devices that have analog tuners to perform their purpose, such as VCRs and DVD recorders. 11.8 million DTVs were produced between 1998 and 2003 and most are tuner-less monitors that need an external STB tuner to view digital TV. Most of those DTVs also do not have DVI/HDMI digital connections with HDCP content protection; they only include component analog connections for HD. The lack of protected digital connectivity could render them incapable of eventually receiving protected premium content from an external STB when connected with analog component cables, which is another wrinkle of the DTV transition that hit hard on the efforts early-adopters did to help establish DTV in the US. The majority of the remaining 69.3 million DTVs that were sold between 2004 and 2007 have an integrated tuner to comply with the mandate, although many of that period were still permitted to be tuner-less depending on their size. A large part of these sets may also have QAM cable TV tuners for unscrambled content, and many of those also have CableCARDS for premium content, although with only unidirectional capabilities. Integrated tuner mandate enforcement: In June 2007 Regent USA (Maxent) and Syntax-Brillian (Olevia) were issued “apparent liability for forfeiture” notices by the FCC for allegedly failing to comply with the ATSC tuner mandate on the DTVs they manufactured, imported or shipped, and the FCC added, under “willful and repeated violations”. Regent was fined $63,650 for importing or shipping 1,182 non-compliant DTV tuners. Syntax-Brillian was fined $2,899,575, for 22,069 DTVs imported or shipped within the statute of limitations, and the FCC commented: “We believe that the proposed forfeiture reflects the gravity of Syntax-Brillian's apparent violations, the company's ability to pay, and the need to deter Syntax-Brillian and other companies from future violations of the act and the rules”. Tuner-less DTVs even under the mandate: In 2007, Toshiba introduced new lines of HD flat-panels, rearprojection, and direct-view sets that excluded the mandated over-the-air digital tuner by not including the analog tuner on the sets, which then qualified them as valid “monitors”. Toshiba was not alone in cutting down on tuning components. CableCARD-less TV lines started to appear from various manufacturers that found no merit in integrating a unidirectional cable tuner with CableCARDs into DTVs while the cable industry was moving toward a bi-directional OCAP solution. Toshiba announced the 2007 monitors to cost $300 less than comparable “integrated” TVs with mandated tuners. In perspective, when integrated DTVs were introduced in 2003 the difference between a monitor DTV and an integrated version of the same TV was $704 more on average. Since 2003, millions of consumers have paid for integrated tuners they do not use because most subscribe to satellite or cable. Additionally, consumers could not know of the extra cost of the unneeded tuner because monitor-only versions of their integrated sets where no longer 97 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 produced. “This is all the video display a consumer needs if they get programming from a cable or satellite TV box,” Toshiba said. Was tuner integration timed right? Let me be clear on one point right up front: This article is neither an endorsement nor a criticism of a mandate that is now history. This is an analysis of the facts related to tuner integration as implemented over the past six years within the 10-year DTV transition, and how those facts affect consumers depending on the service they use (broadcast, cable, satellite, or Telco). At closing I will also identify the available options of DTVs and STBs so you can decide what is best for your particular tuning situation. Hopefully you could help others with this as well, as that is the primary purpose of this series of articles. Why integrated tuners? Since its inception in the mid 1900s, TV traditionally performed a tune-and-display role in a world of broadcast-only tuning. In time, cable and satellite came along and brought an alternative to broadcast content distribution, but they required a different tuner. This gave birth to the STB approach, a tuner outside the TV. Later, analog cable tuners were incorporated into cable-ready analog TVs to tune to unscrambled content. When premium content (e.g. HBO) arrived, in order to protect the investment and the effort of creating the content, service providers implemented security controls under a pay distribution model to unscramble premium content, which required an STB even when the analog TV was cable-ready. When turning the page from analog to digital, the video content distribution model grew with more features but also with more complexity for equipment and connectivity, with CableCARDs, digital/analog conversions, image resolution controls, integrated digital DVRs, selectable output controls for content protection, digital audio and video connections, etc. The complexity certainly affected user friendliness in millions of households that were already accustomed to live with blinking 12:00 VCRs. Incidentally, JVC (the creator of VHS) just announced the end of the manufacturing of single VCRs units. The idea of integrating tuners into DTVs responds to the same tune-and-display concept of decades of broadcast TV, however, the timing of applying the same concept to DTV is a subject that looks simpler than it is. Factors like cost, maturity, reliability, upgradeability, and serviceability of a digital tuner were not at their prime in 2002, enough to discourage integration at that time. However, the alternative of not-integrating then and wait for the best timing of the combination of all of those factors might not have helped the transition and could potentially expand the risk beyond the effort of coupon-program converters to help 15 million households with analog TVs not go dark on February 2009. Why beyond? Because not integrating could have instead meant having 100+ million tuner-less DTV monitors installed in more than 56 million households (about 50% of US households) by the transition deadline, and many millions of those risking going dark if used for broadcast and have no tuner. Although they could be connected to HD-STBs to avoid going dark, HD-STBs are three times more expensive than coupon-program digital-to-analog converters, and are not subsidized by the government coupon-program as converters for analog TVs are. I will mention a few more factors surrounding this matter later in this article. Integrating cable: As mentioned previously, integrated DTVs have been gradually manufactured with internal over-the-air (OTA) tuners to comply with the FCC's mandate proposed in 2002. At that time an agreement was made with the cable industry for DTVs to also include a QAM digital cable tuner for on-the-clear unscrambled programming; some DTVs also included a CableCARD slot for the QAM cable tuner to be able to tune scrambled premium programming (e.g. HBO) without using a cable set-top-box (STB). While digital cable STBs are bi-directional to permit Video-on-Demand (VOD), Impulse Pay-Per-View (PPV), and cable supplied Electronic Program Guide (EPG), the cable tuners integrated within DTVs are only uni-directional and cannot perform those services. More details about cable integration are included further below. 