dlp

NEC taking curved-screen display to pro market

SAN FRANCISCO--Dell got a lot of attention at the Consumer Electronics Show when its Alienware group showed a mammoth curved-screen display for gamers, but NEC is hoping it'll reach an even bigger market with its own version of the technology.

NEC was showing off a prototype of its 42-inch, 2,880x900-pixel, curved-screen display, the CRVD-LMD, at the Macworld trade show here this week. The monitor is geared for professionals such as medical scanners, photographers, and video animators who need an immersive display and a lot of real estate but don't want their view interrupted by the frames of … Read more

Mitsubishi laser TV to debut this year

While rear-projection seems to be losing steam, Mitsubishi is doing its best to breathe new life into non-flat HDTVs with its introduction of the world's first model with a picture powered by a laser-based light engine. Unfortunately, the product's smoke-and-hyperbole-filled introduction at the Palms hotel's Rain nightclub, while long on lighting effects, was short on details. Pricing and available screen sizes were not announced -- only that the product will hit the market this year.

Watch the Mitsubishi Laser TV video on CNET TV.

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CES: Dual-view and 3D high-definition TV

After a full day roaming the Consumer Electronics Show floor, I have to say the most mind-blowing thing I saw was the dual-view and 3D high-definition technology called DLP, made by Texas Instruments. This technology is being rolled out in Mitsubishi and Samsung televisions.

These are not flat-screen models, but thicker projection TVs. I was initially stopped in my tracks by the amazing image on a 73-inch model. They showed Shrek on the demo reel, and I have to say, the detail in the animation was incredible. I could see the sugar crystals sparkling on the Gingerbread Man's gumdrops. (They also showed Transformers, and it was very manly and explosive. Looked good too. DLP has a very fast refresh rate, so it is well-suited for action.)… Read more

Symantec becomes instant leader in data loss prevention

Just last week I wrote a blog that described the ongoing market consolidation around data loss prevention (DLP) and its effect on market leader Vontu.

The blog titled, "High noon for Vontu?", was generally accurate but I got the details wrong. Rather than high noon, it turned out to be midnight on New Year's Eve for the Vontu team: investors got to party like it was 1999 this week when Symantec acquired Vontu for $350 million.

It was a pretty sure bet that Symantec would buy a DLP company, but why Vontu? After all, other security leaders--for … Read more

Mitsubishi planning 3D Blu-ray player for early 2008

Along with a few other tech journalists, I spent a couple of hours today over at the Westchester Country Club, which is gearing up for The Barclays PGA Tour event. What the hell was I doing there? Well, as part of a marketing deal with the PGA Tour, Mitsubishi is the "official large outdoor video display provider" of the Tour, and the PR team wanted us to see some of these displays in action--along with the Tour's ShotLink technology, which tracks players' shots almost down to the centimeter (the info is then displayed on those giant Mitsubishi scoreboards). That's all sorts of interesting if you're a golf fan, but things got a little sexier when Mitsubishi representatives took us into a hospitality suite, handed us each a pair of fancy 3D glasses (a little smaller than the ones shown in the photo), and showed us a demo of some new 3D-imaging technology the company's working on.

The demo was run from a massive Dell desktop and output onto a large DLP set. In an effort to inject new life into the fading rear-projection category, the company's pitch was that the 3D technology worked with existing DLP TVs and projectors (due to DLP's native 120Hz refresh rate, which allows you to split it into 60/60 for 3D) but not with LCD and plasma displays.

Most of us were pretty impressed by the demo, which included clips from movies, commercials, and sporting events. There was real depth to the 3D, and you got that 3D-feeling of objects poking out at you from the screen. All the demo material had been shot in 3D, but the kicker to the whole presentation was that Mitsubishi apparently has a Blu-ray player in its labs that can convert existing 2D movies into 3D on the fly. Better yet, according to company representatives, it may be available early next year.

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Mitsubishi announces three new DLP HDTV lines

Mitsubishi announced three new lines of 1080p DLP HDTVs today, including the flagship Diamond series.

We've got the full details below, but here's the short story. All of the DLP (digital light processing) HDTVs have at least three HDMI 1.3 inputs, along with support for x.v.Color (also known as xvYCC)--a new color space that offers 80 percent more color than standard ATSC color space.

These are the first displays we're aware of that have x.v.Color support, but for right now it's more marketing hype than a useful feature. The problem … Read more

The gift of LIFI: Panasonic projection TVs don't burn out

Panasonic's new line of LCD projection TVs are featuring a new technology--called LIFI--that Panasonic is claiming will eliminate the need for lamp replacement. Since today's LCD and DLP projection sets often need to have their bulb replaced after 3-5 years--and the bulbs cost several hundred dollars--LIFI technology could get remove one of the major drawbacks to projection TVs. We have seen ultralong bulb-life from projection TVs on Samsung's HL-S5679W, which was the first DLP HDTV to use an LED light source. The HL-S5679W claimed its bulb lasted for 20,000 hours, which means it virtually never needs … Read more

InFocus preps instant home theater

A handful of all-in-one home-theater projectors have hit the market over the last 18 months, and InFocus jumps into this interesting category with the InFocus Play Big IN1, an inexpensive DLP projector with an integrated DVD player and speaker to output sound. While the info on the unit is a little vague, InFocus says that they are also looking into having an iPod dock for playing back iPod videos, to go along with the DVD player "dock" that attaches to the bottom of the projector.

Here are the details so far:

Price: $499 (subject to change)

Availability: Spring … Read more