Interest in LCoS Sparked by Arrival of 3D Content

ATLANTA -- The resurgence of interest in LCoS, this time as a means for delivering 3D content, is being driven by its ability to provide higher contrast ratios at reduced brightness levels, industry officials said. LCoS (liquid crystal on silicon) can help counter an up to 50 percent reduction in brightness of an image that results from the need for wearing 3D glasses, JVC Product Engineering Manager Gary Klasmeier said at CEDIA.

For JVC and Sony, which both have long championed rival D-ILA and SXRD LCoS formats, it provides a means for spreading use of a technology that has run behind LCD and Texas Instruments’ DLP, industry officials said.

"One of the things that’s achievable with LCoS is higher contrast ratios and when you are working with the reduced light levels of 3D, higher contrast gives you more depth,” Klasmeier said. “For years and years people have said that with LCoS you have a depth of image. It’s not just a flat video-like pasty image."

The emergence of 3D also has given Sony an opportunity to build an OEM business for its SXRD panels, Chris Fawcett, vice president of Sony’s television business unit, told us. At CEDIA, Mitsubishi and LG Electronics demonstrated LCoS projectors containing three Sony 0.61-inch SXRD panels with 1,920x1,080 resolution. Sony previously largely limited use of its SXRD technology to its own products. Sony also is fielding its own model (see related story this issue).

"Over the march of time we had all these proprietary formats that lived and died based on how we did with them versus building a market for these things,” Fawcett said. “It’s not only more profitable for the company, but we can deliver it as an entire package and it’s not about holding on to something."

JVC, which supplied D-ILA panels to OEM partners for business front projectors in the past, will consider supply deals where it makes “business sense, but there will be some case where we might not want to do that,” Klasmeier said.

On the home theater side, JVC will field the DLA-X9 ($11,999), DLA-X7 ($7,999) and DLA-X3 ($4,495) 3D-capable front projectors containing a single 0.7-inch with 1,920x1,080 resolution, 1,300 lumens using a 220-watt UHP lamp, 100,000, 75,000 and 50,000:1 contrast ratios and a HDMI 1.4 connector, company officials said. The top-end model contains a three-year warranty and is packaged with two pairs of Xpand’s 3D glasses and 3D emitter. The DLA-X7 and DLA-X3 have a two-year warranty and the 3D glasses ($179) and emitter ($79) are optional. The mid- and high-end models also have International Science Foundation calibration built in along with a LAN connector. The X7 and X9 have a 16-step lens and lamp aperture, while the A3 has just a 16-step lens, company officials said.

The projector drops Integrated Device Technologies’ Reon processor used in 2D models in favor of a custom ASIC, Klasmeier said. JVC went its own route in designing a processor because of 3D requirements, Klasmeier said. “When you are doing 3D there always is the trade-off between ghosting and light level so we dug in” in selecting a processor and said ‘how can we do this best?'” Klasmeier said.

As it pushed into 3D, JVC also introduced a new 2D entry-level model in the DLA-HD250 priced at $2,999. The projector, which contains three 0.7-inch D-ILA panels with 1,920x1,080 resolution, 1,000 lumens and 25,000:1 contrast ratio. It comes under last year’s HD350, which had the same resolution and brightness, but featured 30,000:1 contrast ratio and $4,499 price.

JVC is continuing to carry its DLA-RS4000 ($175,000) and DLA-SH7HNLG ($150,000) front projectors containing 1.27-inch panels with 4,096x2,400 resolution. The market for the projector remains limited to simulation and digital photography, Klasmeier said. “The 4K projectors today are not mainstream and a lot of it boils down to delivering a 4K signal and having 4K sources,” he said. JVC also is working with NHK and NTT in Japan on a projector featuring a 1.75-inch D-ILA chip with 8,192x4,320 resolution. NTT is providing compression technology, while NHK is handling broadcast. The technology is 1-2 years from the market, JVC officials have said (CED Sept 11/09 p5).