Newsgroup: it.hobby.home-cinema
Titolo: LCOS

By JVC:
Just relax and look at the pretty pictures, and let the D-ILA light
engine in JVC's 61-inch HD-61Z795 rear-projection HDTV handle the
rest. D-ILA stands for Direct-drive Image Light Amplifier (more
commonly called LCoS, for liquid crystal on silicon), which has three
chips for rendering images at 1,280 x 720-pixel resolution. The fine
spacing between individual pixels is said to create a smoother image
than other types of fixed-pixel TVs. Plus the TV has all the latest
HDTV perks: a built-in tuner for receiving high-def programs over the
air, a slot for a CableCARD — which you'd lease from your cable
provider — for unscrambling premium channels without a cable box, and
both HDMI (High Definition Multimedia Interface) and FireWire inputs
for digital video and audio signals.
Philips
LCoS (liquid crystal on silicon) TV technology is alive and well in
Philips's Cineos lineup, including the 55-inch 55PL9774
rear-projection HDTV monitor (you'll need a separate high-def tuner).
An LCoS display has smaller spaces between pixels than in other types
of fixed-pixel TVs, so pictures look smoother. The 55-inch Cineos has
a resolution of 1,280 x 720 pixels and features proprietary Pixel Plus
technology, said to improve standard-definition video by upconverting
it to high-def resolution. You can hook up high-def sources to the
set's DVI (Digital Visual Interface), VGA, or two component-video
inputs, and dual analog TV tuners let you watch two standard-def shows
at once.
Questo mese da sound&vision.
-- 
Ciao
Berry
HiFi Home Theater Forum: 
http://www.forumcommunity.net/?c=7926
N.1 HiFi www:
soundberry.com
,Alexa certified.Site & Forum di Best Buy per Cinema e Musica in casa:selezioni,review,test in raffronto diretto,scritte da utenti.
Sebbene queste siano le mie piu' sincere opinioni di appassionato, sono un commerciante.Non basatevi solo su queste affermazioni ma ascoltate sempre in raffronto diretto prima di acquistare.

 wrote:
By Theater Mag:
The Philips Cineos is more than just a new TV, however. The display
utilizes a relatively new technology called Liquid Crystal on Silicon
(LCOS), which creates an image in a display that's about half as deep
as a typical CRT-based rear-projection system. LCOS is like a cross
between liquid crystal display (LCD) and Digital Light Processing
(DLP). Like LCD, LCOS uses millions of crystals to create the picture.
Like DLP, the crystals in an LCOS display are reflective, not
transmissive. So, rather than shining through the crystals, the light
in an LCOS display reflects off of the crystals' surfaces and toward
the screen. If a pixel needs to be bright, its crystal is reflective;
if a pixel needs to be dark, its crystal becomes clear, allowing the
light to pass through it and into an absorber. Compared with DLP, LCOS
is tougher to manufacture in quantity, but it can create a similarly
high-resolution display with an equally tight pixel structure. The
Cineos' 1,280:720 resolution makes it high-definition-capable. 
To go up against the competition, the Cineos 44PL977S uses more than
just high-definition resolution. In addition to the TV's slim, sleek,
silver cabinet design, Philips has added a host of other
consumer-friendly features, like a DVI input with HDCP. This is just
one of seven inputs that the display offers. Others include three
basic audio and video inputs that also provide S-video connections,
one of which offers an interlaced-only component DVD connection. An
RGB input and two more component inputs are geared toward interlaced,
progressive, and high-definition video. An RF input accepts signals
from your antenna or cable system, and a single A/V monitor output
lets you run the signal to another piece of equipment. Last but not
least, the TV's front panel sports an A/V input with S-video, ready
and waiting for your Xbox or PlayStation console. The latter console
is a perfect companion, given this set's lack of burn-in. You should
be able to connect nearly anything and everything to this display. 
Having a number of inputs may not do you much good, though, if you
can't optimize the picture for each source. Fortunately, with this
display, you can optimize the picture, and you'll want to. My review
sample wasn't well optimized at the factory (at least not for a decent
picture). Both dark and light images lacked detail, there was a fair
amount of video noise, and the picture had a number of motion
artifacts. It doesn't help that several of the preset picture-control
preferences exacerbate the issues. Philips claims that they've
resolved these issues and that the final production units have
improved factory settings. 
While I haven't seen the final settings, I do know that careful tuning
will improve the picture immensely, but I'll get to that in a moment.
First, you'll find that it's difficult to use the otherwise attractive
remote and onscreen interface, due to the abundance of so-called
international symbols and some oddly labeled menu functions. While
people in the European community might consider an arrow pointing into
a box to be an icon for input selection, to this average lug-like
reviewer, it might as well be an Egyptian hieroglyph. Even when you
figure out what they do, most of the remote functions seem to be
toggle controls. This means that a single button will cycle through
various inputs, aspect-ratio options, or on and off commands, which
makes it difficult to set up macro-based remote-control systems.
