SED seems to be the holy grail that people are waiting for. It has the picture quality of a CRT with the thin form factor of an LCD or plasma. But it’s had a bumpy ride so far, and some people are thinking that Canon and Toshiba can’t make them cost effectively. But they’re working on it.

Canon said that it will purchase all the outstanding shares of SED Inc, and Toshiba will share all its shares in SED Inc to Canon as well. This is to avoid a patent dispute, but SED business will be transferred to Canon. But Canon still plans to sell SED displays, for now.

Canon to Make SED Joint Company with Toshiba into Wholly Owned Subsidiary

There are a couple things about a video display that makes it look good. One of those things is the contrast ratio. Historically, CRT has had the best contrast ratio. Ever since, display manufacturers have been trying to match or exceed CRT’s historic contrast ratios. Many manufacturers are doing this with a dynamic iris on projectors. But a flat panel display doesn’t use an iris, so they have to find other ways to do it.

Sharp at CES 2007 showed off a 37″ “Mega-Contrast” premium LCD panel with a supposed 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio. (How they would measure that is beyond me.) The Engadget folks said that this set’s black levels looked better than SED televisions (based on the same principles as CRT) they’ve seen.

Ah, we live in interesting times!

Sharp’s 1,000,000:1 Mega-Contrast Premium LCD vs regular LCD

One of the cool things about this business is seeing all the cool new stuff they come out with. Like the XV-Z20000 DLP projector from Sharp. Ultimate AV are the lucky folks, and get a chance to look at all these gadgets. They recently reviewed this projector, and they liked what they saw.

The Sharp projector costs $12k. It’s a 1080p DLP projector with two HDMI inputs, plus a DVI input. The display will accept 1080p/60, but it will not accept 1080p/24.

How did the Ultimate AV folks like the projector? They liked it a lot. Of course, the law of diminishing returns applies, and $12k doesn’t get you twice the performance of a $6k projector. But they still see the value - the projector has an especially detailed image.

Sharp XV-Z20000 1080p DLP projector

Pioneer is boasting that its new plasma technology gives a better contrast ratio than the upcoming SED displays from Toshiba and Canon. Remember that SED gives CRT-like image quality because the technology is so similar.

The new [plasma] technology premieres a completely re-engineered display infrastructure, including a new panel, filter and application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC).

IGN got a chance to look at one such Pioneer plasma at the CES show, and they liked what they saw. “In comparison to what is generally though of as best-of-breed image quality, Pioneer’s new plasma display was astounding. The demo began with both screens in idle-black. That is, the new plasma display looked black; Pioneer’s current plasma looked shockingly gray and over-lit.”

I hope that this kind of technology trickles down to their whole plasma line. I’ve never been a big fan of flat panels because of the cost and burn-in (for plasma), and this new tech won’t help matters. But it’s good for companies like Pioneer to push the envelope and force other manufacturers to do one better. Great stuff.

CES 2007: Impressions of Pioneer’s “SED Killing” Plasma
Pioneer Launches Breakthrough Display Technology

The HDTVExpert, Peter Putman, took a look at the Sharp Aquos LC-52D62U LCD HDTV.

Physically it’s a really nice looking set, with a piano-black finish. It also has two HDMI connectors, and other inputs, but no VGA or DVI inputs. But that’s not what counts, is it. How about the picture? The picture has a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels.

And how do those pixels look? Well, the set had big problems upscaling SD signals. Even deinterlacing a 1080i signal didn’t work so good.

This 52 inch television is only $4k MSRP (available on the street for much less), but the scaling is so bad you’d need to use an external scaler. So your mileage may vary.

Review: Sharp Aquos LC-52D62U LCD HDTV

Seems SED must be having some troubles. Toshiba has sent a sob story that they won’t have any at CES 2007. This doesn’t bode well. Could be because of all the LCD and Plasma prices crashing over the holiday maybe SED can’t be a competitor in this arena.

SED, we hardly knew ye!

The SED HDTV Delayed Again

“D-ILA” stands for Digital Image Light Amplification. I think… Well, I’m pretty sure the “D” is for “Digital”, at any rate. But the important thing you have to know is that D-ILA is JVC’a LCoS implementation, just like SXRD is Sony’s. LCoS is a good technology base upon which to build televisions, and Sony and JVC have been doing so now for a number of years.

Now JVC is coming out with some super-slim rear-projection televisions based on D-ILA technology, with full 1080p resolution. “The Slim HD-ILA series will include the 58W-inch HD-58S998 ($3,299.95 estimated selling price) and 65W-inch HD-65S998 ($4,199.95), with cabinet depths of 10.7 and 11.6 inches, respectively.”

So they’re not even a foot deep. For all you folks out there who were going to stand-mount your plasma or LCD anyway, this is a great, cheaper, alternative. (You can’t get a 65″ 1080p LCD or plasma for anywhere near $4k.)

The 58″ set is due to arrive in January, while the 65″ set will follow in March.

JVC also introduced a D-ILA projector, the DLA-HD1 (shipping in February at $6,299.95). It has a contrast ratio of 15,000:1, a 2x zoom lens (yay!), and both horizontal and vertical lens shift. It’ll be interesting to see how this piece of kit stacks up to Sony’s $5k VPL-VW50.

JVC Shows Slim-Cabinet D-ILA TVs

We’ve already seen Ultimate AV’s Sneak Peek at the Sony VPL-VW50 “Pearl” projector. They thought it was a very good projector, though other sources have said that it’s many good qualities are outweighed by the lack of detail.

This projector can take the 1080p/24 HD signal on the HDMI input and display it at 96Hz. That means that this projector would work great with any of the HD disc players that can output 1080p/24. (That list does not currently include the PS3, unfortunately.)

But of course, the thing that I was waiting for in this review is how sharp they found the projector. Strangely enough, they found it to be quite good. Fortunately, they also included an explanation! If you turn on the OverScan function, which would “hide the outlines of the picture”, the resolved resolution went way down. This option is on by default. Interesting, very interesting…

To sum up, the VPL-VW50 is an excellent excellent projector. You can’t go wrong buying this thing, just remember to turn off the OverScan feature.

Sony VPL-VW50 “Pearl” Projector SXRD Projector

Engadget HD recently took a good long look at the Panasonic PT-AX100U LCD projector. Remember that this projector is the successor to the successful PT-AE900U, and has a resolution of 1280 x 720, horizontal and vertical lens shift, and a 2x zoom lens.

Those Engadget HD folks don’t beat around the bush, either. They say right up front that they like this projector, and think that it’s one of the best bargains to be had at the $3k (MSRP) price point. The projector has an amazing picture, no screen door effect, and of course an HDMI input. What more could you want?

Check out the full review below.

Engadget HD Review: Panasonic PT-AX100U