98 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 (Dis)Integrating satellite: Although digital cable tuners were integrated into DTVs, small-dish-satellite tuners were not, except for two Thomson/RCA CRT DTVs with DirecTV tuners manufactured in the late 90s, a 38-inch Direct-view and a 61-inch rear-projection set. Edward Milbourn, a Thomson/RCA manager at that time, participated in the introduction of those and in the creation of the DTC-100, the first DirecTV HD-STB. The DTC100 was one of the most reliable satellite HD-STBs ever created. It was a workhorse that even received occasional firmware upgrades though the dish to improve its functionality and performance, a normal feature now, but visualize that almost a decade ago. I still keep my DTC-100 as a symbol of the beginnings of small-satellite HDTV. In Ed’s words “the DTC-100 satellite HD-STB, the 61-inch DTV, and the 38-inch DTV, in that order, were introduced over a six month period of time because of the time required to obtain DirecTV certification (the hardest part of the project).” There are no plans disclosed to the public to integrate satellite tuners within DTVs, so get accustomed to having a perennial HD-STB solution, HD wires, A/V rack space, the need for managing multiple HD inputs, eventual selectable output controls for protected content when connected with component analog connections (a problem for DTV early adopters), and the mood of HDCP, DVI and HDMI in some equipment. The same picture applies to digital cable STBs now, but help is on its way with Tru2way DTV integration, more on that later. Integrate all tuners? Traditionally, cable STBs do not include satellite tuners and vice versa, but that should not surprise anyone, they are in direct competition for subscribers. Cable-company supplied STBs usually do not include over-the-air tuners for free broadcast TV, although some cable DVRs and combo STBs for PC networking have OTA tuners. Satellite HD-STBs from Dish Network, such as the ViP722, include OTA tuners (analog and digital), however, while DirecTV used to include OTA tuners on their HD-STBs, the most recent DirecTV STB models do not, which can be solved by adding another STB between the antenna and the satellite tuner. This STB provides the missing broadcast tuning functionality. Over-the-air STBs for broadcast do not include any other tuners. Telecom companies and IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) are also competing for TV subscribers and use STBs. In other words, no STB has multiple tuners for all possible services into a single cabinet, nor is it viewed that a DTV should have all of them integrated, because consumers usually select only one of those services to receive TV (broadcast, cable, satellite, or Telco), and considering the price of tuners, why would a consumer be interested in paying for all of those tuners within a DTV or within a universal STB? Therefore, a consumer should expect to have multiple STBs on the audio/video rack if all of those services are wanted, even when having a DTV that is already tuner-integrated with OTA and cable. The cost of internal tuner parts installed into a DTV should be lower than the price of an STB because a DTV does not need the STB cabinet, front panel, buttons, rear connections, power supply, remote control, STB assembly labor, etc., but the reality is that after 10 years of DTV transition, the price consumers pay for tuner integration has not come down as low as one might expect (details later in the article). Every service provider company has introductory packages for new subscribers, but individually purchased HD-STBs/DVRs for cable, DirecTV, Dish Network, and OTA are not as low as it should be expected. The benefit of monitors: Before the integrated-tuner idea was proposed by the FCC in 2002, digital televisions manufactured since 1998 were monitors without digital tuning capabilities. The monitor DTVs need an HD-STB to tune over-the-air broadcast when connected to a UHF/VHF antenna. Later, HD-STBs for satellite reception (DirecTV and Dish Network) and for digital cable were introduced. The HD-STBs require component analog or DVI/HDMI wires for HD signals. The monitor approach provided several benefits to consumers, especially early in the transition, when DTVs and STBs were very pricey and immature. It was common to recommend a separation between the STB and the DTV 99 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 monitor, at least until tuners cost less and become more reliable to be part of an expensive TV set. In perspective, a 1999 Pioneer Elite OTA tuner ($3000) was connected to a 64-inch CRT rear-projection HDTV Pioneer Elite monitor (close to $10,000). Should the two have been integrated back then a $13,000 300-pound DTV might have forced a costly home service if the internal tuner failed. I recall my comment on my 2003 HDTV Technology Review: “Over the last five years we have experienced all kinds of early adoption let downs regarding HD-STBs. Noisy fans, hot units, slow/unfriendly menus, weird software behavior, frozen units, dead units, killed units on firmware upgrades, etc.” During the first couple of years of the integration mandate, the cost of integrated DTVs was considerably higher than the monitor versions. Not only were the added tuner-parts expensive and low in volume, but there were risk factors about tuner's performance, serviceability, failure, obsolescence, etc., whereas a troubled tuner in a separate HD-STB would not compromise and inconvenience the larger DTV investment, in fact it could be as easy as asking the service provider for a new upgraded unit at no cost. An integrated DTV looking for an HD-STB: Regarding tuner's performance and obsolescence, a