According to Philips, the toggle controls contain all of the necessary
discrete commands that you'd want, but you might need several NASA
engineers or lots of trial and error to figure out how to dissect the
IR stream. Fortunately, newer Philips Pronto Pro remotes come with
discrete codes for this TV, and users of older Pronto models will
eventually be able to download the codes from Philips' Website. If you
use another similar remote, you might find it easier to cozy up to a
friend who has a Pronto. 
The Cineos has reasonable contrast and produces an extremely bright
image, assuming that you consider 100 foot-Lamberts to be bright. You
should, since the average movie theater puts out about 10 to 11 ft-L
on a really good day with a film running through the projector and the
wind at its back. You could probably watch this TV out by the side of
your pool in the middle of the afternoon, although I haven't tried it.
(Just because I review TVs for a living doesn't mean I lounge around
all of the time.) The picture might even look better with some lights
on, as the black level is a bit high, which makes images look slightly
washed out. The Cineos' picture looks no more washed out than those of
many LCD displays, though, and it has a much tighter pixel structure
than comparable-resolution LCD monitors. The latter feature gives the
picture a smooth, realistic look (I hate to use the word filmlike,
given how crappy film can look in the average theater). 
After I tuned the picture further, the Cineos had good color fidelity.
The set has a reasonably good color decoder that lets you crank the
color saturation without making images look cartoonish or faces look
sunburned. With composite test signals, the decent comb filter helped
sharpen the borders between colors. This effect was less apparent with
regular video material, though. Before professional tweaking, the low
color-temperature setting is the most accurate, and it was good enough
for most of my viewing. In this setting, images are reasonably
neutral; only the brightest and darkest images show a hint of blue
tint. Of all of the errors to make, this is the most innocuous. (See
the measurements box for post-calibration results.) Overall, the TV's
color fidelity is good, and individual, fully saturated red, green,
and blue images look vivid without seeming unnatural. 
The display's video processor is both its weakest and its strongest
link. The processor is slow to pick up film-originated material's 3:2
sequence, but it will do so eventually. While the resulting image
lacks 3:2-based artifacts, it includes some new ones of its own. The
most noticeable is a flickering of fine, diagonal details. This
doesn't come up all of the time; when it does, however, it can be
distracting. Then again, if you connect a progressive-scan DVD player
or an external processor, the image will look outstanding. While most
TVs still add some artifacts to the incoming progressive signal, the
Cineos doesn't. On the flip side, the display includes Pixel Plus,
Philip's proprietary motion-compensation algorithm that does a
phenomenal job of eliminating motion jitter. Moving images have an
incredible fluidity that makes film-based material look almost like
original high-definition video. This may bother people who like the
way film's altered frame rate (24 frames per second converted to 30
frames per second) looks on a video display, but I think it's
fantastic. I wish Philips would license this technology. 
My preproduction sample had a few other anomalies that I wouldn't
expect to see in the final product. If they are there, though, you
won't have any problem noticing them, as they're extremely obvious.
For one, the image has a fixed-pattern video noise that includes a
streak down the middle of the screen. If I didn't know better, I'd
think the screen was scratched. The display also had more difficulty
processing video-sourced 480i signals through the wideband (high-def)
inputs than it did through the interlaced-only component connection. 
Overall, LCOS is an intriguing technology and is sure to give
DLP-based displays a run for their money. It has a good base to work
from in the Cineos 44PL977S, which also has a number of unique
features coupled with a few distractions. You should definitely try it
before you buy it. If nothing else, Pixel Plus tops the list of
bonuses, providing a smooth, lifelike picture. In and of itself, Pixel
Plus makes this set worth experiencing
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 wrote:
I have been watching the LCOS products for a while as well. I believe
the Phillips is based on a single silicon panel, where others are
using three (red, green, and blue) LCOS panels.
These are also differing in resolution. I see that Briilian intends to
market a 720p version initally, and a 1080p model later. Both of these
will use the three panel design. I think the big LCOS Mitsubishi uses
three as well. I read somewhere that the Brillian HDTV's might be
private branded by Sears.
I am not sure how the Phillips derives color, but I would guess it
would be something along the lines of the DLP color wheel - just
guessing. Some people see screen artifacts on these that are supposed
to be eliminated with the three panel displays.
Intel is now wanting to supply LCOS panels as well that we may see by
next year. This is supposed to make them more competative. Hopefully
the resolution will be at the original 1920x1080 for the new panels. I
read somewhere that the JVC DILA's are somewhat less than this, but
have not seen it myself.
