Steering industry standards
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Leading global Laser TV manufacturer Hisense is setting a high bar for competitors around the globe to follow.
A pioneer in Laser TV production and development, Hisense has played a key role in shaping and driving global industry standards, developing and perfecting some of the best product testing methods through its R&D efforts. To date, Hisense has published six international standards, says Dr Liu Xianrong, chief scientist and general manager of Hisense Laser Display Co. Ltd. “In our opinion, we solved the fundamental technical issues for Laser TVs in the last seven to eight years,” he adds.
“In our opinion, we solved the fundamental technical issues for Laser TVs in the
last seven to eight years.”
Cementing Hisense’s leading global position
Hisense has been a significant contributor to the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), the body that creates international standards for all electronic technologies. In 2014, the IEC Electronic Display Technology Committee (IEC TC110) formally established the Working Group on Laser Displays Standard, which focused on laser display picture quality, durability and reliability. On top of this, Hisense’s chief scientist Dr Liu Weidong was elected as the group’s convener.
“The contribution Hisense has made is to convene Working Group 10, which is about steering laser projection standards through to publication,” says Dr Euan Smith, managing consultant at UK-based consultancy firm 42 Technology. “The difficulty comes in different experts from various countries and companies having different opinions,” Dr Smith adds. “They all have their own agendas and they've all got an eye on, ‘What standards will make our products look better?’ It's not an easy job for the convener to have to steer through all of that.”
Improving durability is a crucial effort
One issue with projector-based TVs is the durability and reliability of laser optical engines. Ultimately, all projectors eventually burn out. While traditional tungsten halogen lamp projector bulbs can last for as little as 2,500 hours and LED projector bulbs can go for between 10,000 to 15,000 hours, laser projectors have a lifespan of at least 20,000 hours.
Hisense products last even longer, guaranteeing a lifespan of 25,000 hours with its XFusion technology. "Originally, the optical engine could do 3,000 hours and now it is able to handle 30,000-40,000 hours,” says Dr Liu. He says Hisense managed to solve the problem of keeping dust out of the light path by itself.
Colour is a big deal
The colours displayed on a TV screen, their hues, saturations and purity, are crucially important to the TV industry and new standards have been developed to ensure future displays look their best. The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) introduced a series of standards, called BT2020, that helps define multiple parameters for 4K and 8K video broadcasting on Ultra HD projectors and TVs, including colour range, frame rate, resolution and bit depth. According to Dr Smith, BT2020 is the truest range of colours (known in the industry as “gamut”) that can be achieved using the primary colours red, green and blue.
“At Hisense, we have focused on developing Laser TVs—groundbreaking displays that combine the interactivity of a smart TV with the world's most cutting-edge RGB panchromatic (triple colour) Laser display technology,” says Yu Zhitao, vice-president of Hisense Group.
Measuring the colour gamut
In display technology, the colour gamut, also known as the colour spectrum, describes the range of actual colours a screen can reproduce in quantifiable data. In general, the colour gamut is expressed as the percentage based on colour standards plotted on the CIE chromaticity diagram. For example, if a display meets sRGB (standard red green blue) 100% coverage, it means that a display is covering the sRGB colour gamut 100% or more. Additionally, the display can accurately represent all kinds of colours in the sRGB colour gamut.
Hisense has succeeded in producing display television technology that gives viewers colours other TVs can’t reproduce. This feat, says Dr Smith, is significant when compared with flat panel technologies. “With the BT2020 chromaticity, the TriChroma Laser TV can display some colours that other TV screen technologies can't. For example, even the best OLED TVs only have a DCI-P3 colour gamut, and typical mid-market LCD screens don't even have a colour gamut as wide as that.”
Solving the speckle problem
Another obstacle to developing Laser TVs is laser speckle—a random granular pattern that occurs when a laser is diffusely reflected at a rough surface. This can cause a haze of light spots to appear on the television screen, particularly when red and magenta are displayed. Laser speckle seriously affects picture quality and user experience, and has been a major obstacle for the industry to overcome if Laser TVs were to take off commercially.
To tackle this issue, Hisense collaborated with both the private sector and academia to develop the ‘fixed + diffuser’ method of reducing speckle. "We worked with universities in China and Europe, as well as European companies, on different solutions on the speckle,” says Dr Liu. “We tried 30 solutions for laser speckle and then we found the best one."
“We worked with universities in China and Europe, as well as European companies,
on different solutions on the speckle.”
The company’s efforts in this field over the last five years have helped both the projection and television industries to innovate within the Laser TV sector. “In particular, tech journalists have highlighted Hisense Laser TVs for their intelligent systems and image colour quality, which are lacking in traditional projection products,” says Dr Liu.
Hisense’s TriChroma Laser TV console has reduced laser speckle from 20% to less than 10%—a leading benchmark in the laser display industry that has greatly improved the image quality of Laser TV products. We worked with universities in China and Europe, as well as European companies, on different solutions on the speckle,” says Dr Liu. “We tried 30 solutions for laser speckle and then we found the best one."
It is yet another notable example of how Hisense is setting the global tone when it comes to top notch display technology.
Produced by EI Studios, the custom division of Economist Impact
