Wednesday May 21, 2008

Pioneer to end plasma display panel production

news.com :

Pioneer plans to end production of plasma display panels as part of a restructuring program to return its operations to profit, it said Tuesday [13 May 2008]. The lower profits were largely a result of deeper losses in the consumer electronics business, where sales of PDP televisions dropped in North America and Europe. The company will end basic panel production at two factories in Japan by March 2009. In their place the company will buy panels from Panasonic and use those to make PDP TVs under a provisional agreement. As part of the deal some of Pioneer's plasma display panel know-how will be transferred to Panasonic.

The PDP TV sector has been hit in recent years by increasing competition from the rival LCD (liquid crystal display) technology. In the past PDP had a cost advantage at large screen sizes of around 42-inches and greater but the price of LCD TVs has come down with advances in production. As a result there is a much fiercer battle going on in the market and Pioneer has been hit by that competition. Pioneer plans to enter the LCD TV business in Europe from August, initially by selling televisions produced by Sharp.

- There had been talk of a comeback of sorts for plasma displays but it now looks like the marketplace has decisively spoken : LCD's are in, plasma's are out. Looking back, both technologies have come a long way. The first plasma display I used was an orange monochrome plasma-based touch-screen at a military wargaming centre. I'd suppose it was considered the height of technological advancement at the time. The first LCD display I had was one of those Game & Watch handheld games, an early precursor to today's Sony PSP's and Nintendo DS Lite gaming platforms. A long way indeed.

LCD is king of the hill now but there is always room for improvement - better LED-based backlighting is starting to hit the market, 100Hz displays for flicker-free movement (I wonder what took them so long), improved contrast ratios, wider colour ranges, and built-in digital TV tuners to receive broadcast HD content. And waiting patiently in the wings is OLED, a quantum leap over 10 years in the making.

(2008-05-21 00:01:01 SGT) [Tech] Permalink

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