reader was surprised when a low-cost coupon-program tuner was sensitive enough to pick up 40+ DTV stations, better than the integrated tuner of his high quality new Sony DTV using the same over-the-air antenna. Enticed by the experience, he was looking for an HD-STB that would be as sensitive as the coupon-program-tuner, and use the HD-STB to do the tuning for his Sony DTV, rather than having the DTV do the tuning. Ironically, adding an STB to an integrated DTV defeats the basic concept of integration, but if having a separate box and cabling is not an issue it could be worth a try. Modularity generally offers better flexibility, upgradeability, serviceability, and replace-ability. Although new generations of tuners are expected to perform better, it is a mixed bag considering the numerous choices, prices, and quality among dozens of STB and DTV manufacturers. Cable impact on integrated DTVs: Since the mandate, consumers have purchased 107.4 million DTVs (from 2003 to 4Q08. Although some of those are monitors, most are integrated DTVs. As mentioned earlier, because QAM cable tuners in integrated DTVs were only implemented with uni-directional capabilities, millions of DTV owners had to lease or purchase a cable HD-STB for bi-directional functionality, an additional expense to their “tuner-ready” integrated DTV. Although tuner integration is also expected to eventually support bi-directional cable tuners within DTVs, it has only reached a mid-point solution. Panasonic just announced the introduction by fall 2008 of a couple of integrated DTV models with bi-directional cable tuners (facilitated by a platform named tru2way), but the industry keeps implementing millions of unidirectional cable tuners within most cable-ready DTVs, and the impact to consumers will grow until all models from all DTV manufacturers are tru2way capable. Visualize this analogy for a minute: imagine that since 2002 people can only buy cars having a forward-only transmission (uni-directional tuners in DTVs) that cannot be modified or upgraded for reverse. Conversely, imagine if rent-a-cars were built capable to drive in both forward and reverse (bi-directional cable features in STBs). The days you need to park in reverse you better lease a rent-a-car (cable STB) and leave your car (integrated DTV tuner) in the garage. Here is a short quiz: As a car (DTV) owner, what would be your overall cost to be able to drive in both directions? How long would you think the car sale industry could have lasted under those rules? When the tuner integration mandate idea started in 2002 the expectation was that it might take another couple of years for bi-directionally to be into DTV integrated cable tuners, so it was agreed to start installing uni-directional cable tuners to move on. We are almost in 2009 and are still waiting. Assuming it could take another couple of years before we see tru2way fully deployed by all in the industry, another 74.2 million DTVs are projected to be in the hands of consumers in 2009 and 2010, their cable tuners would be only uni-directional. Adding 74.2 million 100 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 DTVs to the 107.4 million DTVs that were already sold until 2008 makes a total of 181.6 million integrated DTVs estimated by the end of 2010, which is about 52% of the existing 346 million TVs in the whole US (analog and digital). Over the past five years I predicted the above scenario in every HDTV Technology annual report. http://www.hdtvmagazine.com/reports/hdtv-technology-review.php. However, the alternative of waiting until a bidirectional solution was created, embraced by the industry, and integrated in volume was discouraged because it was apparently less favorable to the DTV transition and the consumer. Some related factors are mentioned below. Was tuner integration timed right? Again, this article is neither an endorsement nor a criticism of a mandate that is now history, but rather it is an analysis after 6 years of facts. In theory, the concept of tuner integration should have spared a viewer of DTV broadcast from the need to purchase an external OTA digital STB, but because only a minority tunes to OTA broadcast, it meant that a majority of DTV owners still needed to purchase or lease an STB (satellite, bi-directional cable, FiOS, etc). The driver of the tuning consumer decision was the preference of the content distribution service, but what if the cost factor of monitor vs. integrated was included in the analysis? When the mandate was issued, integrated DTVs cost consumers $704 more on average compared to their tuner-less monitor versions (2003/2004 models). Over the past few years several manufactures (Westinghouse, Hitachi, etc.) introduced a few compliant monitors (because they also lacked analog tuners), but most if not all 2008 integrated DTVs from most manufacturers have no monitor versions of the same set, therefore I cannot make an industry wide comparison study as I did in 2003. However, in 2007, one major manufacturer announced monitors that cost $300 less than their similar integrated versions, and in September 2008 at CEDIA, Bob Perry, Senior VP of Panasonic, said that the new “tru2way” bidirectional cable integrated DTVs (mentioned earlier for fall 2008) will be priced $300 more than their non-tru2way counterparts. This only compares integrated uni-directional to integrated bi-directional cable DTVs. The price difference to tuner-less monitors should obviously be higher, if available. In summary, even after six years of the issued mandate, the price to consumers for tuner integration is not as negligible as OTA/cable analog tuners were for NTSC color television. Some say that is the price of innovation. On the other hand, if the integration mandate/cable agreement would have been implemented only when matured tuners reached a negligible cost to consumers, the delay could have affected other factors, and could have potentially damaged the success and the timing of the overall transition. Solving your specific tuning a. If you are a satellite (or Telco TV) subscriber and: Tune local channels with the STB: buy a monitor if available, there is no need for the integrated OTA tuner within the DTV. Tune local channels with an OTA antenna: buy an integrated DTV and use its internal OTA tuner, or buy a DTV monitor with an over-the-air HD-STB (not a coupon-program converter STB, which is only 480i analog/SD resolution quality). In both cases the STB has to be connected to the DTV with component or DVI/HDMI digital video connections to view HD. b. If you view broadcast TV and: Are not ready to buy a DTV: you can still use a current analog TV with a coupon-program converter. Request the $40 coupon and pay for the difference, if any. Connect the converter to your analog TV using the RF, composite, or S-video connections, which are limited to the TV’s 480i resolution. There is no need for the higher quality component or DVI/HDMI digital video cables. 