Going Round in Circles
Not that I'm going to rush out and buy a high definition TV set but I've begun to research what's out there and what's around the corner. One of the things that I find interesting is the swing back to projection TVs.
I think it was the early 1970s or so when the first large screen consumer TVs came out (e.g., the Henry Kloss designed Advent VideoBeam TV) and all of them were projection models. At the time, these things were huge and most had three light sources (one each for red, green, and blue) that were carefully aimed and focused at special, highly reflective white screens.
So now comes electronics giant Sony to turn projection TV on its head with a black screen. The Sony screen supposedly adsorbs all light except pure red, green, or blue. The theory about this is to absorb the random ambient light that most rooms have, especially during a sunny day, and reflect back only the light from the projector. Hence, contrast should be improved giving deeper, richer colors even with high ambient light.
Whether this screen technology actually works I can't say. But if it does, it would bring us back full circle.