While covering the development of digital, high-definition television since its inception, I’ve been approached by any number of startups that promised The Next Big Thing in displays: rear-projection sets that would cost a small fraction of current technology; a technique to dramatically increase screen contrast and remove all reflective room light that was so promising it was financed by one of the biggest television manufacturers in the world; SED technology demonstrated by Toshiba that put the picture quality of the best plasma TVs to shame. In short, flat panel displays so enticing that makers of other technologies would immediately throw in the towel.

The latest promising new disruptive display technology comes from Prysm, a privately financed startup with offices in Silicon Valley, Massachusetts and India. The 100-employee firm has been working for five years on a system it calls LPD, or laser-powered phosphor display. Like a CRT picture-tube TV, an image is created when phosphors on the screen are excited. But rather than use electrons, LPD technology uses a laser to hit the screen.

Because it works like a CRT display, no backlight is used for illumination. The result, company officials say, is the best of all worlds: large screens with great black levels, high definition 3-D capable resolution, very low power consumption, wide 180-degree viewing angle, completely recyclable components, no mercury used in production, and a long 65,000-hour panel life, with no burn-in issues.

Could anything be better?

Given that the company has received sufficient working capital to employ 100 people for the past five years, it’s worth paying attention to their claims. But as with any invention, there are negatives as well.

For starters, the display is relatively deep, about 5.5 inches. While that would seem slim in any reasonable world, new TVs shown at last week’s Consumer Electronics Show were just a few millimeters in thickness.

In addition, the world’s major television manufacturers have invested many tens of billions of dollars in LCD and plasma manufacturing facilities; they’re not about to throw their investment away and license a new technology.

While I have not yet had a chance to see the new display technology, according to someone who has, the quality does indeed live up to its promise. “The picture quality, vividness and power consumption are incredible,” said Stephen Shea, a senior associate with Shen Milsom Wilke, an audio-visual consulting firm.

On the other hand, Mr. Shea did not see a large screen display, but rather 30 small 25-inch units stacked on top of each other to form a 100-inch unit. In addition, the imagery, which he saw on Monday, had a slight bend in it, with some of the pixels not perfectly shaped.

Whether Prysm will be able to solve all its problems and create viable, cost-effective superior displays remains an unknown. But Roger Hajjar, the company’s chief technology officer, is confident they will. “The big guys are courting us. Make no mistake about that.”