101 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 If you need more than two coupon-program converters for additional analog TVs you would have to pay the full price of each extra coupon-program converter, there is no government subsidy for extra converters beyond the allowed two. Are ready and want to view DTV: buy an integrated DTV, it should have the needed OTA digital (and analog) tuner, otherwise, if the DTV is not integrated, you need to purchase an over-the-air HDSTB because the DTV is a tuner-less monitor: o Manufactured before the mandated deadline for the screen size (mentioned in Part 4), or o Was recently manufactured but is one of the monitor exceptions mentioned earlier in this article. c. If you are a cable subscriber and: Do not need DTV quality for your image requirements: you can keep using your existing analog TV. If the cable service is offered only in digital lease or buy a digital cable STB. If the cable company still sends the analog feed connect the TV directly to the wall RF coax plate to tune to basic programming, or lease an analog cable STB if you want premium services. Refer to (a) for local channels. Need to view DTV but do not need bi-directional cable functionality: o Buy a cable-ready integrated DTV with a QAM on-the-clear tuner for non-premium channels; connect the coax wire directly to the DTV. o Buy a cable-ready integrated DTV with CableCARD for premium channels; connect the coax wire directly to the DTV. o Buy a DTV monitor and connect to a digital cable STB (even when you do not need bidirectional cable functionality). The STB has to be connected to the DTV with component or DVI/HDMI digital video connections to view HD. Refer to section a) for local channels. Need to view DTV, want bi-directional cable functionality but cannot wait for a tru2way integrated DTV: buy a monitor DTV (or integrated DTV if none is available) and lease an HD-STB/DVR from the cable company, or purchase a TIVO DVR. Refer to (a) for local channels. Need to view DTV, want bi-directional cable functionality and a tru2way DTV is available: buy it, it should have all you need for bi-directional cable functionality without resorting to digital cable STBs and extra wiring. Refer to (a) for local channels. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< Veritas et Visus (Truth and Vision) publishes a family of specialty newsletters about the displays industry: Flexible Substrate Display Standard 3rd Dimension High Resolution Touch Panel http://www.veritasetvisus.com 102 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 Meridian’s beautiful 10-megapixel projector by Chris Chinnock Chris Chinnock is founder and president of Insight Media, and focuses his efforts on projection systems, 3D displays, and FPD business expertise. Preceding his 10 years heading up the Insight Media efforts, Chris spent 15 years in a variety of engineering, management ,and business development positions at MIT Lincoln Labs, Honeywell ElectroOptics, GE AstroSpace, and Barnes Engineering. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering (BSEE) from the University of Colorado. This article is reprinted by permission from the Display Daily, published by Insight Media on February 25, 2009. http://www.displaydaily.com On a recent trip to the UK, I took the opportunity to visit the high-end home theater providers Meridian Audio Limited, who are located in Cambridgeshire, UK. While the company’s roots are in audio, it is also doing pioneering work in very high-quality video. Meridian’s 10-megapixel projector offers such fine images, you don’t want to leave the showroom! The Meridian 810 projector is based on a 2400x4096-pixel JVC platform, but the calibration that Meridian does sets it apart from the JVC projector. In this process, Meridian first does a 24-hour lamp burn-in to stabilize the light source. Then, it performs a four-hour calibration that creates an image with very high brightness uniformity (<0.1%, we were told) and very accurate gray scale and color gamut. In addition to the projector calibration, however, Meridian needed a very high-performance scaling engine. For this, it turned to Marvell. According to Meridian’s director of business development, Roland Morcom, Marvell offered a scaler and image processor that was particularly good with poor-quality sources. And, when scaling to 10-megapixels from DVD or PAL sources, you need a very good processor/scaler. So, the two worked together to develop the new outboard scaler box, which can take content with PAL-level resolution content and scale it to 10-megapixels. As Morcom put it, “that is creating about 97% of the on-screen pixels”. The scaler processor box features four DVI output cables that run to the projector. But since this is more pixels than a quad-FHD display, each scaler engine must provide about 25% more processing than a conventional 1080p image processor. This is where Marvell and Meridian worked together to improve the performance of Marvell’s baseline 1080p processor/scaler. In the demonstration, a clip from the Jay Leno show was shown first. This was broadcast 1080i content that was scaled to 10-megapixels. It was particularly good in one scene, where you could see through the very fine grill of a microphone to reveal the skin beyond. Next, we saw a new transfer of the 40-year old movie Patton in which film grain had been nearly eliminated. Some will argue whether this is a good or a bad thing. Nevertheless, the image quality was superb, with some scenes having a 3D-like feel to them. The final demo was a special request to see a standard DVD upconvert. For this, a PAL version of Seabiscuit was shown. This demo was definitely a bit softer than the other two, but nonetheless spectacular on the 20-foot-wide screen (brightness optimized for theater-like 14-foot Lamberts). And remember, all of this scaling and processing is being done in real time. My one complaint was that the motion blur in 24-frame content is still noticeable. Morcom agreed, but he noted that their motion-compensation algorithms are not yet good enough to commercialize. They will be at some