Prysm pitches ultra-green laser telly tech

US company Prysm has taken the covers off what it claims is a new type of ultra-low power HD TV that combines old-style CRT elements with laser technology.

Called Laser Phosphor Display (LPD), the system replaces a CRT's electron beam with a directed laser beam. The phosphor-coated screen that's excited by the beam to emit visible light has been upgraded to HD resolution too.

The upshot, Prysm claims, is a telly that uses up 75 per cent less power than "other display technologies". It's probably thinking of plasma, but while the improvement over OLED and LCD will be less marked, LPD could well prove more power efficient nonetheless.

"Prysm's LPDs are made with low-impact manufacturing processes and non-toxic materials. This translates into the lowest cost of ownership and carbon footprint of any large format display," the company claimed.

"Overall, the lifecycle carbon footprint for LPD displays is 80 per cent lower than other display technologies."

Prysm also said LPD makes for long lasting screens which, because it has build auto-calibration into the system, should be able to show the same gamut of colours "for years".

As with CRTs, the image produced by LPDs will be bright, with a high degree of contrast and none of the motion blur you get with LCDs - though this is being much reduced by the used of 100Hz and 200Hz frame interpolation techniques.

Prysm is pitching LPD for large-size screens, but the company stressed that the technology is applicable to displays of any size.

The use of lasers in TVs is nothing new. Mitsubishi, for one, has been working on using laser as a light source for LCDs, while other companies use laser light to illuminate LCoS (Liquid Crystal on Silicon) and DLP (Digital Light Projection). However, Prysm's technology appears to be the first to use laser light to activate a phosphor screen.

Prysm didn't say when the first displays based on its technology will debut. ®