Sony's Black Screens May Brighten Business
In TV technology, everything is changing fast. Fat tubes are being replaced by flat screens, square screens by movie-style rectangles and standard pictures by high definition.
And now, white projection screens are being challenged by dark ones.
In apparent defiance of color theory -- that dark surfaces absorb light and white surfaces reflect it -- Sony Corp. has unveiled a black screen that allows a regular digital projector to vividly display TV images and business presentations in a brightly lit room. It continues a trend that began two years ago when Stewart Filmscreen Corp., a leading U.S. maker of screens, began selling a light-gray screen that enhanced the images from projectors using digital chips.
Tokyo-based Sony showed a 160-inch-diagonal version of the screen last week at the Infocomm trade show in Atlanta, after showing 80- and 100-inch versions in a living-room mockup at an industry conference in Seattle three weeks ago. At both events, it made a splash.
"No other technology attracted so many people to stand around and look at it and say 'Wow,' " Richard Doherty of Seaford, N.Y., consultants Envisioneering Group, says of the Seattle demonstration.
Sony hasn't decided when to begin selling the screen, how to price it, where to sell it first or whether to let other manufacturers use the technology. Sony has both commercial and consumer versions of the screen in the works.
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"It is an elegant solution to an irritating problem, which is the need to have a dark room for projectors," says Jean-Pierre Guillou, an engineer at Sony's display-research lab in San Diego, who was involved in the screen's development.
Sony engineers worked from the basic principle that projectors, like all TVs and monitors, form colors by blending three primary hues: red, green and blue. They came up with a filter that allows the screen to reflect only red, green and blue light. The other light in a room, such as white incandescent or fluorescent bulbs, isn't reflected.
In a bright room, the image on the screen is brighter and shows greater contrast than it would on a white screen. There is no difference in a dark room.
The new screen could increase the popularity of video projectors for home use at a time when the TV market is already being shaken up by fast growth in flat-screen liquid-crystal display and plasma models. If it is priced competitively, it could change buying habits, since consumers could get a much bigger image for about the same money.
Sales of projectors for both business and home use are already growing strongly because of the change to digital technology. Microchips have replaced bulky tubes inside projectors in recent years, shrinking the size and weight of the machines. Some weigh less than two pounds and are popular with traveling executives making presentations from laptop computers.
Consumer sales escalated last year when prices for the small projectors fell below $1,000. In the fourth quarter, consumers accounted for 58% of the sales of sub-$1,000 projectors in the U.S., up from 48% in the third quarter, according to a report released this month by market researcher Pacific Media Associates. The company forecasts sales of 3.6 million video projectors world-wide this year, up from 2.5 million last year.
Since Thomas Edison introduced motion-picture projectors more than 100 years ago, movies have been shown on white screens in dark theaters. When projector TVs emerged in the 1970s, optical engineers began working on ideas to maximize the light a screen reflects from a projector and minimize what it reflects from other sources of light in a room. One of the first big-screen projection TVs, developed by U.S. audio-video entrepreneur Henry Kloss, had a parabolic screen to defray ambient light.
Two years ago, Stewart Filmscreen, Torrance, Calif., developed its light-gray screen, GrayHawk, to boost the contrast of digital projectors in home theaters. Several other screen makers followed. Last year, Stewart produced a dark-gray version, FireHawk, that sharply reduces the impact of ambient light. Customer response to the screen "has been overwhelming," says Stewart's Andrew Cox.
The key to the Sony screen's success will be pricing. While basic projector screens for schools and offices are available for as little as $80, those designed for home theaters typically start at around $500 and can rise above $2,000. The retail price of a 100-inch version of Stewart's FireHawk screen is $1,700.
But many consumers won't spend more on a screen than a projector, according to Pacific Media analyst Tom Edwards, who says Sony may try to price its new screen at around $500.