point. The 810 is a superb projector, but at $185K, it is not for everyone. As the saying goes, if you have to ask the price, you can’t afford it. 103 Veritas et Visus High Resolution 104 February 2009 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 Samsung’s new “QWXGA” pixel format by Mark Fihn I’m willing to bet that a year ago, if you’d put 20 display engineers in a room and asked them to identify the pixel format for a “QWXGA” panel that none of them would have suggested 2048x1152. But that’s what Samsung is calling their latest introduction into the wild, wild, west of the 16:9 aspect ratio. (Actually, I’m willing to bet that even after Samsung came out with the QWXGA moniker that most of those 20 engineers would still not be able to correctly identify the pixel format). The trend toward 16:9 panels in the PC industry, (a trend that I’ve decried repeatedly in articles written for our Display Standard newsletter), has let LCD manufacturers to create a variety of entirely new pixel formats. Samsung recently introduced their 2342BWX LCD monitor, a 23-inch monitor in a 16:9 aspect ratio, but rather than utilizing the existent standard TV industry of 1920x1080 pixels, Samsung introduced a new format at 2048x1152 pixels. Here’s some commentary taken from a variety of sources justifying the nature of this format: “This 23.0-inch model will see a maximum resolution of 2048x1152 compared to the standard 1920x1080 which is pretty common these days. The additional space it touted to be able to fit another two letter-sized documents side-by-side, leaving enough space for sidebars as well as other vertical elements in an operating system.” Clearly this writer doesn’t understand that two letter-sized documents will fit identically into a 1920x1080 panel as into a 2048x1152 panel. While the quality of the images will be slightly better on the higher resolution panel, because the aspect ratios are identical, so will the windowed layout. “Samsung’s 2342BWX solves a small but painful problem. The problem has to do with 1920x1200. You see, 1920 divided by 2 equals 960. When you’ve opened two browser windows and click on “Show Windows Side by Side” (in Vista) the two browser windows neatly arrange themselves. But there’s a problem. It’s small but very annoying. Remember the 960 number? Well almost all Internet pages are formatted for 1024 pixels wide. The 960 doesn’t cut it. So when I have two browser windows up on my 24.0-inch LCD monitor, I have to scroll horizontally for a lot of pages to see the whole page. Of course, I can zoom out but some browsers just shrink the font size and keeps the overall layout at 1024. Samsung has felt our pain and brought us the 2342BWX! The 2342BWX is the first LCD monitor to sport a pixel format of 2048x1152. Now divide 2048 b two and you get 1024. Perfect. The 1152 vertical pixels are a bit less than the 1200 that I’m used to, but I’d rather have no horizontal scrolling in two browser windows rather than an extra 48 vertical pixels.” I was unaware of the “Show Windows Side by Side” capability until reading this bit of advice and after spending 20 minutes figuring out how to do it, I must agree that it is a very useful tool. I suspect that the vast majority of Vista users are unaware of the capability. Moreover, the claim that “almost all Internet pages are formatted for 1024 pixels wide” is pure fiction. While some web designers have chosen to “fix” their sites at 1024 pixels, the trend is certainly to design based on liquid design rules where the website’s width is adjusted based on the width of the open window – not some arbitrary assumption about how a user chooses utilize Windows or the screen’s pixel format. I also tend to question how often users will actually want two websites open simultaneously. It’s much more likely that users will have one website open along with an Excel file or a Word file – browsing in one window, while working in the adjacent window – and for this the “Show Windows Side by Side” capability is very useful – but the argument that 2048 is better than 1920 is rendered moot – not to mention that you have more up and down scrolling. I should also note that in my personal set-up, I maintain a toolbar on the rights side of my 105 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 screen, I keep my “favorites” open in Internet Explorer, and I use the tab function rather than having the browser open in multiple windows. By the time I exit all of these very useful features so that I can utilize the “Show Windows Sid by Side” as suggested, I really am sacrificing productivity in order to potentially save some left/right scrolling. It’s worth looking at some of the press photos associated with Samsung product announcement to discern Samsung’s intent with the new format: Ignoring Samsung’s long-standing propensity to employ young female models in their display product advertising, (which may explain why Samsung is #1 in the LCD monitor industry), the screen layouts are also interesting… The images show 2, 4, and 6 web pages open simultaneously, plus a Sidebar. In all three pictures, two of the web pages are repeated. Considering the 960 column argument (above) related to web page designs, the use of Sidebar means that even the 2048x1152 solution is inadequate, (although in the pictures above, that is not indicated). Interestingly, it’s immediately obvious that the images on the screens have been “created” to fit the format. Instead of using actual web pages, the screens are representing “advantages” that simply do not exist. If you look at the upper left image in the first photo, you will note that it is the same image as the one on the left of the second photo. But, clearly one (or both) of these images has been altered. While I recognize that Photoshop is likely to be used in preparing ad material, it seems particularly disingenuous to me to alter images in ways that go to “prove” the claimed advantages. 