The shape of things to come

15 December 2007

Mitsubishi looks to the past for the future of television, says Peter Taylor

Figures from GfK, the research group, show that in the year to October, LCD televisions dominated the British market, with consumers forking out £2.98bn ($6.15bn, €4.19bn) for about 6.1m sets. That compared with sales of 1.5m traditional cathode ray units, about 600,000 plasma televisions and just 20,000 rear-projection televisions.

The bulky nature of traditional rear-projection units has no doubt hampered their appeal in a market obsessed with slender, space-saving technology. Laser technology allows televisions thinner than traditional rear-projection models, but early estimates are that manufacturers will still struggle to produce large-screen laser televisions much thinner than about 20cm. Mitsubishi has argued the televisions will have a lower centre of gravity and thus “provide a more compact footprint” than plasma and LCD units, which, stand-mounted, require depths of up to 38cm for a 127cm (50in) screen.

There are other benefits to laser technology, though, beyond superior colour definition. Australian technology company Arasor International and its American partner Novalux, which produced a prototype laser television last year, claim the TVs will be far more energy-efficient than conventional plasma and LCD units.

The components will be particularly durable and, produced on a mass scale, they should also prove cheaper. Novalux chief Jean-Michel Pelaprat said at the time of unveiling the prototype that laser technology would allow television with 90% of the colour content the eye can see, compared with about one third available with any mass-market televisions now.

Other businesses are also in on the act. QPC Lasers, an American manufacturer, last week announced it had secured an $11m contract, with an unnamed partner, to develop and deliver lasers for TVs over three years. The partner is not necessarily Mitsubishi; other names, including Samsung, have been linked to the market though the list is short. While the QPC contract is small, it also provides for an exclusive supply relationship worth up to $230m over 10 years, depending on the success of the end product.

Mitsubishi has, in the last two years, been bullish in its assessment of the market for laser TV. Frank DeMartin, the vice president of marketing and development at Mitsubishi Digital Electronics America, has said the group will unveil a large-screen laser television at the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show next month. He told the New York Times in June that the TV would “spawn a new category for the premium end of the market”.

The product Mitsubishi unveils next month will go some way to revealing whether he is right. Nonetheless, the historical list of products that have failed despite being technically superior to their rivals is long. The question is whether the image quality is so detectably superior that it can woo consumers back to the rear-projection market.

While Mitsubishi clearly believes so, in a marketplace already spoilt for choice, with prices rapidly falling and at a time when consumers have all but turned their backs on rear-projection, its investment appears foolhardy indeed.