A Californian company called Prysm launched a new type of TV technology at InfoComm a week or so ago, based on a form of rear-projection laser, hitting phosphorescent paint, floated near the surface of a block of glass. These types of technologies have been tried before, and most recently one came out of the UK’s Cambridge University, which relied on a huge block of curved glass and a real prism effect, but none so far have taken off against the ubiquitous flat LCD screen.
This new Prysm Laser Phosphor Display offers a wider viewing angle almost up to the maximum 180 degrees (looking at the screen from almost flat) and a brightness of 800 nits, The screen can refreshes at rates up to 240Hz, which is pretty much where current LCD technology tops out.
At least the new Prysm display looks like it will at least make it into the shops and it will also sell on the back of being eco-friendly, claiming a power use of less than 25% of existing LCD TVs and only 10% of Plasma Panel displays. Prysm is taking orders for delivery starting this summer.
That might do the trick, but when you hear that the devices are at last 14 inches thick then the love affair with thin and super-thin displays may continue for some time to come. Price has not yet been announced, and this could be driven down over time to substantially under LCD screens, but it’s unlikely that the early models will be that cheap. Another selling point is the they already support 3D, HD and even more dense resolutions.
The most popular new LCD TV models have gone some way to reduce power by switching off or turning down the LED backlight in scenes or parts of scenes where little or no light is needed. This design was tried because OLED screens threatened to offer less than 50% of LCD power usage, and the LCD manufacturers wanted to prolong their life against the threat of OLED. This has been successful because high resolution OLED screens are only economic now in screens of 4 inches or smaller.
The first generation Prysm TV will be called the TD1 and comes with a glass screen measuring 25 inches diagonally, and the inside of this screen is painted with tiny vertical lines of phosphor. These glow red, green, or blue when hit with a soft UV laser, a device which is already made in quantity for Blu-ray DVD players.
The TD1’s lasers sit behind the screen, pointing up toward a bank of small, rapidly moving mirrors the same as those used in projectors and rear projection TVs. The mirrors divert the lasers across the screen to produce the picture. In fact this is a rear projection TV where the light goes through glass instead of the air.
The core element of each TV is called a Tile, and it is one of these which makes up the TD1. Integrators can build displays using multiple tiles, which Prysm hopes will make it attractive for big in-store advertising displays.
The key to the technology is embedded the phosphor panels extremely close to the viewing surface, and not using any image filtering which uses large amounts of power.