106 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 The left image is captured from the picture with two open web pages; the center image is from the picture with 6 open web pages; the right image is from the picture with 4 open web pages. Clearly, the images have been stretched to fit the screen – calling into question the suggestion that 2048x1152 is somehow an optimal solution for web browsing. “The 2342BWX runs at 2048x1152 resolution with a 16:9 aspect ratio that’s conveniently ideal for watching feature films” If your source material is at 1920x1080, then it is not “ideal” to show it on a 2048x1152 screen. The system needs to invent pixels to showcase the image at full-screen. More importantly, if the monitor is to be ideal for watching movies, one would have thought Samsung would have been considerate enough to include an HDMI port to enable simple hook-up to CE devices. The monitor has only DVI and VGA ports. Finally, one friend wrote to me and suggested that I’d like this new format, because it raised LCD monitor pixel densities above 100ppi. My response: Well, improving from 96ppi to 102ppi is hardly the sort of improvement in pixel density I’m suggesting for LCD monitors. Let’s move to 135ppi or more… In any case, I’d prefer to have a 22.0-inch panel at 1920x1200 on my desk than a 23-.0-inch panel at 2048x1152. Here’s the comparison: Diagonal 23.0 22.0 Pixel format 2048x1152 1920x1200 Pixel count 2,359,296 2,304,000 Aspect ratio 1.778 1.600 PPI 102 103 Surface area 226.041 217.528 LCD monitors continue to fail to provide either the information content or the pixel density that I personally would find useful on my desktop. Accordingly, I currently have two 17.0-inch notebooks on my desk – running simultaneously at 1920x1200 pixels. That’s a total of 3840x2400 all at 133ppi, which serves me quite well and I will be hard-pressed to move backwards in terms of pixel count or pixel density… That said, I am considering LCD monitors as a way to get more pixels in front of me. The 30.0inch class is the only obvious place of opportunity. Considering the below comparison, guess which one I wish were available to me in the mainstream? Diagonal 30.0 30.0 Pixel format 2560x1600 3280x2048 Pixel count 4,096,000 6,717,440 Aspect ratio 1.600 1.602 PPI 101 129 Surface area 404.494 404.321 The 3280x2048 monitor has been released by Barco for high-end medical and professional applications using a panel manufactured by Hitachi. The simple fact of the matter is that it’s very difficult to justify a 16:9 aspect ratio for use primarily as a PC monitor. Samsung does us no obvious favors by introducing this 2048x1152 solution… Someone, please come up with a mainstream monitor that really enhances the offering. The Barco offering might just do the trick… 107 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 Last Word: One size fits all? Too little ≠ Too few by Fluppeteer Fluppeteer is contributing to Veritas et Visus based on a long background working as a computer graphics programmer, and a similarly long background torturing his display hardware to within an inch of its life. He uses an IBM T221 display (3840x2400 pixels) and multi-monitor setups, the attempts to extract the best out of which have given him some insight into the issues specific to high-resolution displays. Fluppeteer holds an MA from the University of Cambridge (England) and an MSc in Advanced Computing from King’s College London. His efforts to squeeze the most from monitors stretch from ASCII art to ray tracing. Laser surgery left him most comfortable 1-2 feet away from the monitor, making high-resolution a necessity. He is currently ranked 16th in the word at tiddlywinks. I don’t like it when people claim that things are impossible. I especially don’t like it when they claim that products are pointless because they’re impossible to use – chances are the manufacturer will listen to them and stop making niche products, and that’ll stop me from being able to buy nice toys. There seems to be a belief, for example, that “netbooks” (actually, let’s call them “budget subnotebooks” until Psion has stopped trying to sue) aren’t usable for extended periods of time. I beg to differ – in fact I’m writing this on just such a device. A common complaint about them is that the screen is “too small”; the keyboard also gets some complaints, but having spent a few years with an old Libretto I have to say that the keyboard on my MiniNote is incredibly spacious – and that it doesn’t actually affect me much anyway. “Too small” is usually extended to mean that there isn’t enough space for applications that were designed for a larger desktop screen. Of course, very few applications could give a hoot how large the screen is – all they care about is the pixel count. Give a subnotebook enough pixels and applications will fit in just fine. The user may have to sit a little closer, but I can vouch that one of the benefits of subnotebook computers is that it’s much easier to get your head close to the screen than is the case with a 17.0-inch behemoth. It’s annoying, then, that very few budget subnotebooks are available with a “proper” screen resolution. Indeed, matters are getting worse – in spite of user complaints about the screens on these devices not having enough room (and of the original 800x480 EeePC being less popular than the 1024x600 versions), Dell has recently announced a device with a 1024x576 screen – even fewer pixels. There was a minor outcry when HP announced the successor to the Mini-Note on which I’m typing this, with the most lauded feature – the 1280x800 screen – switched for the 1024x600 “standard”. Allegedly Intel has had something to do with this – forcing laptop vendors not to pair their Atom processors with larger screen sizes, in the interests of ensuring that more profitable laptop processor sales don’t get poached. Fortunately, there have been a few advances in the subnotebook space. Sony’s Vaio P has a useful 1600x768 pixels – an odd aspect ratio, but at last a decent total pixel count. UMID’s mBook has a just-about usable 1024x600 resolution (while a bit small, at least as much as most budget laptops) in a 4.8-inch, pocketable form factor. Obviously neither of these is as spacious as a workstation with a T221 attached, but you can’t carry a T221 very far. These niche products invariably draw incredulity from those who don’t use them. How can a screen above 200ppi possibly be usable? Well, the T221 is extremely “usable” and several cell phones have significantly smaller pixel pitch. Some people may struggle with such devices; some people would never have need of the extra pixels, too. I suspect more would benefit, and more would find the resolution acceptable, than is suggested by preconceptions – I’ve known many people to expect a T221 screen to be impossible to use until they actually see one. Because of this 108 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 reaction, sales of these devices are low; the problem with niche products is that there aren’t many of them, which means that the choice of device is defined solely by the one niche feature – for example, I’d not have