Anybody Need A 103-inch Touch Panel?

Anyone?

CE Pro: Turn Panasonic’s 103” Plasma into a Touch Screen

Want to really impress your friends? If the 103-inch plasma you bought isn't doing the job, you can now turn it into a massive touchscreen controller.
U-Touch, which developed the touchscreen technology seen all over CNN during the election season, is now offering you the opportunity to turn your Panasonic 103-inch plasma into a touch screen.
The London-based company says the technology "can be applied to numerous applications and high demanding environments such as: events, gaming, broadcast, media, military, government, education & corporate."

Now there 's something that you just don't see every day.

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What's in store for Hitachi?

Looking around the Hitachi booth at Expo, I've really got to wonder what the future holds for them in the video category.

Granted, they've bowed a really cool looking 50-inch Plasma that's only 1.5 inches deep. But the planned 42, 50, and 60-inch models aren't slated to be released until Q2, 2009. If history has anything to teach us, it's more likely to be Q4. That's a long way off.

Mostly, I'm just dissapointed in their decision to permanently scrub the 85-inch model that was supposed to have been released this year.

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Panasonic Debuts Web-Enabled Plasma Televisions

Further blurring the lines between AV and computing, if there even is a line between the two anymore.

Panasonic Ships Web-Enabled Television

CE manufacturer Panasonic got into the internet-connected HDTV game on Tuesday when it announced the availability of its new PZ850 series of Viera plasma HDTVs. Initially launched at CES in January (and reported here in The Retail BRIDGE), the Viera line's built-in connection gives users direct access to a variety of internet-based content, including sites like YouTube, Google's Picasa Web Album and Bloomberg.

I already knew that these units and ones like them are the next big thing, but seriously, how cool is that?

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Pioneer Exiting Plasma Business

Kind of a big deal.

CNN: Japan's Pioneer to stop making plasma panels, warns of FY loss

TOKYO, Mar. 7, 2008 (Thomson Financial delivered by Newstex) -- Japan's Pioneer Corp said Friday it will stop making plasma panels amid intense competition and will instead outsource the production of plasma panels for its television sets.

More on this later.

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This Week in Marketnews: Thin Is The New Black

Marketnews: Custom Corner: Why Thin is In

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Fujitsu ceases Plasma TV production: It's a Gol-darn Shame!

Sad news this past week on the Plasma TV front.

Marketnews: Fujitsu to Exit Plasma Business

IT and communications company Fujitsu will cease making plasma televisions due to increased competition in the flat-panel TV segment, as well as continual price erosion in the category.
“During the past several years, the pricing and profitability of this segment has compressed beyond the point which our company could realize a satisfactory return on investment,” said the company in a prepared notice. “We expect that this market situation will continue in the future.”
Produced by Fujitsu’s Visual Display Division, the company’s plasma TVs were tailored toward the higher-end market, including custom A/V installations and advanced A/V systems around the world.
Fujitsu will end its participation in the plasma TV category as of March 2008, after which it will continue on its core business of heating and ventilation equipment. The company will continue its visual display business within the domestic market in Japan, and says that it will honour after sales service of its products even after the business has closed.

It's a pity, because Fujitsu was one of the original innovators in plasma display technology, and their offerings were spectacularly good looking. As it happens, I am (or now, was) well plugged in to Fujitsu, and an insider filled me in on the details.

Two key factors led to Fujitsu's decision to roll up the carpet. One, the display division was a standalone business, and their only offering was plasma, which meant that they could not buy market share through aggressive pricing, because losing money was not an option. This left their skus priced much higher than comparable high end sets. Certainly, the Fujitsus have an amazing picture, but when you are 35-40% higher at retail than a Pioneer Elite unit (which are fantastic TV's in their own right), it becomes a tough, tough sell. There's plenty of space in the upper tier display market, as proved by Pioneer, and Runco/Vidikron, but Fujitsu's inflexibility when it came to pricing put them at a serious disadvantage. Second, as a result, Fujitsu never really gained as much traction in the high end boutique dealers that others like Pioneer have achieved. One decidedly upper end audio store here in Edmonton (by which I mean they sell single audio components that retail in the high five figures) has markedly selected Panasonic as their brand.

