El Segundo firm applies for patents for less costly HDTV monitor; stock climbs on news of projector display system that could be used in theaters.

El Segundo firm applies for patents for less costly HDTV monitor

An El Segundo defense contractor has become one of a number of Los Angeles-area companies vying for recognition in the high-definition television race.

Aura Systems Inc. has applied for four patents on a high-resolution display system, joining giant Hughes Aircraft and other local companies working on different aspects of high-definition television, or HDTV.

"What we have come up with may make the TV tube obsolete," said Frank Phalen, chief financial officer of Aura Systems, a $10 million research and development company. Although revealing the patents were indeed for an HDTV display system, company officials would not elaborate about them.

Display systems, or monitors, are the most desirable areas of HDTV, said experts, because a display has more commercial potential than just the consumer market, extending to the computer, communications, medical and military fields.

Aura Systems claims it has produced a display system that can project pictures of any size - including ones large enough for movie theaters. The technology theoretically could make physical distribution of film to theaters unnecessary, said a spokesman, if digital technology is created to transmit high-quality signals to such projectors in the movie houses.

Aura stock, traded over the counter, climbed almost 20 cents a share from $3.875 to $4.625 following the announcement last month and at last Wednesday's close traded at $3.70.

A Sony Corp. official confirmed he discussed the possibility of manufacturing the display system for Aura Systems.

Sony already manufactures high-definition TV monitors, as do other Japanese and European electronics companies, with assistance from their respective governments. But these displays run upwards of $40,000 each. An Aura Systems spokesman claims its projection display system would cost much less to produce.

"We have some degree of skepticism that such a massive breakthrough has come through," said Harry Taxin, president of Sony's advanced video research laboratory in San Jose, commenting on Aura Systems' inventions. "It's hard to come up with brand new physics these days. . . It also might not be transferred into a manufacturable product."

Current HDTV technology requires the use of special video recording equipment for finer quality, different transmission and special television sets. Some production companies are already shooting with HDTV video techniques, according to Taxin.

The Japanese method of transmitting HDTV, however, was rejected by the Federal Communications Commission as being incompatible with current broadcasting standards; in order to receive the signal, consumers would have to have buy HDTVs.

Hughes Aircraft is conducting research in satellite transmission of HDTV, said a spokesman.

"We're exploring means of distributing high-definition television via satelite," he said. "We're also working on research in processing the signal, in transmitting and receiving it."

Hughes also has patents on a high-resolution liquid crystal display that can be used for computer graphics, but not for motion pictures.

A spokesman for Conrac of Duarte claimed the company has a display that has four times the resolution of a regular display and twice the resolution of HDTV, but whose images cannot move fluidly and are not yet transmittable.

Another company, Symbolics Inc. of Westwood, produces display boards for Sony monitors. Other companies are researching technology that might be used in HDTV, such at heat sensors, computer chips, semiconductors and fiber optics.

Almost every computer manufacturer with R&D facilities in Los Angeles County are probably researching high-resolution displays but won't talk about it, said Pat Hubbard of the American Electronics Association.

"There are also a ton of start-ups that have some very exciting and innovative technologies in HDTV," said Hubbard, who expressed the need for U.S.-based manufacturing. "The problem has been that the cost of capital is four times more expensive than in Japan - only Planar [of Oregon] makes [HDTVs] in the U.S."

The local R&D facilities are receiving a relatively small amount of U.S. funding, which also distresses the association, said Hubbard. The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency last year offered $30 million for HDTV research and 87 companies responded, but only four were granted funds. The electronics association is lobbying for more R&D funds.

"If it were just consumer [electronics], we would not be worried because it is already dominated by the European and Japanese," said Hubbard. "But high-definition display will be a driver in the next 10 years for the commercial end of it."

But all this HDTV research geared towards major new equipment is not necessary, according to David Schine of High Resolution Sciences Inc., an eight-year-old R&D firm in Hollywood. Schine's company, funded by public stock offerings and private funds, has produced image-enhancing devices that would be compatible with existing equipment, said Schine. The technology uses regular television sets and improves the picture quality using devices either at the transmitter or receiver of air signals, without specially recorded videos, according to Schine, and is ready to market commercially.