Arasor Laser TV – plasma killer or hype?

24 Oct 06 22:14 by Crabbyappleton in category Uncategorized To news archive

I got pretty excited a couple weeks ago, when the Internet lit up with a new technology, called “laser TV” that promised 4 times the performance of plasma sets at half the cost. So, I keep checking on it, to see what’s cooking. However, it is beginning to look like there could be a problem. Arasor claimed the tech was developed with help of several companies including Mitsubishi…so how come Mitsubishi never heard of them?

Mitsubishi claims it was not even invited to the launch in Australia, despite the fact that a Mitsubishi screen was used in the demo. Interestingly, no one was allowed to see the inner workings of the set. Mitsubishi is claiming in this article at SmartHouse, they have “no knowledge” of any laser TV product. Repeated calls by journalists to several Arasor directors, asking for interviews, have have also gone unanswered. It can be looked at as rather odd for a company that is trying to raise capital, to ignore media requests. Maybe they need an office?

src="http://www.cdfreaks.com/contentimages/newsimages/1188866118" align=right border=0
>Ironically Arasor is trying to raise $35 million from investors in Australia despite the Company having no development office in Australia. 

Paul Caldarera, the National Sales and marketing at Mitsubishi said “The first we heard of the laser TV concept was when we read about it online in the Australian national media. One would have expected that the Managing Director of Mitsubishi would have been invited especially as the directors of Novalux and Arasor were in Australia announcing a TV breakthrough that involved Mitsubishi”

“We don’t know where they got the Mitsubishi screen from and no one in Mitsubishi seems to know anything about Laser TV which is extremely unusual as we are often told by parent Mitsubishi Companies of activities in Australia involving Mitsubishi”.

Further scanning of the Internet, reveals a bit of a problem as well, as it seems the major manufacturers, if they had heard of laser TV, have no intention of giving up plasma for quite some time. In fact, they say it may be years, if ever, we see such a device reach the consumer level. Below is a quote from the Sydney Morning Herald article entitled: Laser is no “Plasma Killer”.

“Four major TV manufacturers – Fujitsu, Pioneer, Samsung and Philips – have said they have no immediate plans to incorporate laser TV into their product lines, having already made significant investments in plasma and LCD.”

This is certainly discouraging news, as it would be nice to have a technology that is flat like a plasma and able to be hung on a wall, but had the impressive specs of twice the color depth touted by Arasor. Not to mention at 30-40% the manufacturing cost!

If you like to wish, you can wish that Arasor co-director Larry Marshall, can keep his word, and we will be able to see working sets at this years CES. Marshall told The Sydney Herald: “by CES [Consumer Electronics Show] next year in January, there’ll be eight different manufacturers, including the major ones, with laser TVs on display.”

I hope they (Mitsubishi, Fujitsu, Pioneer, Samsung and Philips at least) are just keeping this all a big secret from us and will surprise us all at CES with the Plasma Killers!

Source: Various

7 Comments

jwill427
Posts: 1271
Posted on: 24 Oct 06 22:27
damn
shimman
Posts: 596
Posted on: 25 Oct 06 00:56
laser tv seems like nothing more than a replacement light source for the projection tv. because it's not white color source, the colors will be brighter, but i am skeptic whether it would be better than lcd with led (or even laser) light source. samsung just showed off another prototype oled monitor (17" with 1600*1200 resolution, but without full 24bit colors) which was very bright & sharp while the thickness was only 12mm i don't think laser tv is an revolutionary technology, but it will just improve the existing tv sets
ivid
Posts: 405
Posted on: 25 Oct 06 07:15
Ugggh .. it wouldn't have been cheaper. No way a better technology sells for less when its 1st launched. If its lighter, thinner and has a far better picture then its also going to be far more expensive than competition, guaranteed. Who cares if it cost less to make, TV's are marked up SO much from cost.
Shadowman69
Posts: 155
Posted on: 25 Oct 06 08:39
IT'S VAPOURWARE! When I read the first post about this "new technology I did a research on the internet to get more technical info and I found nothing at all... So I wen to the Arasor web site and I found only a brief page with less than nothing info about this technology but a stupid page. For me it's a vopourware worse than the Phantom Console... Maybe you can do a TV using laser but they will probably end with nothing...
Dennis_Olof
Posts: 168
Posted on: 25 Oct 06 17:45
Even if laser TV is true or not, we will have to see. And as someone else said, only sounds like a better version of a backprojected TV. What is COMMING and is allready close is the technology SED-TV, it is just like regular TV but flat. Now we can have the best of both worlds. Here is more information: http://www.hdtvsolutions.com/sed_tvs.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SED-tv http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/ sed-tv.htm
heroineworshipper
Posts: 41
Posted on: 27 Oct 06 04:33
Arasor is a funny name for a company. Is it American? My ass gets sore just thinking about it.
Hemispasm
Posts: 5273
Posted on: 30 Oct 06 10:01
What does arasor mean anyways? Cant find it anywhere.

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