I seriously considered getting a 63-inch Fujitsu plasma this past Fall, now I'm kind of glad that I didn't. Still, I'm sorry to see them go.

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LG unveils world's smallest plasma television

I4U News: LG 32PC5RV is World's Smallest Plasma TV

LG announces the 32 inch Plasma TV in Brasil for all places. LG tries to serve a curve ball with the LG 32PC5RV PlasmaTV and try to get some share from the fastest growing size segment for flat screen TVs. Of course all 32 inch HDTVs sold right now are LCDs. It’s about carving out a new niche for a growing demand,” said Simon Kang, president and CEO of LG Electronics Digital Display Company.

A great idea, but hardly original. Hitachi produced a 32-inch plasma screen in 2004, the 32HDT50 (pictured) that didn't do especially well in the marketplace. Of course, it was nearly five thousand dollars back then. You could safely say that it was ahead of its time.

So much for the loose talk that plasma is on the way out!

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Brits to ban plasma televisions?

The Sun: Plans to ban plasma TV's

THE Conservatives will propose banning plasma screens and other energy-guzzling electrical goods in a report to be unveiled next week.

The proposals target white goods like fridges and freezers, as well as TVs, personal computers and DVD players that use too much energy or operate on stand-by.

The ideas come from a Conservative group set up by David Cameron to develop policies to protect the environment and although the measures to make household electrical appliances more energy efficient are not binding on Mr Cameron, they are thought likely to be warmly received by the Tory leader.

Before you panic, here's the tipoff that this article is an early April Fool's day prank:

The group will also suggest scrapping Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as a measure of the nation’s success in favour of a model that measures people’s happiness drawn up up by Friends of the Earth.

Yeah, because that will happen.

Alright, now do you buy it?

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The Retail Bridge Accepts My Rebuttal

Following in the wake of yesterday's caffeine fuelled early-morning pro-plasma jihad, I ended up having a polite, civilized email discussion on the subject with Tim Sprinkle, editor of The Retail Bridge, who asked me to pen a brief rebuttal which he ran in this morning's edition of his newsletter.

The Retail Bridge: Letter To The Editor: Plasma Fans Aren't Dead Yet, Either

Yesterday's report on the state of plasma television sales (It's Official: Plasma Isn't Dead Yet) elicited a number of responses from Retail BRIDGE readers, including this rebuttal from Marketnews blogger Lee Distad.

Big thanks to Tim Sprinkle for allowing me a forum to rant and rave about one of my favorite subjects.

Earlier: Marketnews - Gadget Talk: Plasma Continues To Be Maligned In The Trade Press.

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Today At Marketnews: Sticking Up For Plasma

Marketnews - Gadget Talk: Plasma Continues To Be Maligned In The Trade Press

From an image quality perspective, while I have been much more impressed by the last two generations of major brand LCD panels than I have been in the past, I still have to give the nod to plasma for clarity, sharpness, and colour saturation in the 50-inch and larger category, at least among all the panels I’ve critically examined (hint: it’s a LOT).

I had a lot of bile (and coffee!) this morning.

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New trend: everybody wants to hide their television

Motorized lifts for flat panel televisions are gaining in popularity. Congratulations to Sheree Aguirre and all the other fine people at Inca TV Lifts for cracking into the Big Leagues (Graph courtesy of CE Pro magazine.)

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LCD will allegedly Snag 75 Per Cent of the Flat-Panel Market by 2011

I have a problem with long term forecasts, as many of you well know.

Marketnews: LCD to Snag 75 Per Cent of the Flat-Panel Market by 2011

Market research firm In-Stat has boldly predicted that LCD
will succeed in grabbing nearly three-quarters of the worldwide digital TV
market for 2011; while plasma will decline to less than 15 per cent. The results
are based on seven end-user surveys that In-Stat conducted in three regions
across the world: North America (in the U.S. and Canada); Asia (Japan and
Korea); and Europe (UK, France, and Germany).

That sounds like a wonderfully expert-sounding prognostication, but I'm not sold.

Maybe it's because I'm dug deep into Taleb's The Black Swan, but I'm skeptical about even experts being able to forecast accurately based on the data they presently have.

