Mitsubishi Digital Electronics America, Inc. Announces Retail Availability of World's First Laser-Based Television

[Shane]

Mitsubishi Digital Electronics America, Inc. today announced the beginning of the laser era and the immediate availability of the world's first, laser-powered television. The Mitsubishi LaserVue(TM) 65" model is now being sold for $6,999 at select specialty retailers nationwide. After months of anticipation, many consumers nationally have already purchased LaserVue and have had the rare opportunity to experience the amazing breadth and depth of color that laser television offers. LaserVue has been introduced as the most energy efficient large-format, high-definition television available on the market today. LaserVue not only delivers two times the color(1) of many of today's HDTVs, but it also uses exponentially less power(2) than LCD and plasma TVs.

LaserVue's technology is...

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[stevekaden]

Being an RPTV owner and wanting to maybe go to a 3D capable set, I rushed out to have a short viewing of one of these sets at the local Ken Crane's. It has a great crisp image, strong colors and just terrible speckling.

If you've ever seen laser light, that sparkling aspect is very obvious in the solid colors, especially lighter colors - and this was in a daylight and flourescent filled room. I'd anticipate it to be stronger at night. Reds were especially driven, nice to watch, but once noticed they seemed to dominate the view.

I would recommend that all of you that are interested see this set - but I would suggest that maybe it's too early for this technology.

[magicpwr]

Thanks for the post.

[aaronstout]

I don't understand the value of this part of their claimed "improvement". I've been looking a long time at buying a front projection unit and most front projectors on the market today already "exceed" the gamut of the standards, but this causes color error and cartoon looking movies and sunburned faces, etc. It would seem that having a color gamut that exactly matches the standards would be what a consumer would want.

I understand that having this range would be beneficial if later a standard was developed so that the source material was encoded with this range of colors and then reproduced by a technology like this, but the way things are, I just don't get the point...

I was looking forward to this products release, but I think the pricing will kill this product. There is too much competition for this size and a dramatic decline in interest in RPTV. I was hoping this technology would breath life into RPTV and maybe have a place in my home. But, I would have a serious issue making such an investment in such a new technology on the first release. I remember reading all the horror reports of light engine failures on Mits first DLP sets, which were listed in the $10K range when they first came out.

I was hoping it would be competively priced and that sales would spur other CEs to move in this direction. But at this price point I don't see that happening... especially if the picture suffers from the sparklies and the color gamut results in anything less than near perfect color reproduction. I already have issues watching HD on my Mits RPTV (old CRT) with excessive color saturation on many program sources.

AaronS

[Richard]

If you've ever seen laser light, that sparkling aspect is very obvious in the solid colors, especially lighter colors - and this was in a daylight and flourescent filled room.

The fresnel screen on this product floats inside the cabinet and is set into an orbital motion to prevent the artifacts you describe; it has shipping screws around the frame on the back that must be released.

I have never seen one yet so I don't know if sparkles are part and parcel of a properly setup and operating unit.

I already have issues watching HD on my Mits RPTV (old CRT) with excessive color saturation on many program sources.

Your product can't suffer from an extended color gamut because it does not have one; it meets HDTV BT709 specs. On the other hand the color decoder is notorious for red push and until that is corrected (if it can be corrected - would need the model number) it won't look right and if you set color and tint on the blue channel with a calibration disc the red color channel will be too much.

[stevekaden]

I'll stop by the store and ask them...I instinctively don't get how a moving lens would mitigate that, maybe it moves the speckles and the eye blends them??? I'll let you know if I learn anything more - but I am dealing with a salesman who's more into stories than tech!