CES 2006 Summary (page 3)

Onto the front projection/flat screen displays that I saw. I’ll type some more here as I know a bit more about it. I’ll be updating the CRT FAQ page shortly to update the scoop in digital inputs and signals, currently not covered. I’ll assume that you know what most of the terms that I’ll throw around below are, if not, please do a bit of research on the web, there’s lots out there. I should have the FAQ update done by the end of January 2006.

DLP- I have found that I simply cannot watch any single chip DLP sets. I see rainbows in even the highest end single chip DLP sets. It gives me a headache in a short period of time and I get nauseous. I went to several different setups at CES and had to leave them within 10 minutes. Now, I apparently fall into anywhere between 10-30% of people that see rainbows or get headaches. It’s prudent to say that if you’re considering buying a DLP projector or flat screen to get all members of your family to watch the image for ½ hour if possible to make sure you’re happy with the image. No sense in buying something if a member of the family can’t watch it.

There were large booths and displays by Texas Instruments, the makers of the DLP chips. Optoma had good displays of a range of DLP projectors, ranging from under $2K to the new 1080p unit retailing for around $10K. Again, these were all single chip DLP’s, and I saw rainbows, albeit slight on the 7X color wheel. The color rendition was good, and assuming that you can’t see rainbows, the picture was otherwise pleasing for most of these sets. Here’s a blurred shot of the Optoma booth, or at least part of it.

My hand shows how small some of these projectors really are now! Most of these tiny units are not worthy of serious projection or brightness, but at the size, you can take it camping!

The above Optoma unit has a built in DVD player in it. It was shown at their booth. It’s again, not a very serious projector for home theater use, but showed a good image for casual use and for the kids on ‘movie night’. Retail is somewhere in the entry level price range I believe.

Here’s a pix of the Texas Instrument booth. I had to leave, the rainbows drove me nuts!

LCD- There were of course a whole bunch of LCD projectors and panels on display. One brand that I had not heard of that looked pretty good for an unknown (to me) brand was Klaum. I have no idea who distributes it, but it was one of the better looking units.

All of the major Japanese name brands were there, and in general all of them looked good. Again, LCD and all digital technology cannot compete with the silky smooth image of a CRT (in my opinion), but for a flat screen they can look pretty decent.

Above is one of the Hitachi units.

Epson had some interesting units. The below unit had a surface area of a post card. I didn’t see a displayed image but tiny units are out there.

I felt that the Epson LCD screen was one of the better images at the show. It was very crisp, and very little video noise was seen:

Of course there were some flawed sets at CES. Why this manufacturer even bothered turning on this mis-converged LCD unit is beyond me. The red flaring was even more apparent in person:

Plasma- I’m not overly fond of plasma TV’s at all. I find the image to be iffy at best. I heard one sales rep tell a customer that plasma static image burn in is a myth, which of course is bunk. The Panasonic rep that I talked to said it better. The current generation of plasmas are more resistant to static image burn in than earlier versions, so under normal consumer use it should not be an issue. Kudos to the Panasonic rep being truthful!

My CES 2006 Summary (Page 3)