I am just hoping to find the right fit for me - I can't hold out much
longer!
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 wrote:
City of Industry, CA - August 24, 2004 - Delivering on its mission to
mass produce fully-featured digital convergence consumer electronics
products with market-leading low prices, Syntax Groups Corporation*, a
complete vertically-integrated R&D, manufacturing and channel sales
company, today announced the availability of its first Olevia* LCOS
(liquid crystal on silicon) technology rear projection TV (RPTV),
end-user priced at an extremely affordable $2,799 including free
first-year onsite warranty service. Syntax unveils its new Olevia LCOS
TV this week at the HDTV Forum 2004 industry conference in Los
Angeles.
Its lightweight widescreen design enables the Olevia LCOS TV to
complement nearly any home entertainment configuration. Weighing only
118 lbs., the Olevia 50-inch LCOS TV is packaged in an attractive
black cabinet measuring 47.31 inches (W) x 39.3 inches (H) x 19.29
inches (D).
Building on the success of its high value, affordably priced Olevia
brand of HD-ready LCD TVs, the new Syntax Olevia 50-inch LCOS RPTV
incorporates a three-panel subsystem (R,G,B) that allows excellent
color reproduction and vivid images with an remarkable 1400 x 1050
pixel resolution. Utilizing a 1080i HDTV format with true 720P images,
the Olevia 50-inch LCOS TV consists of liquid crystals on silicon,
acting like tiny mirrors, with a highly reflective aluminum coating.
When light passes through the glass panels to the lens, it is either
reflected or blocked, thereby modulating the light to produce bright,
crisp, clear, stunning images under any room lighting environment. 
The richly-appointed Olevia LCOS TV features a 1388 x 780 native
resolution (1920 x 1200 under DVI and 1280 x 1024 under VGA), 16:9
aspect ratio, a typical 1000:1 contrast ratio, 1,000 Nits brightness
with preset and adjustable modes, progressive scanning (YPbPr), 3:2
pull down, a wide 170/170 horizontal viewing angle, and 3D digital
comb filter for sharp images without a "grid" effect. The Olevia LCOS
TV includes NTSC signal support, noise reduction, five positions of
Picture-in-Picture with three enlargement settings, DVI/HDCP inputs
for compatibility with current video equipment, and two 25W audio
speakers for surround sound. In addition to the Olevia's component
inputs (YCbCr and YPbPr), it has a VGA port for connecting the TV to a
computer for a 50-inch multimedia display ideal for use in corporate
boardrooms. The Olevia LCOS TV is energy efficient with its low power
consumption, and a 120W lamp gives the consumer approximately 10,000
hours of durable entertainment life. 
"Leveraging the combined expertise of Taiwan panel technologies and
Japanese optical engine design, Syntax Groups, with our partner Taiwan
Kolin, has achieved mass production quantities of the Olevia LCOS TV,
and can offer it at the most affordable price in the U.S. market,"
said James Li, CEO of Syntax Groups. "As with our value-priced Olevia
LCD TVs, our new LCOS TV further demonstrates Syntax' commitment to
producing digital entertainment products with the best specifications
and low consumer pricing."
Syntax to Add 63-inch LCOS
In Q1 2005, Syntax Groups will introduce the second member of its
mass-produced Olevia LCOS TV line, a 63-inch model with true 1080P
images and 1500:1 contrast ratio, end-used priced below $5,000. 
About Syntax Groups
Headquartered in Southern California, Syntax Groups Corporation
(
www.syntaxgroups.com
) is a complete vertically integrated R&D,
manufacturing and channel sales company of high value consumer
electronics and computer technology convergence products for the
post-PC era. Syntax currently sells its full-featured 20-inch ($649),
27-inch ($1299) and 30-inch ($1699) Olevia LCD TVs though a growing
channel network of consumer-direct online partners, and regional and
national retail stores. Syntax Groups maintains a competitive
advantage over global brands due to its technology and engineering,
lower prices, lower cost infrastructure, rapid channel distribution,
and quick response to market dynamics. Through its joint venture
company, DigiMedia (
www.digimedia.com.tw
), formed in Taiwan with
Taiwan Kolin Company (TSE 
1606.TW
, 
www.kolin.com.tw
), Syntax Groups
controls a powerful end-to-end supply chain including R&D and
manufacturing of backlights for its LCD TVs, optical engines for LCOS
TVs, a strategic relationship with Chi Mei Optoelectronics (TSE
3009.TW
, 
www.cmo.com.tw
) for Olevia's high-grade LCD panels, mass
production manufacturing of LCD TVs and LCOS TVs, quality control,
channel sales, marketing and distribution with a solid back-end
customer support program. 
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