chosen my Mini-Note’s Via processor if I’d been able to get the screen resolution another way. Mobile phones have similar problems. These days, phones are expected to do more than make calls – they surf the Internet, view office documents, run editors, play games. I wouldn’t be writing for this newsletter if I didn’t feel that the display resolution plays a big part in how usable such a device may be. Sadly, the operating system plays a part, too – all the cell phones I’ve been able to find with 800x480 screens have run Windows Mobile, which is generally poorly-received in comparison with some of its competitors. Nonetheless, it only took one side-by-side comparison of a web page on a Toshiba G900 and an iPhone for me to realize that I’d put up with the operating system for the screen quality. Apple is showing no sign of changing the iPhone resolution – this is, after all, the company that claimed that 100ppi was perfect, for many years. I switched from the (now defunct) UIQ line of Symbian phones produced by Sony-Ericsson because there was no sign of the resolution ever increasing. Palm has settled for 480x320 with their new device, a resolution shared by the T-Mobile G1 (although Android has been known to run on higher-resolution devices); I would be tempted to jump to either of these product lines if only more pixels were available. Bigger ≠ better: Manufacturers aren’t entirely deaf to customer complaints – but it’s possible that some of these complaints get filtered through some misconceptions. Customers say that “the screen is too small on our subnotebooks” results in 10.0-inch and larger screens in pricier devices – removing both the cost and portability benefits that spawned the “netbook craze” without actually solving the problem. Diversity has its benefits – trying to turn a niche product into a mainstream product means that the unique advantages of the niche get lost. The more recent WVGA cell phone have larger screens than my G900 – fair enough, if it’s really not feasible to increase the resolution and keep the dot pitch constant. It’s odd, though, that “four inch screen” makes the headlines in the reviews of a phone, where the actual resolution is relegated to the small print. Desktop screens have the same problem, but worse. A 22.0-inch screen with a 1920x1200 display is perfectly comfortable; a 27-inch screen with the same resolution takes up a vast amount of desk space with little benefit. The recent move to 16:9 displays – including Dell’s latest 1920x1080p monitor – wastes even more display area; reducing the height of the display means that the total area which will fit in a row of monitors standing on a desk will drop compared to more conventional sizes. The fixation with 16:9 divides the market. There are those who consider a 16:10 monitor to be a waste, because there are black bars when video is shown. The aforementioned Vaio P raised derision because of how unsuitable its display was to 16:9 content (never mind that it’s one of the few modern subnotebooks with a enough resolution to show 720p video without down-sampling it, and the odd aspect ratio fits an exceptional pixel count into the form factor of a device that can fit in a pocket). There’s a vaguely-justifiable claim that 16:9 monitors would allow game designers to concentrate on a single aspect ratio, but this ignores a great deal of backward compatibility with the existing monitor installed base. For those of us who use computers for reasons other than playing video (or video games), 16:9 is a curse – I want my monitor to be a better monitor, not a better television. The push to larger desktop monitors – indeed, some gamers have expressed a desire to have larger pixels, rather than mode, so as to increase immersion while limiting the computational overhead – seems to me to miss a point. I’ve argued in the past that projectors give the best trade-off – the user can scale the image to the desired pixel size (and count) – but in this case it seems to me that the best television is a television. I have a 42-inch 1080p television that’s a lovely gaming screen and – obviously – is pretty good at showing video content. It’d make a terrible monitor, so I don’t see why I should expect a monitor to make a good television; a 24-27-inch screen isn’t going to compare well with an HDTV in the same price bracket. 109 Veritas et Visus High Resolution February 2009 The more the merrier (but enough is enough): Fortunately, there are still consumers out there – at least on discussion boards – who know what they want. The move from 1920x1200 panels to 1920x1080 ones has been called out: “The good news is that it can show 1080p” (when the same is just as true of a 1200 line display) isn’t slipping past people. Maybe consumers have been poisoned by 19.0-inch 1280x1024 screens into believing that HDTV resolutions are the epitome of video quality, but there’s hope that people are noticing that the resolution numbers are getting smaller. There are limits to any form factor. Currently, there are few benefits to taking a television beyond 1920x1080 pixels – the arguable benefits of 3840x2160 panels would be much less convincing had the 720p standard not been allowed to coexist with the higher resolutions. This hasn’t stopped some esoteric displays (2560x1080 ultra-widescreen televisions, anamorphic lenses on projectors) but since such approaches are typically detrimental to the actual image quality I can’t see them taking off unless content starts being produced in a wider range of formats. The increasing capabilities of cell phones and subnotebooks mean that the demands on their screens are rising. Even I wouldn’t argue that a 4.8-inch 1024x600 screen is superior, for general use, to the same pixel count in a 10.0-inch form factor – the advantage comes from the benefits of a device that is small, not from small pixels. High dpi displays have their own benefits in terms of image smoothness and fitting ever more content into them, but for many applications – especially in a low-powered portable device – one could say that having “enough pixels” is acceptable, so long as “enough” really is “enough”. The mistake is to compromise on the resolution, in the belief that one must stick to the most comfortable pixel pitch, and ignore the pixel count and screen size, which are best suited to the device. Too often it’s the wrong variable which has to give. (As an aside, my interest in photography means that the difference between the digital camera market and the display market is particularly ironic. Digital