Under the Hood: JVC HD-61FN97 HD-ILA HDTV

Introduction
JVC was one of the first companies to announce a true next generation large television display for the upscale consumer with its D'Ahlia rear projection MicroDisplay TV back in 2001. Since that time, the company has been on an odyssey to produce high-quality MicroDisplay rear projection HDTVs. JVC is the only rear projection television company to feature Direct-Drive Image Light Amplifier (D-ILA) technology. D-ILA is a version of LCoS (Liquid Crystal on Silicon)-type device that uses a three-chip process (one for red, one for blue, one for green) offering full 1920x1080 (1080p) resolution, and has superior features such as high contrast ratio, high efficiency, smooth image and high reliability under intense illumination light. Overall, the technology offers excellent displayed images packaged in a somewhat smaller and lighter cabinet.

HD-ILA Technology
Instead of using conventional and aging CRT (Cathode Ray) tubes that were found on virtually all rear projection televisions just a few years ago, D-ILA technology is placed on a small silicon chip, which measures only 1.22-inches. The D-ILA Hologram Device is capable of producing high-resolution HDTV images of more than 1920 x 1080 pixels. Overall, these D-ILA devices have the capability of displaying over 3,000 lines of resolution with images in excess of 2,000 x 1,340 pixels and a high contrast ratio of up to 10,000:1. They also have the capability of producing a brightness level of up to a whooping 12,000 lumens.

The core of HD-61FN97's D-ILA projector is a tiny reflective 0.9-in CMOS chip that directly addresses a miniature Image Light Amplifier (ILA). Accordingly, the projector separates the signal from the source into Red, Green and Blue picture components and passes them through a thin film layer onto a reflective single LCD panel. Since it's a reflective (rather than transmissive like LCD) technology, the light bounces-off a mirror-like layer underneath the pixels. Since the light does not have to pass through a pixel-driving transistor, it is able to achieve a higher aperture ratio (claimed to be 93-percent by JVC). Reportedly, standard LCD panels only pass about 40-60-percent of light because LCDs work by sending the light through the liquid crystal layer. Each resulting image is then converted photo electronically and illuminated by a high-density arc lamp.

Because D-ILA is very bright, it does not require dimming the lights in the room (like all front projectors) to obtain better-contrasted images. Unlike the standard 3-beam CRT projectors as well, D-ILA is able to deliver clearly defined images from corner-to-corner without having to converge and focus the image. In addition, the D-ILA Hologram devices uses vertically-orientated liquid crystals for better blockage of light when a pixel is turned "off", thereby producing a more solid black and a higher contrasted image overall. And, by filtering approximately 1.32 million pixels and almost 4 million dots onto an it's ultra compact 1.22-in. device, which is six times the pixel density of a conventional LCD, higher resolution images are obtained.