benefit of 3 LCD panels? (1 Viewer)

[Ted Lee]

hi all -

i noticed sony is really touting the 3lcd thing ... the sony website says:but that really doesn't explain how it works.

so is this really a benefit of some sort or just a marketing thing? i thought i read somewhere that all lcd rptv's are three panel (or something like that)???

thanks!

ted

 

[Allan Jayne]

It's mostly marketing hype. All current LCD RPTV's use this 3 panel technology. A long time ago there were single LCD panels with side by side pixels with tiny red, green, and blue dots to cover them. I once owned a (front) projector with this technology and the picture was very grainy

How the 3 panel system works is that three sub-images, red, green, and blue, are superimposed on the screen. The projection lamp beam is split three ways using a prism and mirrors to go through the three postage stamp sized LCD panels respectively and then the beams are recombined.

The comparison is against the single panel system used for DLP requireing a color wheel and where some viewers notice rainbow fringing, and also against plasma and direct view LCD where the red, green, and blue pixels are side by side exhibiting graininess if you sit really close.

Video hints:
http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/video.htm

 

[ChrisWiggles]

This is just marketing bologna. All LCDs use 3 panels, otherwise it would be monochrome. HAve for many many years.

It's really just marketing lingo to try to pump things up, sort of in the way 3-chip DLP does. However, 3-chip DLP does provide advantages because a lot of DLPs are single-chip displays. Pretty mucvh every LCD has been 3-panel LCD since forever, so it's kind of like marketing CRT RPTVs all of the sudden as 3-CRT RPTV. Well, duh!

However, don't take this to mean that LCDs aren't fine displays, just that calling them 3-LCD all of a sudden is like selling cars as 4-tire vehicles all of the sudden.