cameras have been pushing to ever-higher resolutions, with many knowledgeable commentators observing that the devices are not necessarily getting better as a consequence. The display market seems determined to improve everything but the resolution first)... I’m probably steeped in the cynicism of old age. The “normal” desktop monitor of today does have more pixels than the normal monitor of ten years ago; mobile phone displays are at least not always limited to QVGA or lower, and there aren’t many SVGA laptops out there. There still seems to be a push against exploring the extremes of resolution, even when it's discovered that the capabilities of devices are expanded significantly as the pixel count rises and as products are made smaller. I can only hope that as devices become more capable, as having more data on a display becomes more commonplace, higher resolutions will spread - and those of us who like to live on the edge will be able to push the limits farther. Display Industry Calendar A much more hyper-linked version of this calendar is at: http://www.veritasetvisus.com/industry_calendar.htm. Please notify [email protected] to have your future events included in the listing. March 2009 March 2 Kinetica Art Fair and Technologies Workshop London, England March 2-4 US FPD Conference San Diego, California March 3-8 CeBIT 2009 Hanover, Germany 110 Veritas et Visus High Resolution March 4-5 Electronic Displays Conference 2009 Nuremberg, Germany March 4-5 HD Expo Beverly Hills, California March 5-6 ITC'09 / SID Mid Europe Spring Conference Paris, France March 9-11 Photonics in Surveillance and Biometrics Washington, D.C. March 9-12 DVB World 2009 Berlin, Germany March 9-12 O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference San Diego, California March 10 Integrating Plastic Electronics Oxford, England March 10-11 TV of Tomorrow Show San Francisco, California March 10-12 Smart Fabrics 2009 Rome, Italy March 11-13 FPD China Shanghai, China March 11-14 EHX Spring Orlando, Florida March 14-15 Symposium on 3D User Interfaces Lafayette, Louisiana March 14-19 Virtual Reality 2009 Lafayette, Louisiana March 17-19 Air Traffic Control Amsterdam, Netherlands March 17-19 Semicon China Shanghai, China March 17-19 electronica & ProductronicaChina 2009 Shanghai, China March 17-19 Laser World of Photonics China Shanghai, China March 17-21 Emissive and Organic Emissive Displays Nottingham, England March 18-20 Symposium on Haptic Interfaces and Virtual Environments Salt Lake City, Utah March 23-27 2009 Measurement Science Conference Anaheim, California March 24-26 Image Sensors Europe 2009 London, England March 24-26 Phosphor Global Summit 2009 Miami, Florida March 24-26 Future of Television Los Angeles, California March 30 - April 2 Showest 2009 Las Vegas, Nevada March 30 - April 3 MIPTV Cannes, France March 31 - April 2 LEDs Asia Hong Kong, China 111 February 2009 Veritas et Visus High Resolution March 31 - April 2 Display 2009 Paris, France March 31 - April 3 Active Matrix Displays Dundee, Scotland April 2009 April 4-9 CHI 2009 Boston, Massachusetts April 6-9 Miniature and Near-to-Eye Displays Edinburgh, Scotland April 7-8 Printed Electronics Europe Dresden, Germany April 7-8 Photovoltaics: Beyond Conventional Silicon Dresden, Germany April 7-8 Screen Expo Europe London, England April 9-10 2009 Taiwan FPD Conference Taipei, Taiwan April 15-17 Touch Panel Japan Tokyo, Japan April 15-17 FineTech Japan & Display 2009 Tokyo, Japan April 15-17 LED/OLED Lighting Technology Expo Tokyo, Japan April 15-18 International Sign Expo Las Vegas, Nevada April 18-23 NAB 2009 Las Vegas, Nevada April 19-24 European Conference on Liquid Crystals Colmar, France April 22-23 Interactive Displays 2009 San Jose, California April 26-30 Digital Holography and Three Dimensional Imaging Vancouver, British Columbia April 27-29 Organic Photovoltaics Philadelphia, Pennsylvania April 27-30 IDMC/3DSA/Asia Display 2009 Taipei, Taiwan April 28-30 Sign UK/Digital Signage Showcase Birmingham, England April 30 Emerging Display Technology Cambridge, England May 2009 May 4-9 3DTV-CON 2009 Potsdam, Germany May 5-7 Digital Signage Expo 2009 Essen, Germany May 5-8 International Conference on Animation, Effects, Games, and Digital Media Stuttgart, Germany May 6-7 Digital Signage Show 2009 Las Vegas, Nevada 112 February 2009 Veritas et Visus High Resolution May 12-13 HDTV Conference China Shenzhen, China May 12-15 Orbit-iEX Zurich, Switzerland May 13 Laser Processing for Plastic Electronics Abingdon, England May 20-22 SEMICON Singapore Singapore May 20-23 International FPD Korea Seoul, Korea May 31 - Jun 5 SID International Symposium San Antonio, Texas June 2009 June 1-2 SID Business Conference 2009 San Antonio, Texas June 2 Dynamic Digital Facades London, England June 2-4 SEMICON Russia 2009 Moscow, Russia June 2-4 Dimension3 Expo Seine-Saint-Denis, France June 2-4 Digital Living Room Conference Santa Clara, California June 2-6 Computex 2009 Taipei, Taiwan June 3-4 HD Expo Chicago, Illinois June 4-9 SIIM 2009 Charlotte, North Carolina June 11-13 Photonics Festival: OPTO Taiwan , SOLAR, LED Lighting, Optics Taipei, Taiwan June 9-10 RFID Smart Labels San Francisco, California June 9-11 Plastic Electronics Asia Taipei, Taiwan June 15-16 Projection Summit Orlando, Florida June 15-18 Laser World of Photonics Munich, Germany June 16-17 Web3D 2009 Symposium Darmstadt, Germany June 16-17 Photovoltaics USA Denver, Colorado June 16-18 National Electronics Week London, England June 16-19 Display Metrology Short Course Boulder, Colorado June 17-19 InfoComm '08 Orlando, Florida June 22-25 Cinema Expo Amsterdam, Netherlands 113 February 2009 Veritas et Visus High Resolution June 22-25 CEDIA Expo Europe London, England June 23-25 LOPE-C -- Large Area, Organic and Printed Electronics Convention Frankfurt, Germany June 25-26 Korea Display Conference 2008 Seoul, Korea July 2009 July 8-10 China International Flat Panel Display Exhibition Shanghai, China July 8-10 China International Touch Screen Exhibition & Seminar Shanghai, China July 8-13 National Stereoscopic Association Convention Mesa, Arizona July 10-13 SINOCES Qingdao, China July 13-17 International Symposium on Display Holography Shenzhen, China July 15416 Semicon West 2009 San Francisco, California July 15-17 E3 Media and Business Summit Los Angeles, California July 16 2009 Small-Medium Display Forum Taipei, Taiwan July 19-24 International Conference on HumanComputer Interaction San Diego, California July 29-30 Japan Forum Tokyo, Japan 114 February 2009