Apr 17 2008
QPC Lasers, Inc. a world leader in the design and manufacture of high brightness, high power semiconductor lasers for the consumer electronics, industrial, defense, and medical markets, today announced its inclusion as a Founding Member in the U.S. Display Consortium (USDC) and Insight Media's recently announced formation of the 3D@Home Consortium, an alliance of high-tech industry leaders mobilizing to provide consumers with quality, yet affordable in-home 3D entertainment. The 22 international founding members of the Consortium include Board Level members Philips and Samsung, Leadership Level member Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment, and 19 other members including Thomson, IMAX, TDVision, 3DIcon, Corning, Planar Systems, QPC Lasers, SeeReal, 3ality, DDD, In-Three, Quantum Data, Sensio, Fraunhofer Institute IMPS, Sim2, Setred, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Holografika and Volfoni.
BrightLase®, QPC’s advanced on-chip laser technology, offers an ultra-compact, low cost and highly efficient visible laser solution designed to enable a new generation of laser displays for the high growth consumer electronics market. After releasing the technology last year, QPC announced a $12 Million contract for Generation III BrightLase® chip technology for Laser TV applications (see press release dated November 30, 2007). BrightLase® technology is designed to be compatible with most technology formats including LCoS, DLP, LC and micro-mirror micro-display devices.
“QPC Lasers has already begun engaging the laser display market with visible lasers based on our BrightLase® technology,” commented Dr. Jeffrey Ungar, CEO of QPC Lasers. “We believe that 3D enabled displays using this technology will create an even more immersive experience for the user and allow BrightLase® based visible lasers to be exploited to their full commercial capacity, and we are very pleased to participate as a founding member of the U.S. Display Consortium,” he concluded.
"This strong international group of founding companies is a testament to the wide spread interest and possibilities in stereoscopic 3D home entertainment," noted USDC CEO Michael Ciesinski. "We expect many more to join in the coming months with our efforts to help speed adoption of 3D in the home to begin immediately."
The 3D@Home Consortium has been formed to accommodate the desire within the 3D industry to speed the commercialization of 3D home entertainment, while delivering the best possible 3D viewing experience to a worldwide audience of consumers. To achieve this objective, the group is focused on three primary short-term goals:
- Creating and publishing useful technical roadmaps;
- Developing educational materials for consumer and retail channels; and
- Facilitating the development of industry standards and their dissemination.
"This consortium represents an important next step in driving advancements in the burgeoning 3D market," said USDC CTO Dr. Mark Hartney. "We see a host of new opportunities for cooperation and innovation on the horizon -- not only for display providers, but for those within every facet of the 3D technology chain -- and we look forward to working with the consortium members to promote these efforts."
Driven by the success of 3D in digital cinema, an entire new ecosystem is forming to develop the hardware, software, content and delivery mechanisms to bring 3D entertainment into the home. This will include 3D gaming, sports, movies and other entertainment. "In 2008, millions of TVs, capable of showing stereoscopic 3D content, will be purchased by consumers," noted Chinnock. "The value of DLP, PDP and LCD TVs sold in 2008 that are capable of showing HD-quality stereoscopic 3D content is expected to exceed $2 billion dollars, making this market large enough to attract the interest and attention of many players."