索尼推出黑色投影屏 或为其业务增光添彩
电视技术的发展可谓是日新月异，球面显像管正被平面显示屏取而代之，正方形显示屏正被电影式的宽屏显示屏取代，标准图像正被高清晰图像替代。
白色投影屏正面临来自于黑色投影屏的挑战。
索尼公司(Sony Corp., 又名:新力公司)已经推出黑色投影屏，凭藉这种投影屏，普通数字投影仪可在明亮的房间里逼真地显示电视图像及商业展示，这公然挑战黑色表面吸光而白色表面反光的色彩理论。两年前，美国主要屏幕制造商Stewart Filmscreen Corp.开始销售淡灰色屏幕，这种屏幕提高了数字晶片投影仪的图像质量。
在亚特兰大上周举行的Infocomm展览会上，索尼展示了对角线为160英寸的黑色投影屏，在西雅图3周前举行的行业会议上，索尼在模拟的起居室里展示了80英寸和100英寸黑色投影屏。两次展示均引起轰动。
咨询公司Envisioneering Group的理查德?多赫迪(Richard Doherty)在谈及索尼西雅图的展示时说，没有其他一项技术吸引过如此众多的人驻足观看，并啧啧惊叹。
索尼尚未决定黑色投影屏的销售时间、定价、首先投放哪个市场及是否允许其他制造商使用此项技术。索尼计划生产黑色投影屏的商用和家用两种版本。
索尼驻圣地牙哥显示器研究实验室工程师琼-皮埃尔?桂娄(Jean-Pierre Guillou)参与了黑色投影屏的研发，她说，投影仪需要暗室才能工作的问题令人苦恼，而黑色投影屏则为此问题提供了理想的解决方案。
投影仪和所有电视机和显示器一样，都是通过混合红、绿、蓝三种基本色调形成各种各样的色彩，从这个基本原理出发，索尼工程师们研制出一种滤光器，使屏幕仅仅反射红光、绿光和蓝光，而不反射房间内的其他光线，例如白炽灯或荧光灯的灯光。
在明亮的房间里，与白色投影屏相比，黑色投影屏上的图像更加明亮、对比更加鲜明，在暗室里的效果则没有任何差别。
平面液晶显示器及等离子模式的飞速发展已经显著改变了电视机市场的格局，而黑色投影屏可提高视频投影仪的家庭普及程度。如果黑色投影屏的定价具有竞争力，它能够改变大众的消费习惯，因为消费者花费同样的钱可以获得更大的图像。
数字技术的变化已经推动商业和家庭型投影仪的销售强劲增长。最近几年中，投影仪中的庞大显像管已被微晶片取而代之，从而导致投影仪的体积和重量锐减。一些投影仪的重量不足两镑，深受经常进行商务旅行的管理人士的喜爱，他们可以通过便携式电脑进行演示。
去年小型投影仪的售价降至1,000美元之下，从而推动家庭型投影仪销售加速增长。根据市场研究公司Pacific Media Associates本月公布的报告，去年第四季度，美国家庭型投影仪在售价不足1,000美元的投影仪销售额中所占的比重达58%，高于第三季度的48%。该公司预计，今年视频投影仪在全球范围内的销量可达360万台，高于去年的250万台。
自美国发明家爱迪生(Thomas Edison)在100多年前发明动画投影仪以来，电影一直在漆黑的电影院里的白色银幕上放映。二十世纪七十年代，投影电视诞生，光学工程师便开始致力于将屏幕反射的投影仪光线最大化，而将屏幕反射的室内其他渠道的光线最小化。美国音频视频企业家亨利?科罗斯(Henry Kloss)研制成功的大屏幕投影电视装有减弱周围光线的抛物面状的屏幕。
两年前，Stewart Filmscreen研制出淡灰色屏幕GrayHawk，提高家庭影院中数字投影仪的对比度。其他几家屏幕制造商效仿其作法。Stewart去年生产了深灰色屏幕FireHawk，大大降低了周围光线的影响程度。Stewart的安德鲁?考科斯(Andrew Cox)表示，用户们对这种深灰色屏幕的反应极其热烈。
索尼黑色投影屏能否成功的关键在于定价。尽管教学和办公投影屏的价格最低可达80美元，但是家庭影院投影屏的起价约为500美元，最高可升至2,000美元之上。Stewart生产的FireHawk 100英寸投影屏的零售价为1,700美元。
不过Pacific Media分析师汤姆?艾德华(Tom Edwards)表示，许多消费者在投影屏上的花费不会超过投影仪，他说，索尼黑色投影屏的定价可能约为500美元。