For starters, there's a handful of nascent video display technologies, such as Organic LED, any one of which may blow up into the Next Big Thing. There is zero guarantee that either LCD or Plasma won't be yesterday's news in four years time.

I'm just throwing that out there for you to think about...

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Hitachi abandoning the rear projection business

TWICE: Hitachi Presents 60Hz 1080 Flat-Panel Lineup
Hitachi formally unveiled here a full line of “1080” HD flat-panel sets, highlighted by three plasma models that will employ the company’s “Reel 60” 60Hz frame-rate technology.
At the same time, the company has elected to drop the rear-projection TV category that has been its trademark for over a decade to focus solely on the growing flat-panel business. The company will continue to carry front projectors, but only as a business-to-business offering at this time.

This has been in the works for some time, as I commented back in February:

Playing the Glaucon to my Socrates, he confirmed that Hitachi sees no point in gussying up the RP business, since its days are numbered due to the increasing acceptance and decreasing price points of flat panel technology. Don't forget, after Sony debuted the WEGA flat-front picture tubes in 1998, the entire industry chased them, trying to offer flat-front tubes of their own. In 2001, Hitachi very pointedly abandoned the tube television business entirely.

Microdisplay rear projection used to be the cutting edge of new technology video displays, but that was five years ago. Now, it's all flat-panel, all the time. Given the prevalence of inexpensive flat-panel tvs, don't be surprised to see other brands join in putting rear projection out to pasture.

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LG working smarter, not harder, on plasma tvs

TWICE: LG Uses New Technique For PDP Production

LG Electronics initiated today a new panel production process on its A3 plasma display panel (PDP) line in Gumi, South Korea that will produce eight panels instead of six from one sheet of glass substrate.
The process, which LG calls its “8-up” technique, is said to maximize LG’s PDP production capacity by stretching the number of panels from a single glass substrate.
“To accommodate increasing demand for plasma display panels, LG will maximize its production efficiency, especially in the second half of the year,” said Simon Kang, LG Electronics Digital Display Co. CEO. “This is part of our ongoing campaign to streamline our production system.”
The improved eight-up processing will increase LG’s total capacity per month by 22 percent, from 360,000 to 440,000 panels, greater than the total capacity before the outdated A1 line was shut down, the company said.
LG said its strategy to raise efficiency entails increasing per-line capacity while closing older, less efficient lines. In addition, glass substrate sheets used for LG’s eight-up PDP production will be increased to 77 inches by 86.6 inches in size, compared with glass sheets of 77 by 64.9 inches size used for six-up processing.

Last month, when LG announced that they were shutting down their A1 production line, some pundits were calling it a death knell for plasma in the marketplace, and were practically hoisting LCD onto the winner's podium. This was, in retrospect, premature. It also points to the bicameral nature of the human mind, especially when it comes to punditry: we've always got to draw a line between winner/loser, inside/outside, apple/orange, even if that line is almost entirely imaginary.

The reality is that there is enough market for video displays for everyone, and both LCD and plasma have carved out their own niches. Given how major brands have invested deeply in one or the other, and have bent their backs to the marketing and production of one or the other (or sometimes both!), I don't see either technology headed for the scrap heap yet.

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Matsushita and Hitachi collaborate on plasma panels, TWICE wins award for Creepiest Headline of 2007

Oddly enough, the news item doesn't refer to Matsushita and Hitachi agreeing to an open relationship, browsing craigslist.com together, or looking for car keys in a fishbowl, but rather their strategy of consolidiating their logistics for supplying plasma display panels.

Plasma Makers Agree To Swap

Tokyo — Matsushita and Hitachi have reached an agreement to supply each other with key large plasma-display-panel screen sizes, the companies said in a joint statement.
Under the agreement, Matsushita, which markets the Panasonic brand, will supply Hitachi with 103-inch panels starting this year, while Hitachi will sell Matsushita forthcoming 85-inch panels beginning in the next fiscal year.
Hitachi will introduce its first 85-inch panel in mid-2008.

Any prurient thoughts I had were immediately dispelled by the thought of an 85-inch plasma in my basement, which is, frankly, a lot hotter to think about.

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