Originally Posted by a broke guy

In a recent interview with the New York Times, Mitsubishi's vice president for marketing Frank DeMartin, revealed that his company will be showing off its very own laser TV at CES 2008.

In the interview, Mr. DeMartin explained that "[Laser TVs] will spawn a new category for the premium end of the market."

While some believe lasers will supplant UHP lamps as the medium of choice for HDTVs, I don't. Although current HDTVs can only display up to half of the visible color spectrum and laser TVs can show almost 90 percent of that spectrum, inky blacks and red reds are not as important to me as benefits for the cost.

In case you were wondering, Laser TVs works with the help of three lasers in their own distinct wavelengths: red, green and blue. Although red lasers are easily available right now, as far as I know, no green or blue lasers can be purchased for inclusion into the TVs. Because of this, manufacturers are required to use a technique called frequency doubling to create artificial blue and green lasers. Once these lasers are properly configured, they shoot beams at a vertical cavity containing two mirrors. The laser light is then converted into visible light and this is carried to a Digital Micromirror device where the mirrors either shoot the light onto your screen or into a dump.

Sound complicated? Well it's expensive too. Although this technique eliminates many of the components you would find in projection TVs (namely the color wheel and filters), laser costs are extremely high at this point, and to mass produce these HDTVs, companies may end up charging more than $10,000 for first-generation devices.

Interestingly, proponents of laser TVs have consistently touted the advanced image technology that helps create a so-called "perfect" picture, but they never seem to mention the price of producing thousands of these TVs for the home. Like everyone else, I would like an HDTV that provides the best picture, but at what point are the returns on what I am getting, too little to justify the price?